So people that know me know that I spend a lot of time examining the relationships between different races that live here in the United States. My dirty pleasure is reading white nationalist websites and trying to pick apart why they think the way they do. You may also know that I am going to be looking for an apartment in the next 6 months, and that I’d like to have roommates this go ’round. I was thinking of a lot of things related to this – where am I going to go? How many roommates do I want to have? Who am I going to live with?
It’s this last part that I’m getting stuck on, for various reasons. To be honest, I’d prefer to live with other black females as my roommates. I’d also prefer to be around other creative types – artists, gamers, what have you – but this isn’t a problem. When you’re posting an advertisement for housing, however, there are strict guidelines that state that you may not list preferences based on several the protected classes outside of gender/sex. The gender and sex provision is there because obviously, most women do not want to live with a man in a one bedroom apartment and sharing a shower.
(Someone needs to notify all those men on Craigslist of this post-haste.)
My reasons for preferring to be around black females isn’t because I am opposed to females of other races, though. It’s based on a number of real life concerns and factors. Being down in Texas, I am almost 2,000 miles away from my friends and family, and honestly, I miss the sisterhood. For one, I want to know that I can come home, let my hair down, so to speak, and not have to deal with a bunch of questions about it. I want to be able to just do me. I’d like to find roommates with a common cultural background that I share, because I feel like that’d be the happiest, most comfortable situation. It’d be great to live with another woman who shares my hair care struggles and frustrations, and who I can trade notes with.
The amount of fighting we’d have would be far less, hopefully, than if we were from two DRASTICALLY different backgrounds. It’d also make grocery shopping much, much easier. I’m not saying that because we are black we’d magically click, but we’d have a common ground of understanding, from some aspect, that we both can agree on.
However, if I were to be able to do this, then I think that members of the majority would and therefore should be able to do it, too. I posted on my Facebook, asking if there was a difference between stating something like, “I would prefer to live with other {insert race here} people”, versus “No {insert race here} people, please”.
Is there a difference between preferences and aversions? Many people who date interracially (and some who don’t!) will tell you that there is a difference between them preferring to date people of a certain race versus making a blanket ban against all other races in their dating. I think it’s true. But are the two practices – in either of these scenarios – equally racist?
I suppose there are ways to get around it. You can post the details about yourself, you can post that you prefer to eat XYZ types of food, things like that. You can discern from the responses that you get versus posting your preferences.
But it makes me wonder how much being PC places people into situations that are potentially less comfortable than they need be.