I Wish We Were Purple

     This is in no way, shape, or form a tribute to my roommates. God knows if I were to compliment them they would use it against me, bring it up at any chance they got, and then continue to hilariously harass me about it for weeks on end. This is merely a minute mention of them in a blog, that may or may not be a grateful ode to them as probably, maybe, kind of the most important people that are currently in my life.

     Being the most important person in my life is a difficult feat to successfully accomplish, and even more difficult if there are several of you. But Shay, Asya, Tim, Monica, and Alana managed to use their Hercules skills to slice off the head of my cynical and stubborn dragon just to hang it on their wall to mock me for the fact that they got me to care for them in the matter of a few months here at Penn State.

     No, I don’t have five roommates.  I actually have three (#supplementalproblems) and the only names in that list that are truly, according to Penn State housing, my roommates are Asya and Shay. The others just seem to float in and out of my room at all times of the day and practically camp out there because it is spacious and has a bathroom. Throughout these months, the term “roommates” cannot really give these people justice. They are more than people I share a microwave with. I hate them, but I love them. And it’s hard for anyone out of our clique to understand why, considering I am white, and every other single person on that list is black.

     I’m not from a city where people are surrounded with diverse cultures and races every time they step from their home onto the concrete. I’m from the worst possible place imaginable, Smyrna, Delaware. Yes, I am well aware you have never heard of it. Many of you have probably never even heard of... Delawhere? It is a place. I had black people at my school, plus the occasional white guy who thought he was from the hood with his baggy pants and fake accent, but overall, the white and black people did not mix. We had our separate parties and functions. I mean it wasn’t so bad that we had separate water fountains, but I think you catch my drift.





     Coming to Penn State I heard the same hoopla that other universities give you about “learning to respect other people and their cultures” but it honestly went in one ear and out the other. And then I got my roommate list and after stalking the girls on Facebook, my nerves shifted from “idc” to “holy shit.” Not only was I placed with three other girls, but I was the only white person in a sea of black that never ended considering all the comments on Shay’s page from her Philly friends claiming how much they were going to hang out once they made the leap to college.



      Looking back on that nervous Molly I want to slap me for being so close-minded. These people I surround myself with now are not black to me. They are people. We are all completely different, not only in color, but in thoughts, ideologies, concepts, traditions, the things we eat, the way we spend out Saturday nights, the movies we watched as kids, the way we do our hair, even the terms we give our families members (I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten in the “aunt vs. ant” argument with them).



 I think if I didn’t have these people in my freshman year I would be categorized with all the other white girls here at Penn State. I know I get looks from people when I walk around with them in the commons or when we shout at each other throwing racial slurs that we find funny rather than insulting. And no, I’m not that white girl who wishes she was black with huge hoop earrings. I am me and they are them. But “me” and “them” come together as “we” instead of creating two separate spheres of people. I’m not afraid to talk to black people like most white people are. Yes, this is true, a lot of us are afraid of offending black people by saying something out of line, but at the same time we don’t know what is out of line.

     I say whatever I please to my roommates. They know it’s not racist, its curiosity. If it were my choice, we would all be purple, not black, white, Asian, Hispanic, etc. Because laughter, trust, and friendship does not have an ethnicity. My roommates make me want to be a better person than I was before,not like other students who think their best friends are the people who down shots with them every weekend. Each day I can count on them to bring us a little bit closer by hanging an obnoxious but hilarious quote above my bunk bed ceiling, or simply listening to me vent about the way my mom didn’t answer my phone call but will bitch about me not answering hers.

     See, in my mind race isn’t an issue with these people. The issue is whether or not they ate my oodles and noodles and how I will go about yelling at them until we get to the point of laughter. I love these people because they are different than me. My children will call them “aunt” or “ant” or whatever we decide on years from now. I just wish we were all purple.