Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Describing Diversity

[carol collier (doctor5622no]

 blockquote, div.yahoo_quoted { margin-left: 0 !important; border-left:1px 
#715FFA solid !important; padding-left:1ex !important; background-color:white 
!important; } As someone who is Black, I fear living in co-housing again 
because when people talk about diversity. I sometime sense they try to appear 
to support it by avoiding the elephant in the room.


Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone


On Sunday, September 11, 2016, 10:57 AM, Sharon Villines <sharon [at] 
sharonvillines.com> wrote:


How does your community describe diversity in your community. This sentence has 
been suggested for our website:

>  In early 2016, approximately 20% of residents were non-white, 8% of adults 
>identified as LGBT, and several of us were living with disabilities.

I objected to last week when I saw it on several grounds. This information is 
based on the assumptions of the webmasters, not self-identification, and is 
given without definitions. Who is non-white? Clearly subjective. 

One of our Hispanic members is convinced she has African American 
ancestry—“Look at me." How would you classify our Indian members? The British 
call them black. Or the "bi-racial children"? Is it fair to call them non-white 
or white? And is “white” pejorative when everyone else has a nationality? 
European is better and Caucasian more accurate. Are Hispanics white or Hispanic?

If I am African American, do I become a statistic? If I’m Hispanic and came 
from Scandinavia, am I twofer?

The intent is clear and the definitions are probably “standard” but even the 
Census now allows “mixed”. Race is also considered a social construct with no 
validity. And we don’t think of each other that way. It misrepresents the 
community to identify members with these distinctions. The point is to be 
diverse because it not an issue, not because it is.

My suggestion is more like:

> We have households with members who are partnered and single; from many 
> ethnic, religious and cultural traditions; variously abled and challenged; 
> parents and non-parents; and of differing sexual orientations and 
> nationalities. 
> 
> Some watch television and others don’t; some are fat and some skinny; some 
> vegan, vegetarian, and omnivores; and parents and non-parents. Avid gardeners 
> and others who just enjoy watching. Some are up at dawn to call for the snow 
> plow and others rise somewhere short of noon. 

Some humor helps but the seemingly humorous distinctions are also important. 
When I was looking for cohousing, I eliminated one eco-village when the contact 
said, “Oh, we even have people who watch television.” Those are the things some 
people are looking for. The lifestyle issues. Will I be considered weird? Or 
sinful? Or not politically correct? 

The vegan and vegetarian thing is a deal breaker for some people, as is being 
an omnivore in some communities.

I think how we identify each other is a very important issue and has been since 
the 1970s with the civil rights movements. It can easily separate rather than 
welcome. 

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org




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