And, of course, the fact that they socialize by skin color has nothing to do with it.
Well, at the campus cafeterias I know about, and I gather I've spent more time in them recently than you have, they socialize by all sorts of criteria. Race is certainly one. And the most obvious, particularly for types like yourself. But marginalized political groups tend to hang together, both left and right, and they are a mixed group ethnically and racially. Sports teams tend to hang together and ditto, mixed. The most obvious contrasts are the frat and sorority types (white) and the urban ghetto types (black). The latter are far from being "the blacks" on campus. But, at least on some campuses, they are the kids who find one another because they are just learning how to deal with whites (their urban schools are largely black) and with personal racist attacks.
I gather on campuses with large hispanic populations, I would need to add those groupings. We had so few Asians on my campus and nearby campuses that I don't recall just how they mixed.
It's a mixed bag in which social definitions and social experience are most important determinants. As you know, your arguments are more biological than social, Bill. Us social scientists tend to shy away from that stuff. And, while there are clearly ways in which the biological affects behaviors, who one mixes with is not on the list. It's common experience. And then the way that experience gets defined. |
