[BCN] more musing : On being real, and making friends in your neighbor - Hood.

[Amatul Hannan]

Hmm- Community Facilitation needed...Membership needed.. Leadership ...
  Um, part of a solution can be some Non-Violent Communication sessions.
  
  Look: I am Black. And a Woman (college educated) 
  As a light skinned person of color I meet lovely people making coop  groups and running coops, all very very nice people - yet lacking in  skills to make friends with people who dont look like OURSELVES The  light-skinned, middle-class or yuppie/hippie, etc etc etc  All the  LABLES that entrap us. Lables are wrong from anyone, so forgive me if  you do not like that list of lables above. But hey, my name isn't  Dorothy, or Toto. HA!
  
  ANYWAY, 
  
  Whatever the dominant dynamic is in your personal circle of the CoOp  houses-you-know-about (whch yes, is much smaller than the number of  houses in the greater Boston area that are people living together and  working in a cooperative  buying and social -decision-making  methodology) 
  Let us all have open minds... 
  
  (Heck yeah, LOL lets us explore why folks would be scared if a white  sounding voice calls to ask about their personal bulk buying  practices!).. let us remember MOVE, and Wako. People who live or even  look not unlike yourselves DIED then. So, thinking about that in this  world today Realistically, then you can get it... YES folks are scared  in this day and age to be percieved as ORGANIZING, as organizing looks  like terrorist activity to some sad people. Some phonecalls can be made  more scary...
  
  Yet they want to live free, have a good life for their children, and benifit from organising for health.
  
  And they do want to get to share their own culture's wisdom.
  And be respected as Human Beings with knowledge, tastes, and recipies to share... 
  
  You know, as it always was, Folks like to be invited to the Table to  break bread and be PEACE. It all starts with your own neighbors. 
  
  When we moved here from Cambridge, we walked around and said hello to  the people on our street and the shopowners, and we invited the  neighbors into our home. For Dinner. And for holiday parties. (We  dearly appreciated friends like Mt Ida and SeedPod inviting us to their  home for New Years Eve and anniversary celebrations  - thats very  cool!) Now we know our next door neighbors from Africa and the  Dominican Republic, and we can go over and watch movies or play chess  in their homes. That is all part of community building. Not "meetings",  real life interstions where you listen and learn to value what your  neighbors value.
  
  Its slow and it takes a long time. All cultures dont "hold meetings" or  like "roberts rules" But when we eat together, when the kids play  together, even when folks are out front raking the trash up off our  street or trimming the hedges and say hello and look folks in the eye,  when we sit on our porches w the laptop or a great book and say hello  to our neighbors, that builds a safer & healthier neighborhood for  everyone. If you should feel fear, show RESPECT and SOUL-strength. And  folks wont want to hurt you, because then they grow to KNOW you. 
  
  And they will grow to know that you care about the semi- to  very-empoverished neighborhood that you moved into. Cause you do care,  or you wouldnt have bought a house in the hood, riiight?
  
  Are all the folk welcome to come learn with folks who will Respect them 
  (not lable them or call them names when they tell their truth) 
  I am really asking. So I can tell friendly folk if you are cool. So,  Are people of Boston of all colors welcome to truely organise with you  in CoOperation, and be respected for what they know and have to offer  as Equal Human Beings, women men elders and children all in family - or  is this club closed..?
  
  
I am trying to Get Real with you because I care what happens
We _All_ NEED access to organic food at a price we can pay.
We (all of us here in America) need folks like you to keep 
on working it all out, learning how to Co-Operate, and 
finding alternative ways of living a less burdening life, 
or all hope is lost for common folk of our shared Planet.
Seriously.
Amatul

  

 
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