Dorm-Room Diversity Can Promote Tolerance
Reader Comments
BIG DISCOVERY
BIG DEAL. DO YOU REALLY THINK THIS MINGLING IS SOMETHING NEW?
AS A KOREAN VETERAN, WE HAD BI-RACIAL DORM ROOMS
(READ BARRACKS) OVER 56 YEARS AGO. NO PROBLEMS.
WHAT ELSE IS NEW?
interacial roomates
Seems to me the New York Times displays it's own racisim when it states that sharing space helps the "minority". What about the "majority"? Is the point of schooling to spread knowledge of simply to "help minorities"?
This can only be interpreted as White is superior!
Roommate Diversity
is one of those ideas that a liberal thinking sociologist thinks will be great to impose on someone else. Instead of dropping a "surprise" roommate on a student, the experiment should start with professors sharing offices with an other-race faculty member and see how that works out first.
Very Stressful Idea
I had a roommate originally from St. Thomas and then the Bronx. We were matched because of a scheme very much like this - we were both from the state of New York and were from different races. I have to say it was impossibly stressful, and not the best way to spend one's freshman year. I don't think either of our grades were affected; but that's probably because we did very little studying in the room because it was impossible. We didn't understand one another half the time. We didn't like the same music, which was actually a huge cause of contention in a small room. We kept different hours - - she would eat take-out and get phone calls at 2AM. We liked different room temperatures (she had TWO space-heaters going...even in spring). I don't think interracial is as much the issue as intercultural; and thinking you can separate the two or not consider one or the other is foolhardy. Even after a year, we had made no progress and I'm not the kind of person who has all-white friends. Living with a West Indian actually made BOTH of us less likely to bridge the racial divide after that year.
There would be nothing wrong with
having a roommate of a different race. But having no roommate is far better. Different races next door? Sure. As "suite mates" sharing a bathroom? Sure.
Thoroughly mixed-race dorms? Of course.
But whoever it was who thought college students should have roommates at all was short-sighted about the "studying" part. The most serious term I ever had in college was when my roommate dropped out and the college didn't assign another for a few months. It was wonderful peace, and such a private room half the size would have been fine.
