Making Me Share A Room With My Sister Is Settler Colonialism

By Hallel Schusterman, age 16

Your parenting violates the Fourth Geneva Convention. There, I’ve said it.

This is my room. It’s been my room as long as I can remember. I forged my identity in this room, became who I am today in this room. You can’t forcibly transfer my sister into my territory that you control without my consent. I’m indigenous to this room and that foreign interloper, who by the way is a scheming, invasive manipulator who will stop at nothing to gain power at everyone else’s expense, doesn’t belong here. This is settler colonialism. You’re facilitating the exploitation of my native land.

I don’t care about claims that “this room was once her nursery.” That’s irrelevant prehistory, and not a credible argument anyway. So what if she may have been here temporarily at some point? She moved out. This is my place. I protest your use of force to coerce me into ceding sovereignty of my territory for the benefit of this interloper who will desecrate my ground and violate everything I hold dear.

You see that side of the closet? That’s where my sweaters go. It’s where they’re always gone. You can’t just clear them out because that… animal needs space for her filthy clothes. Send her back where she came from. It’s not my fault she has no other place to go – that’s yours. Why I should I suffer because no one else will tolerate her? Let her sleep in your room. No, you’re the ones being unreasonable.

If you do try to force this on me, I will make her life miserable. I’ll boycott her – give her the silent treatment. I’ll boycott anyone who treats her normally. I’ll sabotage her daily life. I’ll terrorize her. I’ll terrorize you for not siding with me, for granting her any legitimacy. There’s no other way to phrase it. I need to make sure everyone understands the depths of my objection to this travesty, this unjust reordering of society within these walls, at the expense of the exclusive status in this domicile I have enjoyed forever, and the lengths to which I will go, and get all my friends to go, by the way, to prevent it from happening, and then to get it reversed if it does happen. I’ll drive her into the hallway.

There will be no “partition” of this room. It’s all mine. I don’t care what you colonial parental powers say.

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