What Does Community Mean?

Aurora: So let’s get into it. What do we mean when we say community? And to help work through this, we have two really awesome people joining us today. Mariel Freeman and Bonkosi Horn thanks so much for being here. Can you start off just by introducing yourselves?

Bonkosi: I am Bonkosi Horne, a.k.a. Bon. I am a mother. I am an entrepreneur. I am she/her. And I identify as a Congolese Iowan living in Philadelphia. Yeah.

Mariel: And Mariel Freeman, she/her. I am a small business owner of a coffee shop and a yoga studio and Philadelphia. And I am white.

Kelly: So we called both of you up because we know that each of you have arrived at your own understanding of community from pretty different perspectives. So let’s start at the beginning. And growing up, what was your understanding of community?

Kelly: So we called you both up because we know that you each have arrived at your understanding of community from pretty different perspectives. Let’s start at the beginning. Growing up, what was your understanding of community?

Bonkosi: I was born and raised in Iowa City. And that is, I would say, what has shaped my entire identification of what community is. There’s this aspect of really relying on your neighbor. I think that that’s a very Midwestern pioneer sense of of existing in this world. And there’s a sense of giving without expectation. And then you bring in that aspect for me of being a daughter of an immigrant. And Africans specifically really just embrace community and embrace everyone. So you’re part of the family once you walk in our door. It’s literally just extending an arm and welcoming everyone in. And that’s my sense as understanding of community.

Aurora: And was just an was that just something that you saw? It was just a knowing? How did that specifically show up for you in your home?

Bonkosi: I really think it’s a being. Every Sunday, my mom has, you know, there we have 20 extended relatives at my home, and that’s every Sunday growing up. So for me, it was who I saw her being and how I saw her existing within this community. So, yeah, I think it was definitely a a visual, but also just that. Isn’t that how everyone is?

Aurora: Well, I think there in lies the question. And so, Mariel, share with us sort of what does it community mean to you?

Kelly: Growing up.

Mariel: So I didn’t have community growing up. I grew up in New Jersey, but actually in a very rural remote part of New Jersey where my school was like 20, 30 minutes away by car. The grocery store was 30 minutes away by car. So I feel like I grew up with quite a bit of isolation. You know, like the term we’re wise where we’re wounded. I think really I don’t want to say inspired me, but compelled me to to search for what community was and what it meant and what it looked like as a young adult, an adult.

Aurora: You know, I think this is so interesting because this in and of itself just tells us, right, sort of the distinct places that we come from as it relates to community. How has community evolved for you? The definition of it, your role in it, your. I’m going to dare say accountability in it. From where? What you experience as a child versus where you find yourself now, as an adult as two amazing entrepreneurs leading incredible efforts in the Philadelphia community.

Mariel: So I figured out somewhere in college that the most important feature in overall health is belonging. I started to find that through yoga – started – and, you know, kissed a few frogs because the yoga community is brought with cults and cult like communities and intentional communities and communities that have, you know, that have had very harmful impact. And so as I learned and realized that there needs to be this sense of belonging, and the only way we experience is that when we are in service to something greater than ourselves, which requires, you know, probably three or more beings that feel like they belong to something greater together. I started to explore intentional communities and ashrams and yoga communities, and I definitely felt like I didn’t belong and something was missing. I loved the teachings. I loved the practice, and I didn’t love the communities. And I didn’t feel like I belonged and I wasn’t sure why. And I think it’s really only become more clear in the last few years. That, you know, that community is a big responsibility. And so I think just like what it means and how it’s evolved is that I never lost sight of the fact that the most important thing is that people feel welcome and like they belong when they when they walk into any one of our spaces, whether it’s our home, our coffee shop, our yoga studio, a party, you know, outside somewhere, we want everyone to feel like they belong and they’re welcome. And at the same time, it’s not enough. There’s so much more to it than that. And that’s kind of where I’m at right now.

Kelly: How about you, Bon? At this moment in time. How are your views of community been shaped and your understanding of what community is and means to you?

Bonkosi: It’s shifted in the last I would say in the last four to five years for me in creating spaces that are typically not not destinations for communities. So working for Lulu Lemon, as well as building our own businesses, me and my husband. What I what I really craved was what Mariel was speaking to is just creating a space where people felt like they belonged. And I think for me, it’s about create continuing to create spaces, experiences, relationships, intimate relationships that everyone feels warm and welcome and that they know that they can come to me for anything. It is a sense of responsibility that I have often struggled with because it feels like such a daunting task and such a daunting responsibility to be a voice and be a space a physical body to exude community. And it’s what I feel is my responsibility on this planet is to spread that.

Bonkosi: And that reminds me, Marriel, we had a conversation prepping for this time together, you mentioned how in this moment right now, you’re reexamining your role. And I’m going to put words in your mouth, so please that we can edit them. But you’re reexamining role as an entrepreneur, as a yoga teacher, a guide that you have a sanctuary, a beautiful sanctuary where people come and feel belonging. But now you’re wanting to morph it into more. What’s what’s what’s urging you on in this moment right now?

Mariel: Yoga is about like linking breath and movement so that we can activate our purpose in the world that we can engage in and of the world. For me, there’s always more seats at the table. Pull up a chair you know, we’ll we’ll we’ll we’ll figure out how to make more go around, you know. But at the same time, there has to be if you want to come to the table, there’s gotta be something on the table that interests you.

Kelly: Right.

Mariel: I feel like yoga in most minds, like, is limited to just yoga, even though yoga is kind of everything in my mind that I just want there to be more here, that more will feel attracted to more offerings, more opportunities to experience community in different ways and to move out into the world, into our larger communities and more informed ways. And so I’m not sure what that looks like just yet, but that’s definitely been inspired by having children over the last six years and then even more deeply by these past several months of being closed and having the time to kind of like to do soul searching of the business. Like what is the soul of this, quote unquote business? What is the soul of this community? Are those things in alignment? If not, how do we create more harmony and more positive impact? 

Aurora: Just from this conversation we can already tell how different our understanding of community is from the way we grow up. This is our foundation…but community isn’t stagnant. Our understanding of it can grow and evolve just like we as individuals can. 

Kelly: And this is the Opt-in. Before the break we got to hear from our two guests Mariel Freeman and Bonkosi Horn talk about how the understood community was growing up. And now we’re going to dive into what our understanding of community is today.

And I know that a lot of people…let me clarify…that a lot of white people are shifting their understanding of community in this moment. I mean we’re in the middle of a pandemic. We are amidst uprisings happening on an INTERNATIONAL scale against state violence. Unemployment numbers are sky rocket high, people are losing their homes…and I think that white people who are seeing how this moment is affecting their daily lives, are realizing they can’t do this alone.

Aurora: Exactly! And I am so curious about Marial and Bonkosi how do we create a pathway for people who may not know what community is? how do we create a pathway for people who may not know what community is? You know, you talked about Merial when you were growing up. You grew up in an environment that was quite isolated. But there was something in you that yearned for a sense of belonging, a sense of broader community for you bunkhouses. It was something that was just imbued in the way you were raised. It’s actually a conversation that Kelly and I have had, because as a as a child of an immigrant mother and an African-American father community and having the back of anyone you community was such a critical aspect of how I was raised. And so my question is, for four predominantly non people of color where this may not be as tent community may not be as tangible to them. How do we create that bridge of understanding? How do we create that, that hopefully that you’re any. And then the second question we’re going to ask is in an era of COVID how do we sustain, create and evolve community when we’re now sort of engaging with each other? Big screens and not so much in person?

Mariel: I think we have to be teachers and models. I think we have to transmit knowledge by observation. So just, you know, making the change in how we show up in the world and the relationships we have and the folks that we’re inviting to the table so that there are opportunities to be and more mixed spaces and and, you know, just kind of modeling how to have intimacy across lines of difference.

Bonkosi: And when I will I will share to that question is, I think for white people look around you. What are your intimate relationships like? Mariel and I have a very intimate relationship and we can have conversations and not that we’ve created what we’ve talked about, safe spaces. It’s like we’ve created courageous, brave spaces for ourselves having these conversations and for us, it’s not even the conversations aren’t uncomfortable. They’re just they are, you know. And so I think for white people and and black and brown people, look at your intimate relationships and are they representative of a diverse perspective? Are they you know, are they multifaceted? Are they speckled with white people or brown people and black people? Just that action in and of itself will start to get to the root of,OK, what work do I need to do? What work do I have? And I think that that’s what’s stopping so many people. We don’t do that. You know, we we sit in o ur circle and I think it’s as black and brown people. We sit in our circle and we’re like, well, it’s not our work. And then white people are like, well, it’s not our work. And so here we are. Right. And I think if we all just stopped and looked at or looked around and said, do all of these people look like me to all these people had the same perspective as me. Do all these people the same experience as me, do all you know, like we for the most part, all of us will say, yeah, they actually do look like me. Our neighbors look like us, are our friends, look like us. Our families typically look like us. So until we get to that point where we can say we can honestly and truthfully say I have intimate relationships. With people of all races, all ethnicities, all backgrounds or or diverse backgrounds, at least like that’s that’s the work. And I think that, like, yes, we’re far apart in this pandemic and we feel far apart. But Mariel and I have probably gotten closer in the last six months because of these conversations and because of like our shared values, but also wanting to to build a community that is representative and that is welcoming and people feel a sense of belonging.

Kelly: Because of our wounding, my wounding as a as a white person everything’s been to take and everything’s been to exploit. So to not to be welcomed into an area where I’m not I’m not it’s not something expected of me as an exchange that I’m just there. Welcome as myself and as as who is just being who I am is something that’s actually kind of foreign to a lot of us I think.

Bonkosi: And I think that there’s a there’s a peace, there’s a part of representation, right. So, like, do you see yourself in those black women or or the reverse? Do these black women? Do these black women see themselves in that group of white women? Right. So I just feel like you’re invited without having to be invited is to see yourself in all of those men, regardless of what they look like.

Aurora: That was it.

Kelly: Exactly. Thousand percent. Yeah. So it’s like not to make it about us white women, but you certainly have to look at our self, our humanity ourselves.

Mariel: It just also reminds me of like when I take the seat of yoga teacher that that like when we do self study and self and and spiritual practice, that we are doing the work to just dismantle our internalized systems of oppression, that growing up in white spaces is so as programed so deeply, so early on, both inherited and and programed. And so I think yoga is as much a space for for learning and self discovery as it is unlearning. White women just really need to learn self acceptance and trust in themselves and realize that we are sufficient unto ourselves not lacking, that we’re not an adequate so that we can get out of our own way and get out of the way and start to experience real intimacy across lines of difference.

Aurora: We cannot thank you enough for this time, for your wisdom and for being the light and the leaders.

Kelly: We love you so much. Thank you so much for your friendship or your support for you.

Are you welcoming us into your community? Thank you. So my thank you. 

Kelly: Thank you so much for being here with us today.

Aurora: And thank you all if you are listening right now! We want to know what community means to you. Find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @the opt in.

Kelly: We have a stacked season coming your way. So stay tuned

Aurora: Music for this episode is by Jordan McCree. And the Opt-In is produced by Rachel Ishikawa.

Kelly: See you next week.

Aurora: Bye.