#would a suitemate pee as you shower then ask you to step out of the running water so she could flush the toilet BC flushing = cold water

[hoedameron]

UMMMMM JUST LEARNED THAT ONE OF NY OLD ROOMMATES IS LIVING IN NY HOMETOWN?????? since WHEN

#she is still besties with my old roommate omfg that’s so sweet ✨ she’s her maid of honor like WAHHH 🥺 what a friendship #I mean this genuinely like I may not have gotten to be close or even friends with any of my old roommates...to see them still in each #other’s lives is great to see!! like of course I don’t expect an invite to my actual roommate mikaela (Kristen is the one who is living #here) like I was the weird shy girl my freshman year like understandable 🙏🏽 plus I wouldn’t go bc it’s a pandemic.... #also the person mikaela is marrying is not the college bf she had and fucked mere inches from my face 7 years ago...okay 💖 #now the question here is what happened to the other roommate I had who always coughed a lot....always worried about her.... #okay so technically we weren’t roommates but we shared a bathroom and basically we were roommates bc everyone always were in each other’s #respective rooms...and then they were roommates. technical term is suitemate pero it was way more intimate than that #would a suitemate pee as you shower then ask you to step out of the running water so she could flush the toilet BC flushing = cold water

[caucasianchronicles-blog]

“Probably Shaniqua”

The bathroom in my suite is shared by the four of us that live in the two rooms connected by the bathroom. Of the four us, I’m the only black girl. Actually, I’m one of just two black girls on my entire floor. The way the bathroom is set up, you can push-to-lock both doors. Since the beginning of the semester, I actually never formally met either of the two girls who live on the other side. You can only hear when someone goes into the bathroom and locks the door on your side. The fact that I’ve never met my suitemates is important to this story. I just knew their names from the roommate assignment we received online. You would assume they know my name as well for that very same reason. Although, I hadn’t met them in person, I will learn later that they do know I’m black.

I usually wake up before my roommate and suitemates since I don’t like rushing in the morning. I noticed early on that my white suitemates took showers in the evening or at night, so it seemed like this worked out for everyone’s schedule anyway. Well, it’s about to get interesting.

While I was getting ready one Saturday morning in November I could hear about 3 different girls’ voices coming from my suitemates’ side. Sound travels pretty easily through the walls. Anyway, so three voices. I didn’t think too much of it. I just figured one of the girls had friends sleep over. I was almost finished getting ready when someone knocked on the door to their side–wanting to use the bathroom. I’m a pretty considerate person, so I thought Oh let me hurry up a little and get out of here so they can use the bathroom or whatever. Even though it was halfway through the semester, I still hadn’t met these girls and it was probably too late for formal introductions by then anyway. So all I hear is voices and I don’t know which voice belongs to whoever. Alright, so a couple of minutes later I start hearing the girls getting antsy. One of the voices complained to the others that she had to pee. Another voice asked “who’s even in there?” to which one of the voices responded “probably Shaniqua”. Of the four girls who live in our suite, none of us are named Shaniqua.

Right after I heard these words, I just kind of let them fall to the ground–not really registering. A few moments later, I revisited her words and thought Did she really…. The frustrating part is that at least one of those girls know my actual name because one them is the suitemate who lives here. So, although I don’t know who the voice belonged to, one of the other voices could have corrected her ignorant and racist friend if she wanted to. There was no correction. In fact, they kind of lowered their voices and I heard a hushed “She can hear you”. At this point I was upset and was trying to assess how I’m going to handle the situation. I could open the door to their side and confront them, but then I run the risk that they’ll just lie and say “Oh, she was talking about someone else” or “She was on the phone” or whatever. I was pretty sure that’s what would have happened. This wouldn’t work for me because I’m not going to have someone lie to my face after getting caught being racist and ignorant. So the only thing I thought to do, which I have to say was passive aggressive—I  had limited options here—was  to purposely not unlock their side of the bathroom door. I just left their door locked, unlocked my side, and stepped out.

My roommate L was still sleeping, and my thoughts were Well, if L doesn’t happen to wake up soon and have to use the bathroom, I guess their side is staying locked. I learned something about myself that day: in the face of blatant racism, I can be a petty person. (Which isn’t the best course of action—again, I had limited options—so I had to ask God for forgiveness later ‘cause I could have handled it better). Pretty soon the knocks began–they realized the door was still locked. I put on my headphones while I was doing other things to give the pretense that I couldn’t hear anything…but I was hearing it. After a while, maybe 20 or 30 minutes my roommate must have gotten a text from them that the door was locked or heard the knocking because she got out of bed and unlocked the other side for them. I felt really bad getting her involved in their foolishness. I removed one of my headphones to hear what the racists were going to say to her regarding the door, but I didn’t hear anything…I think they just said thanks.

In my mind, the situation wasn’t resolved.

Shaniqua. You haven’t even met me. You don’t know anything about me, except that I’m obviously black, so you decide to call me Shaniqua. You couldn’t even be more creative with your racism? You couldn’t mix it up a little? Maybe give me a name with an apostrophe in it, maybe an accent over one letter?

So for the rest of the day, I kept hoping I would run into one of my suitemates in the hallway. There were plenty of opportunities. I did laundry that day so I was in and out of my room several times. I wanted one of them to stop me in the hallway to address that morning’s events.

“Hey, um, this morning I think you forgot to unlock the bathroom door for our side. We were knocking for somebody to open it.”

“Huh? Oh, no that was Shaniqua. I’m M. She probably forgot to unlock the door. Wow, I’ll let her know to unlock it next time.”