Let’s talk about race, baby. Let’s talk about you and me… Wait, what, more?

Yes, but offline.

i was reminded by tbV that i had mentioned this idea a while ago when life was still in crazy transition before we found this place to rent.

Years ago i hosted a set of gatherings at Seattle coffee shop at Canal Walk that were called “Not a Meeting” cos of my hatred of meetings [well meetings for the sake of meetings]. A few years after that i hosted a similar thing called “Oikos” which is the greek word for community but that includes slaves as well [so the idea of complete inclusivity – everyone at the table]. Those were largely focused on God and faith and a number of people who were struggling with church at the time… and most of them were really great. And awkward [usually, to get going, but once they did they were great].

And i’ve been talking about doing a similar kind of vibe, but about race.

So this morning i posted this status on Facebook to see if there would be any interest:

Cape Town friends and stalkers… a few years ago i used to run these things called Oikos meetings and these other things called Not a Meeting meetings [we’d discuss dramatic irony] where we would meet at a coffee place and drink coffee and discuss life and God and the Universe and everything…

i’ve been considering doing a race/privilege/injustice one and was wondering if anyone would be interested in that – probably a Saturday morning for upto two hours – public place so it stays classy – no set agenda except to wrestle with some of these issues we face. If you would maybe be up for one of those, leave a mark in the comments and i’ll propose a date.

Also does anyone have any good suggestions for a place to hold those – don’t know if i can justify Seattle coffee prices any more in my own brain and that’s where we used to have these at Century City – somewhere this side where there is space for up to ten people to comfortably lounge and coffee and banter away. ‪#‎NotToBeConfusedWithBantingAway‬

And looks like some people are interested… the idea is not to do this as a regular weekly or even monthly meeting but in my mind i have every six to eight weeks – throw a message on to Facebook/Twitterer and say this place at this time and see who shows up. Also the idea is not to have a specific agenda of topics we want to cover but to create a place where people can engage deeply on an important and relevant issue.

It would also be super great if it wasn’t just a bunch of white people, although if that happens we can begin with talking about white privilege and work our way on from there…

Janine Roberts had this to say which i really liked: Can I suggest we use a locally owned coffee place and support someone local with our business…

Anyways, i thought i’d stick it in a blog post so i could find the responses when i needed to. If you live in Cape Town, is this something you’d be interested in coming to? Do you have any recommendations of locally owned coffee shops we can support where there is space for 3 to 15 people to sit and have conversation without disrupting the flow of the shop? Do you have ideas on a simple, not cheesy unless the right kind of cheesy name for these gatherings? [i am about to start filming a video blog series titled ‘Race with Me’ which will hopefully be arriving in the next month or so…]

Please let us know in the comments…