Re: do you really value diversity? | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Sharon Villines (sharon![]() |
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Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 13:37:54 -0800 (PST) |
On Nov 15, 2016, at 10:52 AM, Eris Weaver <eris [at] erisweaver.info> wrote: > > one of the paradoxes I see over and over in CohoLand is the tension between > desiring diversity yet wanting to live with like-minded folks. We kinda can't > have it both ways...if you claim to value diversity, you need to include > political and ideological diversity as well. Defining diversity also depends on context. Some of our residents believe that we are not diverse because we do not reflect the same balance of European and African heritage as DC. Records vary but it has declined from ~90% African American to ~50-50 others —European, Islands, South American, etc. We are the diverse, not the Africans Americans. When I told a story here a few years ago about our military residents — one being a major in the army, an intelligence officer reporting to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a lifetime army reservist, there was great surprise. One person emailed me to ask “How do you get through dinner together?” We have people who work for the World Bank, others whose agencies depend on their grants, people who protest against the bank, and people who protect bank employees from the protesters. In terms of what we learn from living with ethnic and cultural diversity, it much more than skin color. The diversity tension that I find myself struggling with is the institutional or standardized vs residential- informal. It is very easy for a multi-household planned neighborhood to look like commercially managed condo with few owner determined features. While cohousing has benefited from allowing many of the best practices of condominiums being adopted or at least not ignored because that’s what “they” do, they also set up filters through which owners view their own property and neighbors view the community. Rob Sandelin, an active cohousing facilitator in the 1990 and early 2000, said he sees communities becoming less diverse as they develop. Like is attracted to like. And the community reflects the druthers of the current residents. I like a sense of order and design but I don’t want to look as If we are marketing everyday to the condo owner for whom the condo will be a bedroom on the route to other condos, offices, and restaurants. I think a cohousing community should look like homes with residents of many different interests, a place inhabited by many age groups for many activities outside as well as inside the individual unit. Can you define your community as diverse if you can’t include skin color. Sharon ---- Sharon Villines Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC http://www.takomavillage.org
- Re: do you really value diversity?, (continued)
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Re: do you really value diversity? Tom Smyth, November 16 2016
- Re: do you really value diversity? Richart Keller, November 17 2016
- Re: do you really value diversity? Tom Smyth, November 18 2016
- Re: do you really value diversity? Tiffany Lee Brown, November 18 2016
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Re: do you really value diversity? Tom Smyth, November 16 2016
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