I have a response to your segment about interracial roommates. I feel like a lot of what you were saying about how students relate to people who are of a different race in college can be said about how students relate to people who are different than them in any way. For example, I think all freshman worry about how they’ll relate to their roommate and agonize about finding similarities and questioning each others’ differences. I know that for me, although my roommate and I were similar in every sense that we have demographic boxes for, race, gender, class, sexuality, etc., we still had tension over trying to live with each others’ differences — stupid kind of things like, I’ve never been friends with someone that has x political view before or someone that likes y kind of music, can I handle that? I wonder if some of the dumb questions that people get about their background, family, etc. from roommates of a different race are the same dumb questions that I asked my roommate about why she was a theater major, why her parents did things a certain way, why they voted for a different political party than my parent, ect. Maybe I’m giving people too much benefit of the doubt, but I think that all freshman worry about finding a roommate who will understand them and who they’ll be comfortable living with. While I’m sure that people can ask questions that are offensive and hurtful (and that I probably did, too), I don’t think most of them are trying to offend or hurt. I think they’re really just trying to take a shortcut to getting past the awkwardness of going off to college and living with a strange new person and get to the part where they’re friends.