Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Subject: [C-L]_Sexually Diverse

[Jayne Kulikauskas (cml]

George Marx <gmarx [at] jps.net> writes:

[] 
> We also need to recognize that we all have blinders - often related to who
> we may be such as (usually), White, Upper-Middle Class, Euro-Americans,
> often Het, etc.   We often want "diversity" which doesn't threaten many of
> our presumptions - The Black Family that is "Oreo" - being the most
> stereotypic example.  Being the parent of a young teenager - alone - helps
> me start to see some of my own prejudices - becoming "old" etc.

We haven't even started building yet (we hope to this spring) so I'm
probably at a pretty idealistic stage regarding intentional
community.  A major component in my views is seeing the community as
the environment for raising my children.  So I look on diversity
largely as an educational issue.  I want my children growing up
knowing people from a broad range of backgrounds.  This seems to me
the best way to prevent my children from absorbing many of the ugly
stereotypes prevalent in our society.

We have about a third of our total members signed up and, so far, we
are not nearly as diverse as I am hoping for.  I feel good about
having a good mix of religions represented, but racially we are
quite uniform. None of the members belongs to a visible minority.
I'm encouraged that we do have a member who is an out lesbian but
I'm concerned about her becoming the "token queer" if she remains
the only one.  

We have discussed this at meetings.  Everyone likes the idea of
diversity of age, race, religion, social class and sexual
orientation but we don't have many ideas about how to bring it
about.  We wouldn't consider setting quotas so we are pretty much
hoping it will just happen.

Jayne Kulikauskas
 member of Whole Village: Sustainable Farm Community
  currently under development - see www.wholevillage.org
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