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1. This reminds me of being assigned a roommate in undergrad. Frosh were given a questionnaire and the college assigned people who were âoppositesâ on purpose so they put me with a racist White girl. She had said things on her questionnaire about how much she HATED rap & R&B etc. https://twitter.com/longtimeamy/status/1317959697169895424">https://twitter.com/longtimea...
2. So the college thought weâll show HER by assigning her a Blk roommate & they placed me with her with the idea that I would somehow expand her horizons. Thatâs NOT what happened. Instead, she was hostile & made my life hell to the pt that I never went 2 our room (ex to sleep)
3. There was a mandatory 6 week waiting period before you could switch roommates but I told my RA I wouldnât survive that long. She sent my complaint to the Dean of Students who scheduled a private meeting with me.
4. The Dean was defensive in justifying why they made that choice & I didnât interrupt her monologue. U can guess what she said about âmore than 1 kind of learning experienceâ etc. when she was done, I asked her whatâs the percentage of Blk people on this campus?
5. (It was 1 or 2 %) I asked whatâs the % of Blk students who start here and transfer? (It was high) I asked nationwide what was the drop out rate for Blk students the 1st year? (It too was high) And I asked her why she would want contribute to those negative statistics?
6. I asked her why she & the college had decided that giving a racist white girl a âlearning experienceâ was MORE important than giving ME an education because from my point of view they were setting me up to transfer or fail. I asked was I here to be a student or a prop?
7. She turned red, apologized & they waived the waiting period & I moved in with the friend whose floor Iâd been crashing on to avoid my roommate. The extent to which I wasnât even viewed as a student they had to protect when I was one of 20 Blk students out of a body of 1000...
8. Anyway I hadnât planned to tell this story but it shows how even well meaning White people are so used to centering other White people, that even when they think theyâre helping (the goal was to make W student less racist) Black people become collateral damage.
9.Nobody even once considered what pairing me with a racist would do to me! It honestly didnât even occur to them. W student was a student, I was a chess piece. I was stubborn and lucky enough to power through and speak out. But how many Blk students before me were run off?!
Ok I guess thatâs the thread. Thanks for listening and stop tokenizing minorities we have enough problems as it is, we donât need the extra burden of changing the hearts & minds of racists. Thatâs not even OUR WORK TBH, itâs yours, other White people. Fin/
