<p>jeesh,</p>
<p>i don’t mean to sound like a sour grape heh. and i never said “African American students don’t participate in mainstream activities.”</p>
<p>I said theres a disproportionately small amount of them (or the same recurring faces) who do participate in activities. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people who do nothing at the school–and thats fine. Also, remember, this is just <em>my</em> experience. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t participate in 10000x activities. I could be off base–I sometimes need to remind myself that black students only comprise 8% of the population.</p>
<p>However, my experience with the black student population hedges on my first year experience. I had a black roommate first year who didn’t want anything to do with white people, and only wanted to hang out with other black people. The black people he hung out acted just like him. So maybe I should have prefaced everything with "take what I say with a grain of salt*</p>
<p>Also, for all my griping, I don’t think the race relations at UVa are really THAT bad. I specifically remember going on tour at the University of Richmond, and feeling as if there was a black student planted for us to see during the tour. Fortunately THAT doesn’t go on at UVa 
hehe.</p>