52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 43

Neighboring Tip of the Week - Take a stroll or roll around your neighborhood and simply notice the built environment as you do so. 

Good day, friends!

For this week’s neighboring tip, we are once again so honored and excited to share some of the wisdom of our friend and co-founder of The Julian Way, Rev. Justin Hancock. Justin teaches about community with, for, and by people with diverse embodiments, and this week, we continue to encourage you to think about the diversity of embodiments on your block and throughout your neighborhood.

Before we begin, we want to name that when we are using the language of diverse embodiments, we are referring to people with disabilities. Throughout this tip, you will hear this language repeated, and it is simply a different way of engaging with, and referring to, people with disabilities. Now, let’s get into the tip itself! This tip has three main parts. First, we encourage you to set aside time to take a mindful stroll or roll around your neighborhood. Because the intention behind this adventure is not just to get from “point a” to “point b”, you will probably want to set aside a little more time than you might usually do for other trips around the neighborhood. Next, now that you’ve set aside the time to do so, go on that adventure! We would encourage you to move slowly along your desired route, engaging each of your senses as you do so and paying particular attention to the built environment around you. Some things to pay attention to are the presence or absence of sidewalks, curb cuts, or access points to public transit. And, throughout, a question we would encourage you to be thinking about is, “Would this space be very accessible for my neighbor with a different embodiment than me?” If you don’t think you know the answer to this question for some of the spaces you encounter, that’s okay! Because guess what the third part of this tip is...ask your neighbor about it!

We never want to assume that we know how accessible or inaccessible a space is for our neighbors that have different embodiments than we do. Everyone experiences spaces differently, and that’s part of what makes our world such a diverse and beautiful place! So, after your stroll or roll, we would encourage you to go visit a neighbor who has a different embodiment than you and have a conversation about what you experienced. Because coronavirus continues to impact our communities in massive ways, we ask that you please plan this visit very intentionally. Many of our differently embodied friends have different ways of dealing with situations where their immune systems may be compromised, so just be sure you engage in conversation with your neighbor in a way that maintains physical distancing and overall, just healthy pandemic behavior. Perhaps your conversation will go something like this: “Hey! I was just at (insert location), and it looked really accessible (or inaccessible) to me. But what is it actually like for you? Is that the case? What am I not noticing or experiencing?”. Having this conversation is not only a fantastic way to continue fostering a relationship with your neighbor, but it’s also incredibly important. It both keeps you from making assumptions about the accessibility of spaces in your neighborhood and allows you to learn so much more about what accessibility actually looks like for your neighbor. We cannot begin to make our neighborhood spaces more accessible until we learn what accessibility actually looks like for our neighbors.

Happy neighboring!

P.S. Again, thank you, Justin, for all of your wisdom and encouragement. If you, reader, have not yet checked out The Julian Way, please click here and do so RIGHT. NOW. We promise that you’ll be inspired by their ridiculously awesome and powerful work!