AUTHOR: M. DATE: 11:59:00 PM ----- BODY:

I went to session two tonight of the City-Wide Dialogues on Boston's Ethnic and Racial Diversity. This is hard stuff. At one point during the session, they had us, in small groups, talk about an incident we had experienced or witnessed where we or someone else had been targeted based on their race or ethnicity. I thought of the story I wanted to tell, and them immediately thought, "I can't tell that story. I can't say anything. I have to pass." I was ashamed to tell the story because of my relationship to the person who made the well-intended-but-highly-insulting-comment and because my own role in the story was that of the dumbstruck, inarticulate idiot with her mouth hanging open. I made myself tell the story because that is, after all, the point of these sessions. My partners did not disappoint me, either in how they responded or in the stories they chose to share and the vulnerability they put out there. My story was of the "she's a credit to her race" variety, and when I was done, one woman in the group asked me if she thought the person's comment was really that far out of left field. I figured that it was more about saying something out loud that many people think, even inadvertently, but are either too politically correct or too genuinely committed to NOT being racists that they never say them out loud. And she said, "including you, right?" BAM! Time for the white girl to get to work. It's hard to fathom where these thoughts come from sometimes, except that it's oh-so-obvious. In our part of town, the houses are old, and were built back when lead pipes and lead paint were all the rage. Now the soil is full of lead, so you can't plant anything edible unless lead poisoning turns you on. Of course: beautiful plants in soil filled with lead will produce beautiful vegetables that are - wait for it - full of lead. So here's my question: given that we're working with soil that's full of lead, what can a person do to get the lead out of their plants?

-------- COMMENT-AUTHOR: FemiKnitMafia COMMENT-DATE:10:17 AM COMMENT-BODY:1) can you help me get my lead out?
2) can you tell us the story, without revealing the person who said it? the story might be very informative. --------