Residential (Racial) Preference

I'm so grateful and mindful of the privilege and opportunity I was given to go to Race Forward conference in Raleigh, North Carolina this week. It was inspiring, humbling, overwhelming, daunting, and nurturing. 

It was lovely to be a distinct minority as a white person at this conference. I believe I stayed humble, present, and open. I learned so much and tried to show up when asked. 

It got me thinking about the journey of intercultural competence from IDI, with additions/explanations from the wise and generous Julica de la Fuente. 

In our Community and Regional Planning Masters program in 2002, we were asked to think about how we wanted to work in the planning paradigms. At the time, at age 30, and maybe in my wishful heart, I was a "Social Learner" who wanted to do the work for Social Justice by bringing people together and working to even the playing field (to the extent that that was possible) so that everyone can contribute to solutions. (The Social Mobilizer works outside the system to change it, because there's no way to even the playing field, so ... build something new [and tear down the old]. The other 2 on the spectrum were Social Reformers [we will help you be more like us because you need our help and how you are is not ok] and Technocrats [if our models / technology get good enough, outcomes will be better for everyone])..

(Shout out to high school honors English teacher Debbie Firstenberg who asked seniors to write essays supporting Edmund Burke [reformer] or Jacques Rousseau [revolutionary], which started me thinking about how the world gets better and what methods seemed to fit me best.)

The Achilles Heel of Social Learners is minimization. The mission and strategy to bring everyone to the table tends to assume or gloss over difference, or relies more on what brings us together versus what different strengths make our collaboration and solidarity and conflict so powerful and generative. 

It's all got me thinking about the studies of residential preference as a proxy to how comfortable people are in multiracial spaces. One study in 2009, Black people report that the ideal neighborhoods are 50-50 white and some other mix of races. White people only feel comfortable (or at least say they are comfortable) with 80-20 neighborhoods (although patterns show significant moves by 12-15%). People of color are expected to blend in to white spaces. White people walk into non-white spaces and expect to be accommodated and embraced (even welcomed / celebrated). 

That's why neighborhood stability has been hard to keep balanced. White discomfort keeps them moving or displacing "others."

But here's the kicker. Integrated neighborhoods have better outcomes for everyone. As of 2022, in a Johns Hopkins University study, 70 percent of people across different races who live in multi-racial neighborhoods report high levels of health, happiness, and stability. 

I forget which speaker at this conference talked about how proximity leads to tolerance, acceptance of difference, and then the value of intercultural experiences and learning. And because cities bring us into that proximity more than rural living, cities are (can be?) anti-racist crucibles. 

I'm feeling that at this conference. I'm loving it. 

Reasons not to quit (poem) by Hanne Blank Boyd

Heaven is living in your hopes. 

Hell is living in your fears….
As the dust settles, know that you are loved, that you are cherished,
that you know how to make good things happen for yourself and the people you love.
Know that you are more resourceful than you ever imagined 

and that there are many arms that hold you. 

Know that it matters that you don’t quit.
Drink some water. 

Don’t forget to eat something with protein in it.
Go outside and talk to some trees if you get the chance.
First rule of Reasons Not To Quit Club is that we’re not not quitting today.
Second rule of Reasons Not To Quit Club is that we’re not quitting tomorrow either.
No third rule is needed.

Drowning in the Blue Wave

 So glad for the diversity represented by those elected. Our governor, Deb Haaland, first Native American governor. First black governor. A trans woman elected in Alabama!

But I find myself thinking more about our losses. DEI*. EPA. ICE. Alaska pipeline. Supreme Court. Roe v. Wade. 

* On Thursday, the official White House X account posted, “FYI: DEI is still dead,” just two days after Democrats scored major election victories, including Abdul El-Sayed’s historic U.S. Senate win in Michigan.

(Abdul El-Sayed is a health disparity researcher).

I think about the white women who trigger me at church, when they express their anxiety, and it's all about what's happening out there... in realms they have no leverage over, things that don't affect them much but worry them greatly. And I wonder, is that what I'm doing?

"Anxiety's like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you very far."

Isn't it obnoxious privilege if I focus on how good my little white bubble life is?

Is it enough to spend time imagining a better America? What work should I do?

Quotes on Change

 Know what’s weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change, but pretty soon … everything’s different.  Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes, comic by Bill Watterson 

People change and forget to tell each other.  Lillian Hellman   

No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side.  Or you don’t. Stephen King, The Stand  

When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment. Pema Chödrön 

Quote – Rumi

"Before death takes away what you are given, give away what there is to give." – Rumi 

In between

 I am enjoying a moment where almost everything important is in motion and needing very little from me. The right things have been started at work, at home, at church. Relationships are stable (I think). Life generally has balance. (I could use a little more exercise, but ... all things never being equal, it's okay.)

And so, I am breathing. Shaking my shoulders down. Letting breath get to my belly. Using my "floodlight" mindfulness (*) to absorb my surroundings just as they are, accept my internal landscape just as it is. And feeling grateful. Thankful. Full. 

And for everyone I am failing by not knowing how I'm falling short of your expectations, I say sorry and ask for your grace. Speak up! My cup is full; I can give more. 

* So I remember later: Peak Mind by Dr. Amishi Jha

The Three Systems of Attention

• The Flashlight (Focused Attention / Orienting System):
  • Narrows your mental energy to highlight a specific object, thought, or location (like a beam in a dark room).
  • Used when reading, looking for your keys, or tracking a single sensation like your breath.
• The Floodlight (Open Monitoring / Alerting System):
  • Provides a broad, open, and receptive state of awareness to the present moment without focusing on anything in particular.
  • Used when scanning your environment for hazards while driving or noticing background sounds.
• The Juggler (Executive Control / Goal-Directed System):
  • Directs and manages your behavior, keeping your long-term goals in mind while coordinating actions and resisting distractions.
  • Used to stay on task or adjust your behavior when plans change.

Chestnut (poem) by Rebecca Baggett

I touched a chestnut sapling
in the Georgia mountains.
My friend writes of the great trees and their vanishing,
but I have seen a young chestnut,
tender and green,
rising from its ashes.
I, too, write of loss and grief,
the hollow they carve in the chest,
but that hollow may shelter some new thing,
a life I could not have imagined or wished,
a life I would never have chosen.
I have seen the chestnut rising,
luminous,
from its own bones,
from the ashes of its first life.

Joint Custody (poem) by Ada Limón

Why did I never see it for what it was: abundance.
Two families, two different kitchen tables,
two sets of rules, two creeks, two highways,
two stepparents with their fish tanks or eight tracks
or cigarette smoke or expertise in recipes or reading skills.
I cannot reverse it, the record scratched and stopping
to that original chaotic track.
But let me say, I was taken back and forth
on Sundays and it was not easy
but I was loved in each place.
And so I have two brains now.
Two entirely different brains.
The one that always misses where I'm not,
the one that is so relieved to finally be home.