Tag Archives: Georgia

A Year In Atlanta: Home, Community, and Work

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Magic Is Something You Make

My journal cover exclaims, “Magic is something you make.” It has been a year and a week since I returned to Atlanta. The moments I recorded in my journal attest to the magic and mayhem of my making. The past week in review speaks to the efforts of the year. On Tuesday, April 11, 2023, I led 15 hungry cyclists to my favorite Indian restaurant in Decatur. That Thursday, I added a third bookshelf to the collection at my townhouse. On Saturday, by dumb chance and good luck, I spent an afternoon sailing Lake Lanier with friends. Finally, I joined local Bike Grid enthusiasts for a slow roll up Peachtree Street Sunday. The magic is ON, and I continue to cast a few designs forward.

Bikers Can Boat

On April 11, 2022, I shipped my collection of old journals and mementos from my ex-boyfriend’s apartment in Tokyo to my mother’s home in Tucker. Shortly after that, at customs & control in Narita, I turned in my Japanese residence card. Then, with both anxiety and goals as carry-ons, I set off to my hometown. My three-prong goals for Atlanta were: to make a home, participate in the community, and to do meaningful work. Here are my thoughts on a few critical magic milestones from this return.

1. Home

For the first five months of my return, I took up a garden-facing room at my mother’s house. Over the pandemic and in Japan, I had longed for an oven. Beyond that, my ideas of home were transformed by my experience going from a 1,100 square foot house (Bluffton, South Carolina) to a 200 square foot efficiency (Suginami-ku, Tokyo). The Atlanta I returned to was (is?) in a white-hot housing market. Things were expensive and going fast. I wanted something cozy and inside the perimeter.

Eventually, I bought a townhouse in a Chamblee-area community to store my books and souvenirs. In this complex, I can hear birds chirp from nearby woods while I drink coffee in the mornings. On the grounds in the rear of the property is a park that follows a creek that later connects to more water. This place is a great place to get my footing.

2. Community

In pre-COVID Tokyo, I was part of a thriving international community of ex-pats. My social silence grew as our gathering spaces and social outlets diminished post-Pandemic. I missed eavesdropping in the grocery line and making conversations with strangers. On returning to America, I looked forward to creating and being in community again.

Desi Decatur Ride

Through a CouchSurfing(CS) event last summer, I made friends with a group of the Atlanta cycling community. Through group riding here, I have found another sort of home. Atlanta by bike looks different. I began to appreciate the nitty-gritty needs for cycle infrastructure. On the Beltline, cruising through the newly connected areas of Atlanta, it is much easier to see historically underfunded areas in the grip of gentrification. My cyclist amigos share a sense of civic duty. We made good chit-chat with a city official on our Sunday ride. As we deepen community relationships through fun and advocacy, I suspect I will continue to appreciate the new takes on Atlanta.

 

 

3. Meaningful Work

When I left the US in 2017, I was tired of the direct services legal work I had been doing in southern Georgia (across the river from Bluffton, SC, where I lived at the time). Thankfully, the sabbatical from law practice (and respite from Trump) brought me a new way to examine my professional capabilities. From there, I found joy in teaching, coaching, and consulting.

Along the Beltline

Time in Tokyo also transformed what I dared to envision for Atlanta (granted, Atlanta may never be as progressive. It sits in red Georgia, after all.) Upon my return last year, I started attending seminars at the intersection of housing and justice. I volunteered for a conference where I met GSU Professor and Housing Scholar Dan Immergluck and got a copy of his book Red Hot City. Atlanta’s car-centeredness points to the complex interplay of transport, housing, and access. In another seminar, I crossed paths with an old Atlanta CS friend who was Dan’s student and just finished his master’s in urban studies. At such a seminar, I learned about the movement to Stop Cop City. Finally, through the right partnerships, I feel lucky to have identified work for a community-based small-scale developer in Atlanta bringing affordable housing to under-developed parts of the city.

4. Tough Stuff

One of the most challenging parts of my move has been the saga of my journals. Since age 7, I have intermittently written words in journals to deal with life, changes, and reflections. In Tokyo, I took on the task of reading and notating about 25 lbs of handwritten diaries. Unfortunately, those journals I sent from Japan last year did not make it to Tucker—thanks to the US Postal Service. Then, to add salt to the wound, my family lost three generations of jewelry in a burglary from my mother’s home around Christmas time. As I figure out how to carry these losses, I am grateful that I can still appreciate what is in front of me now.

Boats or Bikes?

From my complex’s backwoods, we can eventually get to Briarcliff Road. My family has lived on various parts of this road during our 30+ years in Atlanta. If you take Briarcliff Road and travel on it south, you can eventually see the changes brought about by the Beltline. In a sense, I rode back home without knowing precisely what it would bring.

Opening up to a breeze can refresh your room or your life. The capacity to restore is at the heart of my beliefs and hopes about home. To live as you dream requires determination. It helps to have supporters and to build in community. Reflecting on the intermittent roller coaster of the last year, I feel blessed to have found a warm sense of community. After long perseverance, I am engaged in work that I believe makes the world a better place. Finally, as I continue my personal mission of flourishing to the bounds of my human potential, I hope to make more time to write and share as I organize, educate, and empower.

Fun with Flowers

Atlanta, Inc: How to Fail Your Constituents

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Atlanta Police

Last year when I returned to Atlanta, I began participating in seminars, conferences, and public hearings. In many ways, the city I returned to looks shinier and hip. Yet, I find myself trying to make sense of Atlanta and why it operates less like a city and more like a corporate playground. As a practicing attorney, I often realized that the legal system is grounded in preserving the interests of the haves over the have-nots. In Atlanta, I see that the city’s actions and policies also have this same predisposition. Community activism and concern for the public good first took me to law school. It inspires me to write, advocate and elevate dissent to this day.

 

Regarding housing and public safety, I find myself woefully embarrassed by Atlanta, Inc. While Atlanta claims to be “a city too busy to hate,” this is essentially trite lip service. The former home of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. overwhelmingly has forgotten the message of economic and social justice. In the decade since I have lived in the city, Atlanta housing has become increasingly expensive, police abuses have escalated, and corporations are continuously placated. Together, these concerns have brought me to re-double my activism in demanding more from city officials.

 

On Housing

Atlanta Affordable Housing

 

City Kick Backs to Corporates

While Money magazine concluded that Atlanta is the best place to live in its 2022 list, it also pointed out Atlanta’s failures in housing. At a multi-disciplinary seminar on Atlanta, I heard from globally renowned Urban Studies scholar and Georgia State Professor Dan Immergluck. His new book Red Hot City highlights various LOST opportunities to improve the availability of affordable housing in Atlanta. Consequently, over two decades, Atlanta has intentionally grown whiter and wealthier. Thanks to ill-conceived incentives for developers, Atlanta has deprived its public coffers. City leadership has lined developers’ wallets with unnecessary incentives like tax credits and kickbacks. To add insult to injury, Atlanta fails to tax commercial properties effectively. In doing so, they deprive the city of funding for well-publicized affordable housing promises. By and large, the product of these stupid policies has been to impoverish public finances, gentrify historically black neighborhoods, and intentionally attract only higher-end developments.

 

Georgia and the Love of Corporate Landlords

 

To make matters worse, the largely Republican-backed Georgia legislator is cozy with real estate interests. As a result, Georgia has some of the worst tenant protections in the country. As Georgia is considered largely landlord-friendly, it has attracted institutional investors looking for the easiest way to make money with the lowest overhead. Consequently, the Atlanta housing market has seen an uptick in displacement in neighborhoods targeted by out-of-state investors. Since local jurisdictions are pre-empted from rent stabilization and other tenant reforms, the state has one of the highest rates of evictions in the country. With the changes in the housing market post-pandemic, the situation has gotten worse. There are not enough units available at either affordable or gouging prices. Altogether, Atlanta is a tough rental market for a newly transplanted employee due to its costs and few tenant protections.

 

 

On Public Safety

Behind Bullets and Bullshit

Stop Cop City

George Floyd’s murder in 2020 brought a global reckoning for changes in policing. Not long after Black Lives Matter rallies were held across the country, in June 2022, an officer of the Atlanta Police Department (APD) killed Rayshard Brooks, a black man who was trying to sleep in his car at a Wendy’s. Atlanta erupted in righteous protest afterward. The Wendy’s was burned to the ground; the police chief stepped down. Such actions are not new. The APD has consistently eroded the public trust and undermined or neglected to provide for the safety of black and brown residents of Atlanta. Even regional policing authorities have used illegal tactics and excessive use of force without substantive consequences.

 

In the wake of Rayshard’s murder and the countrywide cries to reform policing, Atlanta responded to #DefundthePolice with the exact opposite. Through the Atlanta Police Foundation and corporate backers (see Mainline for an excellent summary of the Atlanta police-prison industrial complex), the creation of a police safety training center was announced. Behind closed doors, in an undemocratic and widely criticized process, police supporters and the Buckhead community agreed to a perverse plan to build this facility on a former prison farm and in a tract of lush forest. This project, dubbed ‘Cop City, ‘ would use millions of precious public funds to build a state-of-the-art facility without addressing how the police will remedy their abuses on black and brown communities.

 

Since Cop City plans were announced, a broad coalition has coalesced in contesting these plans. Environmentalists, abolitionists, and community advocates have taken to the forest to protect it from development. Tensions have escalated since the plan was announced in 2021. Police-led raids of the forest have intentionally destroyed a community kitchen, campsites, and a mutual-aid operation. In December 2022, a protestor was murdered by police in the Atlanta Forest. While some agencies wear body cameras, no agency has provided the public with body camera footage. Despite training and equipment, the police again have failed Atlanta’s citizens.

 

In response, Cop City protestors held a rally in downtown Atlanta. In one of the country’s most surveilled cities, the police grabbed up random protestors and charged them with being `domestic terrorists.` The state agencies charged and funded to protect the community are working to terrorize the public. While it is unlikely the domestic terrorism charges will stick, they may have quelled some first-amendment dissent. In light of the repeated failures of policing in Atlanta, it is comical that Atlanta police agencies should deign to train other police officers.

Part of Atlanta Forest

Atlanta: Rooms for Improvement

 

Atlanta has some new bikeable paths and a few posh multi-use developments. Still, it seems that the city is more interested in boosterism for developers and corporations than the fate of its public. Instead of falling into despair, I focus on hope and a vision to work on progressive changes in Atlanta. In my attempts to jump into opportunities to improve the city, I have found unique and exciting opportunities to contribute.

In my return to Atlanta, I found many more ideologically aligned organizations doing good work. These inspire me to collaborate and create a path for a better city. For example, the Housing Justice League does community empowerment training for eviction defense and follows legislative reform at the state level. Beyond that, Atlanta is rewriting its zoning code. This is just one of several steps to help solve the housing affordability issue.

 

On the issues of public safety, there is no good reason to build YET another police training facility. Various interests compound to illustrate why Cop City should never be built. Instead of diverting funding from police, my hometown wants to eliminate a precious green space for a corporate-funded police playground. To that end, numerous organizations are fighting for justice. Community Movement Builders, a group aligned with the dissent against Cop City, recently trained legal observers with the help of the National Lawyers Guild.

 

Advocacy for sound policy and justice requires the courage to lead and take chances. Atlanta has always been a city of hustle and corporate climbing. I am reminded that the premise behind governance is the public good. Occasionally our public officials need to hear the citizenry to remind them. Only in this way can we expect accountability for the work of providing for all its citizens.

 

If you are interested in following along in my activism, please follow me on Twitter.

 

An Atlanta Story: Bikes Howling Into the Moon as Cars are Stuck

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The September Full Moon

At midnight on a late summer Saturday night, hip-hop music emanated from the traffic-jammed cars surrounding me as I traveled west along Edgewood Avenue with a bike posse. On my first group bike ride, I was both excited and nervous. This ride was supposed to make it across town and back (over 10 miles). Most car-driving Atlantans would be rightly terrified of biking this route. Car traffic, hills, and potholes are enough to scare the average Atlantan. While I was safely helmeted and well-lit, without the collective courage of this group, I likely would have stayed in the boring bar where I started my night. On my own, I could not have imagined cycling across Atlanta. But for that September Full Moon ride, I could have lived forever in ignorance and boredom in my own hometown.

Our motley crew comprised a ride leader on roller skates followed by cyclists of every race and age. We snaked our way through bumper-to-bumper clubbing traffic on Edgewood as onlookers stared at us. Occasionally, a cheerful drunk would greet us with a smile and a “HEY there!” More often, though, car drivers actively ignored us. They were stuck in gridlock; we cyclists were free to weave between lanes. This small gloat eased some of my tension.

Along with the heat, enthusiasm began climbing out of me. Without the layers of car steel as separation, the bumping music sent electric pulses through my body. My Saturday night fever grew, and I felt part of the night’s clubby scene. My bike and I connected with the groove and felt like I was dancing along with the city.

A Night Ride from M+M

Watch for Plates, Grates, Poles and Assholes

That night, the road hazards that first presented themselves became more apparent. Car drivers seem either distracted, indifferent, or actively vengeful. As we made our way to the west side of town, the occasional smell of Mary Jane and intermittent car honks punctuated our ride. En route, we encountered a sharp left turn and an immediate incline which slowed us all down. A shiny red Dodge Charger got behind the slowest rider (me) and began revving its engine. The car was less than three feet away and intimidating. When I reached the top of the hill, the Dodge and I were waiting at the same red light. As we were stopped together, I told the driver NICELY that his revving was scary. He laughed and told me he was “playing.” Then, the light turned green, and the Charger rolled up his window and sped off. This driver was driving recklessly. I noted the license plate; the other cyclists were unphased. While he was wrong to drive like that, the flow of the evening was so good. The road called us onwards. I let it roll off me as we caught a pleasant downward hill into the west side of town.

 

Summerhill Mural

I recalled my high school prohibition from entering this neighborhood. It was not considered safe when I was growing up. Now, here in the West End, was another happening corner. A few cool venues caused slowed car traffic. A whole line of scantily clad ladies was waiting to get inside a club. Meanwhile, crowds poured from parking lots and meandered along sidewalks to bars and clubs. From my bike, the excitement was palpable. That first ride showed me my old town in a new way. The Beltline has impacted the city incredibly by connecting previously segregated parts of town. Now, there are open public spaces to hang out and chill. Walking paths meet with restaurant patios giving  Atlanta a lively and dynamic vibe. I notice this as I remember my readings about legacy residents being displaced by growing rents, especially in southwest Atlanta.

Full Moon Ride November- L5P

Helpful Humans

After we passed the new westside developments, our group found a monster incline around The Gulch. Here I got a real sense of group ride camaraderie. I was sure my clunker of a vintage Schwinn bike was malfunctioning. I found it lying around in my mother’s garage not too long ago. The bike needed TLC, just as I required instruction for going up hills. Oh my god, the HILLS in this town! As I struggled with matching pace with everyone else, I hopped off my bike to push it up the steep incline. A veteran older rider offered to help me. I dismounted and let him take a look at my gear settings. This form of volunteerism was both refreshing and encouraging for me. As I continued to ride, I noticed that there are many good bike Samaritans among the group rides.

No club, dive bar, or café could meet the zest of cycling through Atlanta’s entertainment district on a Saturday night. After the ride, I felt electric. Every cell in my body demanded I dance, move, groove. Thanks to this ride, I felt thoroughly connected and immersed in the city for the first time since my repatriation. While I developed my passion for bike riding in Tokyo, riding where I grew up is a whole new beast. Since that Saturday night, I haven’t seen the city the same way. Since then, I have been hooked.

Get out the Vote Ride (Midweek Roll)

Bikes with the Final Word

Atlanta does not immediately pose herself as a bike-friendly town. The tenor of car driving is aggressive and irreverent towards human life. The public infrastructure is entirely car-based. For the tiny bit of bike infrastructure, there is very little enforcement. Cyclists are left to fend for their own safety. While mutual aid and camaraderie are the natural results of being relegated by the car culture, the future is increasingly anti-car. Cars are pollutants, dangerous to pedestrian safety, and cost us a time tax. They increase the cost of street maintenance, take up too much parking space, and are expensive to maintain. As the city embraces more progressive demands from its residents, the gospel of bike life is spreading. Until then, Atlanta is a car town with an addictive bike habit.

 

On Boulevard NE and Edgewood Avenue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are You A White Supremacist?

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Are you a white supremacist?  I found myself wondering on Memorial Day as I walked through Helen, Georgia with my mom & stepdad.  Along the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the town of Helen is an alpine-themed getaway for many city folks.  This past weekend Helen was a meeting of two Georgias, two Americas.  Spanish-speaking families gathered for cookouts along the green grass in the riverside city park.  The public park was alive with people enjoying the Memorial Day holiday while watching merry tubers float down the river.

Not far from this scene, a restaurant called Cowboys & Angels had live music.  The musician, Joe, was sitting in full Americana regalia, from an American flag button-up shirt, cowboy hat with an American flag rim, and shiny American buckle.  He sang country classics to a crowd wearing their own American regalia.  All these people united under the banner of a meal, but for how long?  Until someone is angry or disappointed, and this place turns into a death scene?

Can you blame me for this concern?  On our way up from Atlanta that day, we passed numerous signs for a candidate running for US Congress with the image of an AR-15 underneath his name.  His only campaigning was the image of this gun.  Is it fear-mongering or the symbolism of a desperate America?  We also passed churches with little American flags along the yard.  The awnings of many churches were covered with `Welcome` printed on top of American flags.  It had me wondering, does this mean the church welcomes you only if you are American?  What does it mean to be American to these folks?  What version of America qualifies?

Are these the signs of supremacy?  A little less doom scrolling is absolutely in order.  But after the white supremacist attack in Buffalo, New York, and the incomprehensible school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, I have to wonder, is a small town in Georgia next?  Can I know that this type of violence won’t happen where I go?  I am afraid it is hard to rule out the possibilities.

Our American epidemic of gun violence is unequaled, unchecked, and problematic.  The ideologies behind mass shootings are grounded in racism, power, and hatred.  While we know that banning assault rifles worked in the past, it is not often mentioned in the public sphere.  Interviews with NRA spokespeople seem circular and mind-boggling.  I could recall that the history of this country is steeped in violence.  The profit motive ultimately drives us.  From there, where will we get the motivation to take this problem head-on?

Instead, defenseless children are being asked to prepare for active shooter drills.  That `solution` itself is looking at this problem as an inevitability.  That is AFTER someone has arrived armed at a school.  The situation in Uvalde is itself a horror.  The students did have this training.  It was the police that failed them.  Where then can we turn for help?

From the comfort of my home, I have pondered.  Yes, we have (a fraudulent application of) the second amendment.  Nonetheless, most Americans want some form of legislation for gun safety. One great article that covers this issue in depth is To Change Mass Shooting (Truthout). A deep soul searching is in order.

We never know where it will be safe to hang out.  Can I go grocery shopping or teach in peace?  I can wither away in my angst, or I can take action.  Democracy survives on citizen action.  I will attend the March for Our Lives in Atlanta.  There will be many other locations where this March is going on.  We, the people working for a more perfect union must make our voices heard.  Even if it requires uncomfortable, non-violent confrontation.  The alternative, to live constantly in fear, is not acceptable.

Othering & Belonging: Diversity in Georgia

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Surrounded by green pines and sitting on the red clay along Blue Ridge Lake, I stared into murky green waters. Under the water’s surface, a fish moved between the shade and the sun. She swam above rotting foliage and around a fallen branch. I watched her swim as I was digesting the hour before.

Blue Ridge Mountains, Photo by Juan Davila on Unsplash

“Where are you from?” The real estate agent asked me. I sense she was trying to size me up rather than have a conversation. I stared at her in mild shock and disbelief while trying to hide my angst. “I live in Atlanta,” I responded with blank eyes. I felt judged and was reluctant to gab.

Inside my head, I meet with my vagabond turmoil. My mixed bag of responses floats in my head. “I am from nowhere. I am from everywhere. A three-continent list would be the beginning of my life story and genealogy.” But really, who has time for all that? Actually, I no longer know where I am from. I am living in a constant state of flux. Identity, ultimately, is a limiting form of identification.  

How to Belong in Georgia?

Lately, there is a more significant issue. I no longer know where I belong. I feel like that oil slick hanging in the finger of Blue Ridge Lake- challenging to mix and sprinkled with yellow pollen dust. This theme, where are you from, I have touched on before. In Georgia, and in particular, now, this is a loaded question. I think the more relevant questions are: “Can we get to know each other? Where are we going? How can we work together to get there?”

Today, I am from a place where old lessons mix with an even older desire. Another middle-aged lady asks the same kind of question in the next hour. I looked for a non-BBQ lunch option and saw a well-loved Cuban sandwich shop in downtown Blue Ridge. After discussing the yucca frita, she asked, “What is your nationality?” I told her my ethnicity and that my forefathers are from India originally. She told me I looked Latina, and I grinned in acknowledgment.”How about you?” I asked back. She responded with a short history, “I am Tampanea (from Tampa, Florida). My father was from Spain, and my mother was from Italy. And then, my husband from Cuba. So here I am, arroz con mango.” The expression was perfect! A strange mix of rice and mango. I smiled, and we went on to a chat about Georgia turning blue in 2020. She mentioned that in the mountains of Georgia, there are pockets of people from everywhere. Her words absolutely resonated. I remembered my days of grass-roots campaigning; Atlanta is that salad bowl type of mix.  

Cortado Photo by Tyler Nix on Pexels.com

Our Rich Heritage

After lunch and cortado, I strolled along the train tracks cutting through downtown Blue Ridge. On a parallel street, tucked between strip centers sporting Trump posters, a shop called The Joint caught my attention. The shop includes a Beetle parked out front and psychedelic colored furniture on the grass. Here, I found an Atlanta ex-pat. For a little while, we both lived in Homepark. The Mudcats, a local Atlanta band I followed, played at her wedding. We chatted briefly about Georgia and the changes in Atlanta. Between our old memories and the mountain air, I knew I was related and belonged somehow to the history of this red-blue patchwork state.

The Trump Store just outside Ellijay

Heading back to the Airbnb, I pulled over for an irresistible photo. I spotted a real-life Trump Store behind a McDonald’s in a strip plaza adorned with for lease signs and potholes. Next door to the store stood a Vietnamese-American photo studio, and two doors further down was a Mexican restaurant, Mucho Kaliente. The dim-lit Trump shop sported a flyer for an Indian-American Labor Commissioner. Mr. Bhatt here poses with Trump as he campaigned for “Georgia First” & “America First.” That night, from my country farmstead Airbnb, I wondered how he would balance those with Trump’s racist rhetoric. I simmered on this while my Christian Korean-American host family cooked bibimbap downstairs.

Georgia Roots & Atlanta Dramas

Everybody I encounter in Atlanta is from somewhere else. The only people with ancient knowledge of the land in Georgia were pushed away. That now illicit history traced further back points at the ugly roots of our national story. The reckoning with our past is a step into what we are working towards. That is the only thing that will bring us all together. I am less interested in anyone’s background. I am more interested in their heart and how we can make space for all of us to belong. Atlanta is quickly gentrifying parts of its classic inner-city neighborhoods. Traffic along the 285 Perimeter gets worse annually. The effects of global warming make Atlanta even hotter. There are so many issues that touch all of us. It takes an understanding of where we want to go to work together.

Traffic is Democratizing; We all slow down (not Atlanta) Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Our Spiritual Evolution

A force moving us towards inclusion and cross-cultural understanding is the process of our spiritual evolution. One of my favorite books, The Road Less Traveled, puts it this way:

The notion that the plane of mankind’s spiritual development is in a process of ascension may hardly seem realistic to a generation disillusioned with the dream of progress. Every-where is war, corruption and pollution. How could one reasonably suggest that the human race is spiritually progressing? Yet that is exactly what I suggest. Our very sense of disillusionment arises from the fact that we expect more of ourselves than our forebears did of themselves. Human behavior that we find repugnant and outrageous today was accepted as a matter of course yesteryear.

Dr. Scott Peck

Dr. Peck builds his idea of spiritual development throughout his book. Essentially, energy and intention toward progress grow from individual effort. First, a person works towards putting their spiritual house in order, connecting values with action, purpose, and discipline. That effort is personal progress. From there, people work to bring alignment into their community. They empathize when others are wronged; they work with a sense of purpose in their day-to-day relationships.

We Do Love One Another

We unite against displacement, injustice, or “othering” which we do not suffer because of our spiritual evolution. The situation in Ukraine is an example of this. In western countries, there is a wellspring in support of Ukraine. (Of course, for another post, this support has a sharp edge. Why don’t we feel the same sympathy for the loss of life in Palestine, Syria, and Yemen?) I was in Japan when the world rose in anger against the murder of George Floyd. For a while, the Facebook group I admin-ed was a flood of support, irrespective of race. Later, in Tokyo, many locals and foreigners united for the Black Lives Matter march. In the US, mass shooting occurs regularly. How much longer till we bring together a balance of competing interests in the gun debate?

The very fact that we care about others speaks to our collective spiritual evolution. While the world gets smaller, thanks to technology and transportation, we can move towards a genuinely pluralistic society. We get there by working on what unites us rather than what divides us. A shared future, a shared planet, and healthier public institutions are the steps to make Georgia part of an even better Earth. Just as we seek ways to honor the rights of those we consider “different” from us, we can actively create a sense of belonging. We can work towards belonging regardless of political leanings, ethnic background, and economic class. There are infinite ways in which we can support one another. The goal, I believe, is to find how we are united rather than how we are different.