Where are all the black people in the tiny house movement?
Where are all the black people in the tiny house movement?
July 5, 2016 tinyhousetrailblazers Tiny Houses
“Where are all the black people?” That’s a question I saw posted in one of the tiny house groups I’m a member of when I had just started my tiny house build in early 2015. One of the group members was sharing pictures from a tiny house event that a number of tiny house people had attended and in picture after picture there was not one person of color to be seen. I watched the thread to see how the conversation would play out. The group member posting the pictures immediately took offense to the question and replied that they’d had a fun and great weekend and couldn’t understand why someone would bring up race. I understood the question completely, I just wanted to see how things were going to go. A few other commenters, who were also white, chimed in with the same sentiment as the person posting the pictures. I eventually commented and said I was raising my hand as a black person who was building a tiny house, that I would be representing for us. I also shared that I understood the question, that I knew it wasn’t asked to be offensive and that if the offended white people could think outside of themselves for a moment and imagine the scene in reverse, an event for something they were interested in and they only saw black people attending, they’d be wondering and asking the same question, as well as wondering if they should reconsider their interest in whatever it was they had originally been interested in… Not only did I understand the question, I felt it was a great question.
The people in the tiny house movement don’t look like me… The tiny house movement was and still is being touted as a “young, white hipsters movement”. I am neither young, nor white, though I can hold my own and rock with the best of them on being a hipster!
Being a product of Gifted Classes throughout school, where the majority of my classmates were white and I might be the only or one of very few brown kids, I knew I could hold my own in the movement. Early on in my researching days I noticed I’d reach out to people and not hear back from them, but see them responding to others online. I initially thought it to be totally race related, until I read a post by a white guy, who became a friend, who’d had his tiny house stolen. In that post he not only went off on whoever had stolen his tiny house, but he also went off on the cliquish, pretentious attitude he’d experienced from most of the people he’d encountered in the movement. I could relate and I reached out to him to say how sorry I was for what had happened and he and I talked about the tiny house culture and what we’d both experienced. We both concluded that what I was experiencing was probably a combination of being both race related and the overall cliquish nature of the people involved in the movement. I told him I wasn’t planning to let any of that deter me and I didn’t and I still don’t.
I also realized early on in my tiny house journey in dealing with some of the Mom & Pop local lumber companies that some of them are still members of the “Good Old Boys” network and they dealt with me accordingly. More recently, I was a member of a tiny house social media group that was okay with using the N-word in reference to black people and they kicked me out of the group when I objected to it and their behavior. I used all of the resistance, the non-inclusion and otherwise inappropriate behavior as fuel to my fire. I researched, I researched and I researched to become my own tiny house subject matter expert. I connected with a few people in the movement that didn’t subscribe to the nonsense I was experiencing. I knew that what I was planning to build was going to be different from what I’d seen, I knew that my brown face alone in a tiny house would catch some interest and I knew I’d make my own way in the movement. I realized that just like with so many other things in the world where people don’t look like me and/or aren’t necessarily welcoming, I could either become discouraged and back away from something I was interested in or I could become a strong enough force to require inclusiveness and a force strong enough to ensure we’re always included. Hence the reason I started sharing my brown face and my tiny house journey on social media and the additional reason I created Tiny House Trailblazers and invited the other brown faces I saw in the movement to join me; never exclusive, but ensuring we’re always included. Ensuring a forum for talking about race and the tiny house movement and showcasing the other people of color joining the movement. Taking the easy route has never been my forte’ and here I am.
An older black woman emailed me early on and said she felt I was the Harriet Tubman of tiny houses and I smiled from ear to ear and saved her email. I constantly get emails from people of color saying I’ve inspired them to want to go tiny or meet people who tell me how proud they are of me or how happy it made them to finally see a brown face in the movement. Nothing I’ve done represents a fraction of the strength and courage of Mrs. Tubman, but if my brown face in this movement helps another brown face gain some courage to follow their tiny house dream then I’d like to think I’ve made her proud.
Where are all the black people in the tiny house movement?
July 5, 2016 tinyhousetrailblazers Tiny Houses
“Where are all the black people?” That’s a question I saw posted in one of the tiny house groups I’m a member of when I had just started my tiny house build in early 2015. One of the group members was sharing pictures from a tiny house event that a number of tiny house people had attended and in picture after picture there was not one person of color to be seen. I watched the thread to see how the conversation would play out. The group member posting the pictures immediately took offense to the question and replied that they’d had a fun and great weekend and couldn’t understand why someone would bring up race. I understood the question completely, I just wanted to see how things were going to go. A few other commenters, who were also white, chimed in with the same sentiment as the person posting the pictures. I eventually commented and said I was raising my hand as a black person who was building a tiny house, that I would be representing for us. I also shared that I understood the question, that I knew it wasn’t asked to be offensive and that if the offended white people could think outside of themselves for a moment and imagine the scene in reverse, an event for something they were interested in and they only saw black people attending, they’d be wondering and asking the same question, as well as wondering if they should reconsider their interest in whatever it was they had originally been interested in… Not only did I understand the question, I felt it was a great question.
The people in the tiny house movement don’t look like me… The tiny house movement was and still is being touted as a “young, white hipsters movement”. I am neither young, nor white, though I can hold my own and rock with the best of them on being a hipster!
I also realized early on in my tiny house journey in dealing with some of the Mom & Pop local lumber companies that some of them are still members of the “Good Old Boys” network and they dealt with me accordingly. More recently, I was a member of a tiny house social media group that was okay with using the N-word in reference to black people and they kicked me out of the group when I objected to it and their behavior. I used all of the resistance, the non-inclusion and otherwise inappropriate behavior as fuel to my fire. I researched, I researched and I researched to become my own tiny house subject matter expert. I connected with a few people in the movement that didn’t subscribe to the nonsense I was experiencing. I knew that what I was planning to build was going to be different from what I’d seen, I knew that my brown face alone in a tiny house would catch some interest and I knew I’d make my own way in the movement. I realized that just like with so many other things in the world where people don’t look like me and/or aren’t necessarily welcoming, I could either become discouraged and back away from something I was interested in or I could become a strong enough force to require inclusiveness and a force strong enough to ensure we’re always included. Hence the reason I started sharing my brown face and my tiny house journey on social media and the additional reason I created Tiny House Trailblazers and invited the other brown faces I saw in the movement to join me; never exclusive, but ensuring we’re always included. Ensuring a forum for talking about race and the tiny house movement and showcasing the other people of color joining the movement. Taking the easy route has never been my forte’ and here I am.
An older black woman emailed me early on and said she felt I was the Harriet Tubman of tiny houses and I smiled from ear to ear and saved her email. I constantly get emails from people of color saying I’ve inspired them to want to go tiny or meet people who tell me how proud they are of me or how happy it made them to finally see a brown face in the movement. Nothing I’ve done represents a fraction of the strength and courage of Mrs. Tubman, but if my brown face in this movement helps another brown face gain some courage to follow their tiny house dream then I’d like to think I’ve made her proud.
