Debate Flares After Black College Students Seek A Non-White Roommate

[UMTerp01]

80. For university owned housing, you don't get to make such a request. Off campus you do.

They are renting their own apartment and therefore they can have that kind of stipulation, but obviously not if it was university owned housing. That is very prejudiced and quite ashame. One might argue its racism on a micro level. I'm not even so sure its that. On a macro level, Black people can't be racist because that sort of racism requires power. The Facebook comments were worse than any POC request only. Kind of proved their point.

I'm trying to keep an open mind about people's environments and comfort level. When you are part of the dominant culture and see Whiteness reinforced and praised everywhere then its not that big of a deal to you and if people read the entire article and can't take the ENTIRE article into context given what has happened surrounding race over the past year at that college then I can see their perspective.

I don't know what kind of exposure or experiences these folks had that would make them make such a request. I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood. In secondary school and even in adult life I have a rainbow coalition of friends of different races, ethnicities, religions, non religious, gay, straight, bi, etc. and I love that. I didn't experience much overt racism growing up. But some people are not that open minded and we must take into account that many people of color are scarred and bruised from those experiences. College is the place though where you would hopefully try and open that up a bit. There are "woke" White people out there and I would suggest they try and seek those people out.