Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Encouraging Multigenerational Community: select

[C.C. Barron (ccbarron]

The obvious difference is that behavior (being loud) and political views
(conservative) are, at least to a certain extent, a choice, whereas race is
not.

That having been said, I also reacted negatively to the post.  I think if
community members are patient and explain the vision of the group clearly
people will self-select without being "spurned".  And folks who seemed loud
and conservative on the first night might not be so bad once they relax.

Several times we have had folks we thought didn't "fit in" on first meeting --
one guy was brash, pushy and loud, another couple were looking for something
"easy" (not obvious candidates for a year of consensus work!), and someone
else made a disparaging remark about an organization many members of the group
belong to.  The strange thing is, each of these families came back, and each
turned out  to be strong members of the community.  Each made important
contributions to our group process, opening up our group to a new viewpoint.
While two of the three have since left the group for other reasons, in each
case we were sorry to see them go.  All three confirmed my instinct to reserve
judgment about who "fits in" and who doesn't for at least a few meetings.  And
above all to let them decide whether this is their group or not.  Anything
else is unkind, whether or not you call it discrimination.

As for multigenerational diversity, our group is suburban and so far a mix of
families with kids and singles/couples.  We're short on elders from our ideal
-- with 1/3 of our membership filled we range in age from 0 to 13 and 30 to
55, but we're hoping that we'll attract more seniors as we get closer to start
of construction.  We have in mind including some 1-bedroom "mother-in-law"
units to accommodate the parents of group members as well as other seniors.

Cat Barron
Oak Village Commons
Austin, TX  78749

Fred H Olson wrote:

> sbraun <sbraun [at] gmavt.net>
> is the author of the message below.
> It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] 
> cohousing.org>
> because the message included HTML ;      PLEASE do not post HTML, see
>    http://csf.colorado.edu/cohousing/2001/msg01672.html
> --------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------
>
> Rob wrote:
>
> <<I have seen this kind of thing once in my own group, where somebody
> shows an interest and they don't fit in at all. They are simply not
> invited back and their contact information is not kept. For example, to
> several peoples astonishment, a fairly loud, and conservative couple,
> who made several conservative political comments and commentaries on a
> visit, actually inquired later about houses for sale. They were spurned
> and at dinner one night there was much trash talk about them, how we
> didn't want those kind of people, etc. Sheesh.
> >>
>
> Could someone please explain to me how this is different from racism?
> I'm sure there is a difference, but I can't see it.
>
> Sheila
> Champlain Valley Cohousing
> www.champlainvalleycohousing.org
>
> <excessive quotes deleted. Fred>
>
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