I've always lived in diverse areas, and my campus in undergrad was very diverse. I think I'd like a mostly white law school, and live in a part of the country that is very white. I'm just more comfortable in that environment. People of other backgrounds seek this out as well, so I don't apologize for wanting this.
This post hits many of us on a gut level -- we fell there is something quite insensitive about it, but none of us has pinpointed why yet. I'll try.
To me there's a big, glaring difference with what the OP said about wanting to live with white people, and with what people might commonly say about living with a diverse population. Why?
B/c of the language of exlusion. If you say you want to live with lots of types of people, you obviously aren't saying you specifically want to avoid anybody. If a person says they want to live with different types of people, they aren't saying they want to live in an area that's as black as they can find. On the other hand, what the OP said is very exclusionary. What he said, that he wants to live in the whitest area he can find (his whole question was that of wanting a list of the most white schools) he necessarily is saying that he wants the non-white population to be non-existant or as small as possible. As I see it, this is exclusionary language.
And in my opinion racism doesn't require "intimidation or physical violence," as a previous poster said. Let me ask this previous poster whether they are a racial minority -- just seems odd that white people should be defining racism in terms that constrict it -- you seem to be defining it to suit your needs.
No, racism is about a majority culture excluding a minority culture b/c of the minority culture's race. That's all -- that's all it takes. It is one thing for a group of people in a minority people to gather together for mutual protection and identiy. It is another thing for a group in the minority to gather together -- because it's not about mutual protection (they don't need it) and it's not about identity (for the culture is largely based on what the majority decides it wants it to be). When a group of people in the majority bands together without people in the minority, it is not about the same things as if it were the other way around. It is about exclusion -- and finding ways to exclude, not protection -- and finding ways to protect.
It can be a tough thing to understand -- but try your best to take on the perspective of somebody who doesn't have the same cultural protections that white people, by and large, do.