I waited about 5 minutes to meet her, my hopeful new roommate. I waited in the shade outside the gate of the gated community she lived in. I was nervous. What if she didn’t like me? What if she saw how homely I was and decided I wasn’t classy, professional, nice enough for her? What if she saw how fat I was and secretly was biased against that? I dressed in a way that I felt honestly depicted myself as a person, but also made sure I was clean and groomed well.
She came up the hill and greeted me. I liked her immediately and quickly felt at ease. She wore the kind of dresses I loved, and had a friendly, cool demeanor. She was a teacher, like me.
We talked about our shared profession, boundaries in the home, parking, the apartment complex. I had never looked at getting an apartment at a place like this before. It was clean, too clean almost. It was one of those complexes where everyone has the same lay out, every outside wall is painted neutral tan, everyone has a parking spot with a number. She pointed out the lovely geraniums and explained the little side gardens were maintained by professionals who were nice people. I realized there was no chance/no need for me to attempt to start my own personal little garden, it was all done here.
Inside, the layout was very predictable. Everything was quiet. There was nothing unique or interesting about the building, clearly modern, safe, and well-built. The walls, landlord white. The carpet, tan, again. The windows, lovely view of the of the tan wall next door. Standard sliding door out into the parking lot, standard new kitchen, dishwasher, generic, predictable, but immaculate and clean. It reminded me of my in-laws home, only less decorated. A space where the personality of the place lay in the people, in friends and family, not in the walls or the architecture. All that was need was a clean safe space and the people made the home beautiful.
She was cool as she showed me around. She showed me a sliding hall closet full of beautiful traditional Mexican dresses, and explained she was in a dancing group at the school she worked at. She talked about how she felt seen at her school because of her dance troupe. Since she was into Mexican dancing, I showed her the video I had taken of graduation of my own school that had traditional Aztec dancers. They were very different than what she did.
“Sorry” I found myself saying. “I don’t mean to lump all latin culture together.”
“They’re both Mexican!” she replied to me. And I knew this, she was talking about one type of dancing from Mexican culture, I was talking about another. She had described herself as Latina, and never got specific, but clearly, she was Mexican. She talked about frequenting a night club where there was four different types of Mexican dancing on different floors, and immediately I wanted to go with her.
She told me about her recent breakup, and that lead me to opening up about mine. I found myself explaining the details of separation from my husband. Suddenly I felt like I could be very honest and communicate directly with her about who I am. I mean if we were going to be roommates, if this was going to work, I needed her to be aware of what she was getting into. She had great empathy for what I was going through, on a very authentic level. She told me about her own recent troubles, an injury, it clearly had shaken her world. She spoke up about a point of view around teaching that I found really helpful and insightful. I realized she was very self-aware, insightful, introspective, intelligent, and that’s what I wanted in a roommate. I also realized she needed home to be a safe, quiet, clean, environment she can use to recover from the day.
I felt like I could be more honest with her than others. So I asked her:
“Do you have any reservations about me being your next roommate?”
She thought for a while and in a very polite, diplomatic way, she explained that essentially, I might be too white to be her roommate. She currently had a white roommate, and could have another one, but it was clear she was hoping for something else. She spoke about microaggressions, white privilege, and the subtle stressors of living with a white person. I realized with horror, my last name, taken from my Mexican husband might have mislead her.
As a white lady, immediately some part of me was on the defense. No, I’m progressive, open minded, and all these other excuses came with some knee-jerk reaction about how I AM NOT A RACIST!
I listened to her explain though: she did think I was ahead of the game and mentioned things I had said that to her that sounded very progressive and aware for a white person.
“But you can be the most educated, self-aware, white person, but will still never know what it’s like to not be white.”
I couldn’t argue with that and truth be told, I knew somehow it wouldn’t work for me to live there with her despite how much we got along. It wasn’t what I needed. The colors were too mono-chromatic, the place was strangely, too clean (and I like stuff clean). It felt sterile, too bare. She was interested in letting me hang some colorful art up and add to the environment, but I didn’t like the tan walls, the tan carpeting, the generic feel. I hated the dull, no-work garden, the sliding door, my perspective bedroom, I hated all of it, and I could tell it was comforting to her.
“Wait a minute” I thought to myself. “Open your mind a bit, stop being so racist! Just because she has a different life style than you doesn’t mean it won’t work, you can adapt, you can grow out of this, you can LEARN from her!” Suddenly I felt this was the right thing to do. I wanted to mention to her that none of my current roommates were white. I even mentioned that I had spent 15 years living with a Mexican person, my ex-husband. During those 15 years I had learned a thing or two about Mexican culture. The faulty white logic, as if somehow living previously with others who are different colors than me somehow made me pass a test and now I’m down with people of color everywhere and am totally safe and have overcome all racism, ignorance, and my own privilege.
A year earlier, at a class on education, I watched two administrators, one black one white talk about their respective cultures. When the white man went first, I found myself rolling my eyes. It felt like he was going first due to his privilege. However, when the African woman shared her story, she explained she chose to go last, she was tired of constantly being put in the position where she was expected to teach white people because of her skin color.
That changed my thinking. As a white person, I’m often unaware of all the racism around me, and I wanted to learn from those who had been oppressed and give them the microphone, since my culture tended to silence them. And at many times, that does seem like the right thing to do. How often have we ignored the voices, accomplishments, contributions to history of people of color? Is that not a huge aspect of oppression; making them invisible? I wanted them to have a voice.
But there’s a difference between that and immediately placing the first non-white person I see into a role of a teacher. Just expecting someone different than me to teach me about my own racism, putting that responsibility on them, really was quite entitled, ignorant, a form of tokenism, and actually dehumanizing. It wasn’t the job of this prospective roommate to help me overcome my own ignorance. It was mine.
The distinction between giving people of color the microphone, respecting their voices, and presumptuously expecting them to educate me, is a huge difference, but for me felt like a fine line and I can’t always see the boundary due to my own privilege. It’s my own ignorance and background as a white lady that prevents me from seeing that distinction.
After I got home I sat and thought with what my hopeful roommate had told me. I had liked her more than any of the other people I had might potentially be living with. I thought about how not only did she spend her entire day teaching, which alone is exhausting, but also had to deal with a daily amount of racism. Did she really need to come home and deal with another white lady trying to make her into her personal teacher? Despite how much I wanted to prove I was “woke,” I liked her too much to put her in the above situation.
