#BHAQ: How might Charlotte become a more welcoming city to newcomers and local neighborhoods?

Charlotte Community Events

On Tuesday night, I attended a Forum event at the Community Cafe Matters: a work extension program of Charlotte Rescue Mission, an addiction recovery program that offers its 120-day recovery program free of charge.

I wrote this brief newsletter before this event.

Charlotte Center City Partners (CCCP)

Rick Thurmond, Chief Marketing Officer of CCCP talked about his remarkable lifelong civic work serving the Charlotte community. Rick is a giver. During his talk, Rick told the story about the headline picture which I do not recollect seeing.

Art and story-telling combined together are powerful forces for community-building and remembrance. I will now forever remember this BLM image and the collaboration of 17 artists who made this happened. Wow!

At the end of Rick's talk, I asked him the headline question for future consideration and ongoing dialogues. My question was not, in any way, based on any criticisms of Charlotte. I asked my question with an open heart in the spirit of inquiry about making long-term impacts. Rick adeptly responded to my question.

Why did I asked this Big Hairy Audacious Question (#BHAQ)?

Let me give a short back history to this BHAQ. Newbies are seldom given the opportunities to tell and share their stories to larger audiences. In my humble self-confession, I do not do welcoming and joining very well. I have to work at it. Welcoming and joining are nurturing arts that take continuous practice.

When my wife and I first arrived, we joined the UUA church in 2016. We made friends with Charlotte newbies. Newbies are more open to new connections. We host a movie night with a pot luck dinner (8-12 people) about every 6 weeks or so over the past 4 years

In 2016, I joined Novant healthcare system. Soon after arrival, I learned about a joint equity initiative between the two major health care systems. I sent an e-mail to Carl Armato CEO about my volunteer interest in equity. He responded! He connected me to a black leader with a beautiful spirit, Dr. Ophelia Garmon-Brown, and my boss's boss.

I had delightful conversations with Ophelia. In contrast, my boss's boss took great umbrage of me going behind his back.

What is fascinating about equity advocacy is that some people embrace the concept but do not practice inclusion. Some advocates compete for the pedestal of recognition and power for their own professional branding purposes. Ironic, right.

And more such stories ...

A tale of two cities

First I lived in Rochester for 31 years and lived in a welcoming small community in Brighton called Home Acres which was a DREAM neighborhood for raising our two daughters. Every child deserves to live in a welcoming, flourishing community with access to good education.

Rochester does a better job of public education overall than Charlotte. But both cities have unacceptable levels of educational inequities with wide disparities between wealthy and impoverished communities.

In Home Acres, my wife and I really got to know our elderly next door neighbors. Jerry and Marilyn became adopted grandparents to our daughters. They became part of our family. When Jerry died, the Sullivan family asked me to be pale bearer at Jerry's Funeral. This was a once-in-a-life-time honor.

In contrast, Charlotte has an amazing downtown area in comparison to Rochester. We rarely ever went to downtown Rochester, a hollow decimated city center devoid of a heart in the1990s. However, Charlotte is lacking in parks and green spaces as compared to Rochester.

Given our past ingrained pattern of rarely going downtown, we have not taken full advantage of the Charlotte Uptown, especially during Covid. Rick's story challenged me to venture out more to see what Charlotte has to offer more.

Charlotte has developed so rapidly that our house price has appreciated more in 6 years than the value of house that we owned for 30 years. These growing pains present special challenges as to how Charlotte enterprises might go above and beyond to cultivate a welcoming culture, especially for creatives, innovators and entrepreneurs. This creates win-win synergistic opportunities.

Co-create a welcoming melting pot

Imagine if local enterprises, non-profits, community organizations, religious organizations, academic and educational organizations, business associations (especially realtors), corporations and the Charlotte Newcomers Club co-developing and co-evolving a welcoming masterplan to embrace new talents into flourishing networks of meaningful connections and communities.

• How might the Charlotte community invite newcomers to share their needs and brainstorm ideas about cultivating co-creative communities?

Imagine a Charlotte Newcomers Magazine (online community-building website, monthly introductions of newbies and new businesses, weekly zoom calls) along with an annual paper publication distributed via realtors and landlords of rental properties as a master resource guide to assimilate newbies into the local community. Old timers with established networks are unaware of newbie's experiences and perspectives, especially in a rapidly growing city.

Charlotte Center for the Humanities & Civic Imagination (CCHCI)

Let me also promote this event organized by Dr. Mark Peres, Executive Director of?CCHCI.

The Festival of Ideas

See you there! And happy to connect with kindred spirits about cultural humility and equity.

How might we move beyond cultural competence?

The pride of competing healthcare systems advocating for equity stands in the way of cultivating cultural humility to collaborate on making long-term impacts. The hubris of health care systems in tackling inequities is both admirable and naive. We have to go upstream beyond the social determinants of health to address the ethical, political, economic and educational determinant of inequities.