Anti Racist Neighboring: Where one lives has huge implications on how one experiences day to day reality. For people who have options, deciding where to live —and how to live there once you decide— is one of the fundamental decisions that you make that will shape the rest of your life. Personally, it determines who will be your physical neighbors and what relationships of neighboring are possible. Politically, this choice has a profound impact on racial and economic justice —either this decision makes our society more just or makes it less just.. Anti-racist neighboring is a way of describing an important aspect of what Collins Streamside Community means for some of its neighbors. The call is to be a neighbor in the full sense of this word —based in relationships of mutual respect and care— with the people with whom we share our neighborhood. For some white and educated community members, this means developing relationships across boundaries of race and class that often divide and “sort out” communities and people from one another. The opportunity map below captures what this sorting out process means in terms of life opportunities (access to jobs, school performance, transportation access, health, etc.). This letter describes several different ways of anti-racist neighboring, including the Collins Streamside context in Irvington and Baltimore.

Anti-racist neighboring: a letter to young white people with options