Chosen Family & the Power of Identity-Based Community

Chosen family. Friends. Kindred Spirits. Community. 

Today was the dreaded return to work after a long vacation. As I begrudgingly walked into my office building I remembered the best part of my job, my little community of office mates. We’re a triad of kick-ass, funny, brilliant, get-shit-done Black folks. 

Highlights of today’s conversation included: 

• Personal reviews of Hidden Figures and Fences
• A show and tell of holiday gifts received including a "I Stand for Standing Rock" t-shirt and James Baldwin quote iPhone case
• A discussion of the horrid feelings associated with attending a predominately white college.

That last bullet and my coworkers' general awesomeness inspired me for today’s post. The thing is that every day with those two feels like attending a college student club meeting where everyone is your friend so you’re having a blast hanging out but you’re also planning for the club's events and programs. I remember those clubs so vividly because being in those spaces was the first time in my life that I felt a part of a Black community that was built around shared experience and identity.

The thing about community is that you enjoy it so much when you have it and then when it’s gone you never realized how much you actually NEEDED it. 

For folks with marginalized identities we often exist in spaces that don’t suit our needs, don’t reflect our lives and are generally surrounded by things that just make us feel weird and wrong. Supportive community around shared identity can be like a breath of fresh air when you’re walking through life that way. 

In graduate school I didn’t have so much of a full community as a handful of friends that I clung to and ranted to in order to sustain some kind of sanity. At BC my friend and I decided to create community for a small group of undergraduate students of color through a program called Dialogues on Race. It was such a joy to be a part of creating that space for other students. Being a part of that community was one of the highlights of my time at BC and it helped me to keep going when finishing my MA program and getting the degree felt like a ridiculous waste of time and money.

I returned to San Francisco after two years in Boston worn out, deflated and emotionally exhausted. As I began my career in the non-profit world I began to remember what it was like to be surrounded by folks who looked like me, who cared about the same things I did. The San Francisco non-profit world is its own little community and it was good to feel a part of something important and see myself reflected in my colleagues across organizations. In my second year of working for my organization I was able to join the Youth on Fire cohort a youth worker development program created and facilitated by Candice Wicks Davis of Antique Edutainment. Once a month for a year I was able to be in community with these amazing folks from organizations across the city to share space and knowledge. It filled me up with so much joy and faith that there are many of us fighting every day for real equity and social justice.

In December Mary and I hosted a Cookie Decorating Party and as I began to craft the little guest list, I was struck by this cluster of people and how much I loved all of them. How important they had all become to me and I found myself again filled with joy for our little chosen family, folks that reflect our identities and social justice values. My mind fast-forwarded to years from now and the hope of our children growing up with this beautiful community surrounding them. People they could see themselves in, people who they could talk to and call on. People to fill them up with the warmth of a community that sees you as you are and validates your experience in the world by having experienced it themselves.

In the face of Trump's conservative-white-supremacist-patriarchal-homophobic-transphobic America,

radical community is resistance. 

The most powerful lesson I learned during my two years at BC was this: find people who look like you, who share your marginalized identities. They will become your home and they will give you the strength to carry on even when things seem impossibly hard.  I urge you to find that home and hold on to them tight, we’re gonna need each other in these next four years, and beyond.

*Shoutout to #TeamBlack for being the best team ever. And to Jeanette, Kendra & Shawn for sustaining me through the worst of it.