Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Diversity, Inclusion, Bias

[Jude Foster (foster.jude]

Hello all.
In my community, Trillium Hollow in Portland Oregon, we began an Anti-Racism 
study group in August 2020, when Portland was in the midst of that fiery, 
infamous summer. It started as a big circle, and shrank over time, but we 
persevere. I cannot begin to write here about all that we’ve learned in the 
past 2.5 years - reading, talking, watching docs, attending talks and art 
productions by Portland's black community, marching with them, and listening to 
them. As an older white person, my humility is on the ground, where it belongs, 
learning, learning - black history since 1619, Asian-American history and 
experience, indigenous genocide and present brave rise, systemic racism….

I know that many of you have been engaged in the same tough journey.  

Black people do not want to have to explain all this to us. It’s up to us to 
work toward our own understanding and evolution. It’s up to us to take our 
blinders off.

Many lists are available out there, where to start, what to read, who to 
follow. A conversation here in this listserv can barely touch, much less 
understand, the dirty hem of the garment we wear as white Americans.  

So I just thought to throw out one potentially mind-shifting website for you to 
consider, if you wish, one that doesn’t reach most of those lists. Tena Okum, 
whose 1999 piece called “White Supremacy” was a ground-breaker, recently 
created her website to rescind some of and expand on her original piece. When I 
read the original article, a couple years ago, I was struck with how pointedly 
it described many characteristics of my community. White supremacy culture has 
been the water all of us swim in, the air we breathe, and the ground upon which 
we have built this cohousing movement. We couldn’t help that.  And we are here, 
at this point, now.  So dive in, if you wish.

https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/

May the dialogue continue, within our communities, and, hopefully, with all its 
limitations, here in this listserv. Thanks to the brave voices so far.
Jude