How do class, gender, religion, race, and culture determine our relationships?

The United States of America is known to be the "salad bowl nation", where all cultures and religions unite to form this great country. But ironically everywhere I see people mostly hang out within their ethnic groups, there is no sort of mixture whatsoever. African Americans with African Americans, Asians with Asians, Arabs with Arabs and Caucasians with Caucasians. Its funny how the human mind automatically is most comfortable with a person who we are very similar to by race/religion. Although our personalities maybe different we are somehow "comfortable". So the process keeps on going with all the people with similar race/religion joining together to form a large group in a society ( which could be small as a high school or large as a county). As a result of this process, lets say if a person wanted to maybe want to join a group of another race/religion, he/she would feel intimidated and would be uncomfortable in the environment. But why have it even come to this point? After all every person should not feel intimidated because we are all actually very similar! And when cultural differences intermix with one another, we can greatly benefit from that!

I feel thankful to go to Troy High. I am friends with all kinds of people with different race/religions and I love to learn something new which I didn't know before! In this high school, friendships aren't determined from similar cultures but are determined who we truly enjoy spending time with everyday.