lil black girl rants

the diary of a mad black roommate

Hiiiii guys!!! Long-time no talk.

I have been super busy during my first semester of school, but I wanted to come here and speak about my experience of having a white roommate. It has been an interesting 3 months. I was a little nervous to share a room with another person because I never had to do that before. I didn't know if we'd click and be friends, or if we'd have beef and never want to talk to one another. I have to admit I watched a lot of Black YouTubers doing storytimes on their horrible white roommates and that was just fueling my fear even more. I do have a second roommate and she's Black so that made me feel a lot more comfortable. The things I will be explaining to you guys about the situation I was put into with my white roommate fell to deaf ears with my Black roommate. (hopefully, this sentence made sense)

One of the first things that I noticed with living with a white person has been seeing them have poor bathing/hygiene habits. Like my roommate takes a towel, two body soaps, and one shampoo bottle, but not a washcloth, or loofa. I wonder how you truly clean yourself with nothing but your towel. I haven't brought it up to her because she doesn't smell, but I also don't like confrontation, which is also the main reason why I'm making this chapter post too. She did have bad breath and I noticed that the first or second week we were at school. She never brushed her teeth at night, and when she brushed in the morning she LITERALLY only brushed for 30 seconds. The average time you're supposed to brush your teeth is 2 minutes. When she laughed she huffs out a bunch of air from her mouth, which then pushes the smell into the atmosphere. She started brushing more constantly when she started talking to this guy at our school.

The second thing that I noticed about my white roommate was that she spoke about race OFTEN. A little too often. Like she mentioned that a lot of her family was racist and didn't really like her boyfriend at the time, who is biracial. I NEVER asked to be told this, but I was confused as to why she was telling me this information. I thought "was her peoples gonna come up to the school and cause a ruckus???" Or was she just opening up to us? I didn't enjoy hearing how her small town was SUPER racist, nor did I enjoy her comments about my box braids and whether I wash my hair or not. I noticed she questioned a lot of regular things my black roommate and I did. I had box braids for like the first month and half or so of school. I put oil in my hair every other day or so and once my white roommate said "what's that? Why are you putting it in your hair?" I was like "why does it matter?" (in my head tho) and then I said, "its oil to keep my hair moisturized." I tried to think that maybe she was just curious, and not in a weird way, but she started to constantly ask questions that seemed like I was the spokesperson for ALL Black people. If a Black student at my school (a PWI) did something "wrong" or sparked controversy she'd ask me and my Black roommate "how could they do that?" We would look at her and pretty much try to explain how we don't even know the person or why they would do that. I feel as though that many white people generalize and bunch ALL Black people together and make us ALL feel bad when ONE Black person makes a bad decision/mistake.

So the third thing that I noticed living with a white woman is they know how to flip the storyline, and make you look like the 'angry Black woman.' So I was getting fed up with all her ignorant comments about Black people and questioning everything I did. So I brought all this up to my Black roommate. Somehow she (my black roommate) NEVER noticed anything that was going on with our white roommate, so honestly, when I finally gained the courage to "confront" her, I was alone. I didn't know if it's the Taurus jumping out, but I'm super observant and I take mental notes of what's going on in my area. I'll pull out receipts from 3 years ago if I have to. So the time I "confronted" my roommate I was really nervous. As I stated in the first part of this post, I'm a non-confrontational person. A lot of people think I'm mean but I think I'm just really honest, and some people don't want to hear the truth, so they just call you mean or judgemental.

Anyways, I decided to sit my white roommate down and tell her how I felt about her constantly bringing up race, talking about how she's not racist, but her entire family is, and I was SICK of having my entire existence being questioned every 5 minutes. I spoke in a regular tone (many people say I have a monotone voice) and I started with "I hope me starting this conversation will help all of us in the room feel comfortable with coming to one another if you have a problem with what's going on in the future." (my Black roommate was in the room too) I continued by stating "Back in September, you (my white roommate) told us that talking about sexual assault/rape is off limits and that's a trigger." (I wouldn't speak on this topic anyway) I continued with "well something that triggers me is the constant conversation of race and your racist family. I don't enjoy hearing this and I'd like if you didn't bring it up again." My white roommate had on shades while I was talking to her and she wasn't paying me any mind. She was like "when did I ever say that and what are you talking about??" I was getting frustrated but I continued by pointing out the other things I mentioned above (minus the body/breath problem; I didn't feel as if it was necessary for this conversation). By the end of the conversation, my white roommate was on her phone paying me NO mind and I was over it at this point. I said "look if you don't want to listen to me and understand that some of the things that you say and do offends me then that's fine. Plus just don't come to when with your life problems anymore and we'll just be cordial, not friends." She started crying and was like "I don't care." She then stormed out of the room. My black roommate didn't utter two words in support of me. So I honestly felt really alone in the situation. When she left I literally broke down in tears of anger. I was so mad and scared that this would turn me into the 'angry black girl' stereotype and she'd tell our RA or something and just make me look like the bad guy.

After this situation, she gave me the cold shoulder (which I was fine with) and her mom gave me a MAJOR attitude. But I was the bigger person in this situation, as we (Black women) always have to be. We're "fine" now. I can tolerate her, but I think she's scared of me. I'm not sure. She still does things that are mad annoying, but I just try to focus on other things and write in my journal. 

I'm sorry I overloaded you guys with this story. I just needed to vent. I plan to update more since I'll be going on winter break in a few days. Thanks for sticking with me!!!

Leave your comments about my story!! Also, have you had a similar scenario happen to you? Let's make it a big discussion.