By Aaron Fairchild
The combination of Dr. Martin Luther King Day and the Presidential Inauguration happening this week, just after crossing the threshold into a new year, offers plenty for reflection.
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
As we embark into 2021, our anticipation is fueled by all that has come to pass over the last year. 2020, at least in part, lived up to its promise of improved vision. Last year revealed with clarity an inequitable and unjust racial caste system at work throughout America. We watch as the physical, financial and emotional suffering brought on by COVID-19, and the outgoing Administration, disproportionately impact some Americans more others.
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Kahlil Gibran
Where do you find joy?
Leading up to this Presidential Inauguration I have watched the replay of violent scenes at the Nation’s Capital disheartened, aghast and yet hopeful – I am sure this is an emotional mixture many of you share in degrees. To remain hopeful and perhaps even positive while feeling aghast and disheartened is to achieve a certain symmetry; balance and wholeness come to mind. The hard work of holding competing forces simultaneously becomes even harder given the uncertainty our Nation is experiencing.
How do we hold our collective need for accountability for violence and violent rhetoric, with love and empathy at the same time? What will you say to your friends and family that support(ed) Donald Trump the next time you see them?
Dr. Cornel West offers some hope.
“We come from a people who have been terrorized for four hundred years. And we’ve learned a lot from being terrorized. We’ve learned a lot from being invisible, spit on, dishonored, and devalued. One thing we’ve learned is that when you have been terrorized, it is spiritually empty to terrorize others back. We need to take it to a higher moral and spiritual level … In the age of terrorism, you can learn a whole lot from people who’ve been terrorized for four hundred years but who have taught the world so much about freedom; from people who’ve been hated for four hundred years but who still teach the world so much about love.” (The Quote is from an interview with Dr. West, Prisoner of Hope, in the Sun Magazine)
This quote calls me to look for role models in Dr. Martin Luther King and other peace activists of the civil rights era and their commitment to hold to love and peace in the face of violence. It asks me to follow the current agents of change within the African American community as examples of the possibility of holding empathy and love simultaneously with the need for accountability and justice. Black voices matter now as much as ever. Black safe spaces matter now as much as ever. Black lives matter now more than ever if we have any hope of coming together in harmony.
Listening to Black voices, for me, means I must be in listening proximity. Join me and Green Canopy in 2021 as we attempt greater proximity so we can better listen and continue learning the many ways real estate, the development of real estate, the financing of real estate, the construction of real estate and the ownership of real estate are being utilized as a massive turbine for African American community empowerment and positive environmental outcomes. Partnering in right relationship with and supporting Black owned, and/or Black led organizations, creates a force multiplier of positive social outcomes for everyone. When aligning issues of equity and justice with green real estate development methods and materials, greater social balance, sustainability and perhaps symmetry can be achieved.
Green Canopy looks forward to partnering with all of you and its many stakeholders throughout the region and ecosystem of real estate to advance its mission and Theory of Change in 2021.
Lastly, I leave you with a list a friend shared with me last week of 10-positive things of 2020. This list calls me to imagine even more positivity. It anchors me in considering how we show our love for each other.
May the American community we inherited be blessed, and may we continue the hard work of bringing this community together in wholeness and with our love.