A silent wave of bigotry has been spreading like wildfire amongst students at the University of Washington, and no one is talking about it. Roommates of all shapes and sizes whisper evil words to one another, and have banded together against a group of people- my people, the hairy ones.

Sometimes journalism needs to go further than surface level reporting, and requires journalists to fight for causes that are important to them. In this case I feel not only a need to report on the prejudice that has been occurring on campus, but how it has affected me as a member of the hairy community. 

My roommates have been leaving me notes, texting me, and calling house meetings to discuss a problem that they believe to be totally manageable and completely avoidable with a bit of effort. I know better. Though they want to push me to do extra work around the house because of my hair, I’m smarter than this. I refuse to give away my labor for zero compensation.

“He keeps leaving an insane amount of little beard shavings in the sink,” said my roommate Alex Larson, “Anytime we try to talk to him about it, he hands us his manifesto. It's four pages and covered in Cheeto stains.” 

I am a trailblazer, I am a martyr, and I am a hero. I refuse to let my roommates oppress me with rules like, “clean your beard trimmings” or “there’s hair in the sink dude” and “for the love of god clean up your pubes Jacob.” Naturally, in tyrannical fashion, my roommates have decided to flex their power by removing my name from the lease and placing ads for a free room on craigslist. 

As Juicy J (a man I actually share a nickname with) says in his song “Slob on my Knob,”, “the natural curly hair, please don’t touch.” Though Juicy was referring of course to the silky hair on his head, I have since turned this to the battle cry of hairy persons across the University of Washington who don’t want to clean up their body fuzz. 

After bringing this article to a recent Off Leash meeting for critiques, I was told that this issue is actually not a campus-wide issue and seems deeply personal. I told them that if they did not publish this piece that not only would they be missing out on a huge moment in the historical fight for equality, but that they would be losing their best writer and freedom fighter. In response, my coworkers then asked when Off Leash Editor in Chief Julia Dudley would be leaving.