The Berkeley Student Cooperative, a student housing group serving mainly students of the University of California, Berkeley, is boasting of its Person of Color Theme House, which, as the name suggests, caters mainly to people of color who attend the university. However, certain racist rules of the co-op are causing outrage among many after those rules were posted on social media.
Here, as a white girl named Cedar — the recruitment coordinator for the Berkeley Student Cooperative — offers prospective members a quick tour of the facility, several white students can be seen in the common areas.
The five-story facility, located on the Southside hills of Berkeley, has space for up to 56 residents and claims to provide low-income housing to “first generation, immigrant and marginalized students of color.”
Fair enough, but it’s some of the facility’s race-specific rules that have ruffled feathers.
Among those rules: “White guests are not allowed in common spaces.”
The reason for such a rule is stated in equally racist terms: “House members and rules should always be respected by all guests. Make sure your guests understand our house values and uphold the theme of our house, as you are responsible for their behavior. Many POC [people of color] members moved here to be able to avoid white violence and presence, so respect their decision of avoidance if you bring white guests.”
You see, the facility believes that it may hurt the delicate sensibilities of certain members if they are exposed to the possibility of bigoted behavior — including parents or family members of a member who might hold views that don’t agree with the facility’s narrow focus.
“Queer, Black, and Indigenous members should not have to avoid common spaces because of homophobic or racist parents/family members,” the rules preach.
The house, formerly known as the Andres Castro Arms, was established in 2015 in an attempt to better serve what it considers marginalized communities.
The Person of Color Theme (POC) House supposedly “exists to create a safe and welcoming space for its house members and build solidarity with communities of color in the Berkeley area and beyond,” according to the facility’s website.
And so, they look to foster that “safe and welcoming space” by engaging in blatant racism.
An official for the Berkeley Student Cooperative (BSC) told the College Fix that white people are not, by any means, prohibited from participating at the POC House.
“White people can and do live in POC house, but the focus for POC house is providing a safe and supportive living environment for people of color,” said Stephen Ross, cooperative experience manager for the BSC. Ross added that “neither the BSC nor the POC house has an official policy” that excludes white guests from common spaces.
However, the rules posted at the facility seem to imply otherwise.
In an email exchange with the College Fix, Ross couldn’t resist an unsolicited dig at former President Donald Trump. Ross claimed that members of the house have been affected by “racist and discriminatory remarks made by former President Trump.”
According to Ross, the residents of the POC are looking to avoid “daily experiences of covert and overt racism.”
Even so, Ross acknowledges that neither the facility nor the school can keep the precious snowflakes safe from the bigotry of the white race forever.
“While the members who choose to live in POC house cannot avoid every racist experience, living in POC house gives the members who live there a safe space to process their experiences and feel supported in their living environment,” Ross declared.
As for the university, they wouldn’t officially comment on the matter.
Speaking with the Daily Mail, Janet Gilmore, Senior Director of Strategic Communications for UC Berkeley, said that because the facility was “not campus operated,” it therefore “is not the role of the campus to comment.”
Gilmore further noted that, although the university does have its own themed housing programs, none of them expresses anti-white sentiment so blatantly as the Person of Color Theme House does.
“Cal Housing Theme Programs do not discriminate on the basis of race, consistent with UC and campus policy,” she said.
The forerunner of the Berkeley Student Cooperative was founded in 1933. It was then known as the University of California Students’ Cooperative Association. It was founded upon a series of rules known as the Rochdale Principles, which sound as if they might have been written by today’s United Nations or another socialist entity.
Nevertheless, among those principles is a call for voluntary and open membership, which includes a codicil prohibiting social discrimination — including racial discrimination. The rules against white people at the Person of Color Theme House at Berkeley show that the socialists who run this particular co-op cannot even live by their own rules.
