ESSAYTalk to MePeople learn in different ways.Some are book learners; theywere the ones who made thegood grades. Others learn fromexperience. Unless they do it,they don’t understand or believeit. Others are people learners.They soak up knowledge and importantlife lessons by engagingwith other people. I am one ofthose types, learning from otherpeople’s hard-won wisdom.Judith Snow, a Canadianwriter, activist, and artist, whopassed away last year, first visitedSavannah in the early 1980s. Shereturned several times over thenext 30-plus years, to enjoy a Tybeerather than a Toronto winter,and was often asked to speakwith church, community, andcivic groups about the power ofimagination. She always traveledwith a couple of personal assistantsand a powered wheelchair.Because of life-long spinal paralysis,she could only move twofingers on one hand, but enoughso that she could manage the joystick that navigated her chair.The inability of her body to movenever stopped her. With thatchair, those assistants, and a cornucopiaof curiosity, she traveledanywhere she wanted, includingup the sides of mountains.She could also move hermouth and allowed her sharpmind and quick wit to manageany situation. Judith would askthings like, “Is dependence theopposite of independence? Isdependence a crime? Is disadvantagea crime? If not, why do weact like it is?” What do you say tosomeone who rolls up in frontof a class of 30 graduate studentsand asks “Is adding a ramp to abuilding an accommodation, ordoes it correct a design flaw?”Two very different ways to thinkabout the world. She wonderedaloud if we should encourageJOHN CARRINGTONTom Kohler, formerexecutive director ofChatham-Savannah CitizenAdvocacy and a co-founderof Emergent Savannahpeople to be independent orshould we help them envisionways to create patterns of respectfulinterdependence.If we were going to focus onhow to create patterns of respectfulinterdependence acrossSavannah, what might thoseconversations sound like andwho should be having them?My friend Patricia Puckettonce heard Papa Snell, theman for whom the communityof Snellville east of Atlanta isnamed, say, “Snellville is nobody’shometown anymore. It’s not thenewcomers’ hometown, becausethey just moved here; and, it’schanging so fast that people whogrew up here don’t feel like it’stheir hometown anymore.”Is Savannah headed towardbecoming no one’s hometown?Whose voices promote corporatecommercialism over local cultureand community? Do we want tobe seen as the “Hostess City” orthe “Beloved Community?” If wechoose to be the Hostess City,what do we, as a community,receive in return? If we envisionthe Beloved Community, whatwould our growth, wages, andcity budget look like?Many years ago, a friend ofmine said something that has becometruer the older I get: “Thefish aren’t swimming aroundthinking about the water.”His point is, we are all—personally,culturally, and communally—swimmingaround in ourown water and not thinking toomuch about it. What if we heldsome tough conversations thatwould help us “think about thewater” here in Savannah?Could we transform a city thatprides itself on charm and civilityand create space for those wholive on “thin” as well as “thick”ice?” Could our civic meetings,enlivened by different voices,become vibrant and vital placesof public discourse? How couldwe bring humility, curiosity anddeep listening into these rooms?How might we explore privilege,power, prejudice, assumption,inequity? What attitudes andactions would we need to revisit,challenge, and change to movetoward respectful interdependence,and rise above fear? Arewe willing to make an honest assessmentof patterns of diminishmentand oppression that standin the way of creating respectfulinterdependence?Imagine a city where peoplefrom all of walks and wheels oflife ask, “What can people cometo mean to one another? Whatcan people come to mean to thecommon good?”Just imagine: a more belovedcommunity.86 BEACON
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