A Berkeley People of Color themed house — which has banned white people from its common room— has a history of discrimination, students say.
Student Manduhai Baatar said the house has operated counter to the ideals it was founded on which include "cross-cultural exchange, academic and professional support, and anti-oppression/allyship."
The house has instead been plagued by "white supremacy" and neglectful students who have left the house "uninhabitable" Baatar said. It also gained a reputation for "call out culture" and drug use.
The house has become "notorious for its reputation of anti-Blackness, upholding white supremacy by ignoring the various forms of oppression perpetuated by former house members," Baatar wrote in a 2020 Medium piece.
The house is a five-story, 30-room home that can house up to 56 students. It's owned by a private landlord.
It was designed as part of the Berkeley Student Cooperative, which brings affordable housing to students in California's expensive Bay-area.
The house recently came under fire for a list of house rules posted to Reddit which prohibited white guests from being in common spaces, the Daily Mail reported.
Many slammed the restrictions as "racist" as others came forward and revealed their experience living in the co-op.
One mixed-race Redditer said that their "presence as a light-skinned person was not received well," at the house, which they claimed to live in.
House members called them slurs and they were even not allowed to let their dad enter the house "because he's white," the user wrote.
Baatar said many students move to the house simply for cheap rent. This resulted in property neglect of the property, and conflict between people who believed in the house ideal ands residents who don't.
UC Berkeley has said the house is not the school's business because it’s a privately-owned off-campus residence.
"Several members have been criticized for being white/white passing, aligning themselves with whiteness, or allowing white violence in the house," Baatar wrote.
"Thus, many members (and their guests) have both explicitly and implicitly uplifted white supremacy, misogyny, queer/transphobia, anti-Blackness, classism, and colorism in the space."
"Other instances of conflict in the house include the unacknowledged privileges awarded to those who benefit from whiteness or are closer in proximity to whiteness, exemplified most by those with class privilege and white passing privilege."
Baatar said conflict also often arises from the various identities and perspectives brought into the house "thus failing the house’s third and final pillar of cross-cultural exchange."
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