[Personal] The all-White co-op voted me out because I don't "fit in".

in #blog6 years ago (edited)

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I entered the house, was welcomed and happy. I am the only person of colour living in the house out of 11 people. The "co-op"/lease holders are made up of privileged white people in their 20s and 30s, headed by a woman in her late 30s who doesn't say she's the Queen, but does act like she is.

I do point out the problems and try to fix them, so I become manager of the house. I try to work with the co-op so that the system is more fair to the rest of the house (e.g., arbitrary fees are no longer the co-op's profit, and actually go back to the rest of the house, if they are charged). I try my best to increase accountability for, and by everyone. However, when the person they appointed as bookkeeper (another POC) mismanages the house's bank account, they put the responsibility on me to fix it, despite their obvious incompetence and lack of taking responsibility.

Things start to wear down when my physical boundaries were crossed by another roommate, but the co-op and the Queen minimized my experience because they view me as being "overly emotional"/too irrational to properly give an accurate account of my experience. The roommate who had crossed my boundaries was voted out by the co-op (as he was causing problems), but he was later invited back to parties. He makes me physically unsafe as he physically and verbally threatened me because he couldn't find his clothes one day. The Queen invited him because she "doesn't see my physical safety as a big deal" (paraphrased, but she did say this to me).

Arguments with the Queen the other day caused me to announce in our house-established "I need time to myself - please don't talk to me today" thread that many people use that II needed time to myself and did not want to be bothered. However somehow my establishment of my boundaries in this thread, caused the co-op discomfort as I'm apparently not "friendly enough" for them, and I got voted out from a house meeting where they spoke about me after I had to leave half-way through, not giving me a chance for defense or appeal.

This is after 1 year and 5 months of working as the house manager, where the first 130 hours I completed over the first 5 months (approx $2340) was unpaid (based on the current rate of $18/hr that I have been receiving since last March).

the problem of women of colour in the workplacesource: Facebook

Oh, did I mention that this Queen is extremely ableist? One of my roommates (a co-op member), experienced deep depression for 5 months. Half-way through that period, the Queen said that she doesn't like him as much anymore, and wanted to kick him out because "he's too depressing".