Facebook Publication Date: 5/25/2018 1:05

This opinion piece from the New York Times really spoke to me.

For the obvious, yes. This is very much a love story. It flowed in the words; infused the white spaces of the text.

But to me it is something more; something greater.

It is a wonderful template for what I hope we are doing here in a corporate sort of way: finding ways to truly abide together, in trust and mutuality.

A community member Greg W. and I have built a friendship that began before Lace on Race, and has only deepened in these months as we have shared together in this crucible.

He doesn’t post much here, but our correspondence over these months have shaped both my admin practices (he got us on twitter!) and my thoughts and convictions. He has been an amazing sounding board.

No yes man he.

He challenges, disrupts, helps me to see angles, is strong and vulnerable, and has held deep things I have entrusted to him, and held them o so gently.

He would make a fine brother (almost said older brother, then i remembered I’m fully a year older!).

He has been a kind but surgical editor, and I feel his esteem, but without the cloying ‘idol worship’ that can often come with that.

This is what I want, what I pray for, in this space.

That we can come in, work hard, mix it up, clash opinions, all with an overlay of love and respect for what each of us brings to the table.

Anyway, I read this article and immediately thought of Greg W. This is part of the correspondence I sent him:

“This article: I see so much of you in this. This thing we are doing, dissecting and living through this minefield (and mindfield) of race has taught me many things, that eventually when I feel everyone is ready for it, I want to explore at Lace on Race.

What I have with you is precious, not least for you yourself, but for something crucial–I learn from you every time we engage.

This work cannot only flow one way–my pontificating, and you absorbing. There is indeed a knowledge base that wipipo need to glean, and accept, and absorb.

Certainly, there is work that wipipo need the competence, willingness, and agency to do.

But there are also things you all can bring to the table, things that may indeed gestate from privilege; things your privilege can leverage, knowledge of the game from the inside, used to move the ball forward.

That piece is what is often missed, or overlooked, or disdained.

We need to take a good measure of that. If one of the goals of racial justice is true mutuality, parity, and authentic friendship–and I feel that it is– then that dyadic flow must be in place, both in individual encounters, as well as community and corporate ones.

It’s a thin needle to thread. I am glad we are on the way to doing just that.”

—And I am o so glad we are on the way to doing just exactly this in this space I hold so very dear. Thank you all.

Oh! the article:

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