On What Ifs and Real Life
This past week, I traveled to Cambridge with a group of folks from Indy to visit the Harvard Graduate School of Design to hear from students of Toni Griffith, Professor in Practice of Urban Planning and the brains behind Legacy Lands| Protopian Futures.
Legacy Lands| Protopian Futures is a multi-disciplinary design studio at the Harvard Graduate School of Design that imagined the future possibilities for Indianapolis’ historic Indiana Avenue neighborhoods if racial segregation, eminent domain, and slum clearance policies had not disrupted their existence.
The concept was inspired by the word pronoia (the opposite of paranoia) meant to describe an exuberant feeling that the entire world is rooting for you.
Over nine hours on a Friday afternoon, a group of brilliant design students led by this brilliant Black woman, showed us the fruits of their imagination in such a generous, genuine and generative way.
What if, instead of tearing Black neighborhoods apart a conservationist org had been formed to protect them?
What if Ray Crowe and Oscar Robertson led community engagement efforts for the city and Ray Crowe became head of economic development and they leveraged that power to bring resources back to Lockefield making it a hub for the sports industry with a direct benefit to Black residents?
What if Indigenous/Native American people were never expelled from the state of Indiana and their treaties with the American government were honored?
What if instead of dissolving, Black-owned hospitals in Indianapolis joined forces and created their own wellness network (which included access to doulas, herbal medicine, and other community-based healing modalities)?
And that’s just a glimpse of what they shared.
It was amazing to see where their minds went imagining a space in time where instead of active harm, Black people in Indianapolis existed in an environment that cherished them and championed their collective success and well-being.
At times, the room was heavy with the collective weight of truth. Harm did and still does occur.
We have witnessed and still live in the wake of its impact.
Just that morning we talked about the horrific injustice dealt our fellow community member by a racist (proven/documented) organization in the form of what can simply be described as an attempted public humiliation ritual.
Even in that heaviness, inspiration was felt.
It led to conversation and more imagination.
Which parts of this COULD we materialize? Yes, there are roadblocks but is it worth a shot to try?
I talked with a friend of mine on my way back home about the trip. She kinda scoffed at the idea of sitting around at this prestigious white institution to dream about what happened if racism didn’t get in the way of Black people’s lives.
I understood why she would say that though it feels super deflating.
Lots more to unpack and consider.