Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Diversity in Cohousing

[Kathleen Lowry (kathleenlowrylpcclmft]

I would like to see an exhaustive list of micro aggressions. I think in the UK 
legislators are working on this re gender. I need my consciousness raised . I 
remember a short list from a class 30 years ago that included things like 
“holding my purse tighter” (which I think I might have done at one time- no 
longer!) 
Regarding culture and not gender, etc, I lived in the South and do have black 
friends. One, a woman in her 60s, every now and then laughs and tells me she 
and some friends (don’t know the friends “color”) are going out to get “white 
girl drunk.”  I laughed and didn’t ask what it meant because I figured it would 
take too long to explain it and take the fun out of it. 
By “like” living with “like” I think it’s about food, entertainment, general  
lifestyle, (skiing or music?) not much about simply sexual preference etc. At 
least to me. Anyway, some people like variety, some don’t- but isn’t honoring 
differences our ultimate challenge as the spiritual (in some sense) beings that 
we are?

It’s so reassuring and hopeful that we have this discussion. Yes, more 
perspectives would be super!

> On Feb 22, 2023, at 10:41 AM, Elizabeth Magill <pastorlizm [at] gmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> I must to admit that I hate the arguments "in favor of tribalism". I
> dislike the use of the word "tribal".
> 
> But more than that, I find that white people (I am white and live in a
> white community) are very interested in using this idea of
> like-hangs-with-like to speak mostly about race and rarely about other
> topics.
> 
> Is it a good idea if people with disabilities mostly live with people
> with disabilities? Women should only live with women? Queers should
> only live with queers? Non-christians only live with other
> non-christians?
> 
> If that seems absurd, why does it seem "natural" and part of who we
> are as humans that we should separate based on color of our skin?
> Please note that the idea of race wasn't even invented until the
> European "Enlightenment". It has not been natural for humans to use
> this classification for most of our existence.
> 
> (Yes, sometimes these groups need affinity groups to gather and chat
> about the way our culture puts us down.)
> 
> I believe that we (in existing communities) feel badly that we have
> created mostly white communities. In order to feel better about
> ourselves we create a theory that it is natural that we have grouped
> in this way. (I am included in the "we" here.)
> 
> Another strategy would be to look at what we have created and think
> about racial oppression through the lens of  who I am internally (my
> inner thoughts), interpersonally (how I react to others), systemically
> (my community's formal agreements), and culturally (our unwritten
> rules).
> How did what we did, and didn't do, get us to this place?
> It hurts to do this work. I have to see the ways I have bought into
> the white dominant culture even though I don't *want* to do that.
> 
> Crystal says "There are members of the BIPOC Council
> (www.bipocicc.org) who are middle class, vegan/vegetarian, and Black.
> They have gone on community tours and been asked rude questions. They
> show up at events and feel isolated or tokenized. They live in
> communities and have the police called on their children. Basically
> they are subject to microaggressions, and I have always said that is
> the number 1 reason there is no diversity in intentional
> communities. It's not worth it."
> 
> I have to hear Crystals words and think "that's us, that's my
> community" and try to *see* it when it happens, and then work to
> change it. I call on all of us to hear Crystals words and rather than
> defending ourselves, be open up to hearing what she is saying.
> 
> I hear so much from white people, white people who want to change
> racism, saying "we don't know any black people so we can't do
> anything."
> Actually we, I, know *lots* of white people, caring white people,
> white people who want to end racism. I'd like to get over my fear of
> [calling them in] when they fall into the traps of white dominant
> culture. I'd like to get so that I *appreciate* when people call me in
> to act, think, learn in better ways.
> 
> [Calling in is in contrast to "calling out", the idea is to name what
> they have said that is wrong, but in such a way that they are invited
> into relationship, rather than breaking off the relationship. I'm
> pretty sure I got this from Teaching Tolerance magazine about fighting
> racism in schools.]
> 
> -Liz
> (The Rev. Dr.) Elizabeth Mae Magill
> Mosaic Commons Cohousing, Berlin, MA
> www.elizabethmaemagill.com
> 508-450-0431
> 
> 
>> On Tue, Feb 21, 2023 at 11:28 PM Steve Welzer <stevenwelzer [at] gmail.com> 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> Another dimension of the discussion appreciates a different way of looking
>> at things ... re: there can be a positive sense of tribalism:
>> 
>> https://stevenwelzer.medium.com/re-diversity-in-cohousing-a4596d3eac25
>> 
>> Steve Welzer
>> Altair EcoVillage project
>> _________________________________________________________________
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