Why submerging yourself in unknown spaces is crucial to growth and learning who you can be.
Moving to a new state or region is easily one of the best decisions you can make in life. I know for me it was because it led to me becoming the best version of myself. It’s a journey filled with challenges and opportunities that I would have likely not obtained had I not left my comfort zone. The moment I decided to relocate from Seattle to Atlanta, I pre-planned I’d stay for two years. I had big dreams and underestimated Atlanta as just a pit stop. Ironically enough, failure after failure prolonged my stay, but my interest in the city kept growing as I realized the opportunity I had. It became understood that moving was an incubator for self-discovery. Each location offers something different if you remain open to receive. Once I let go of my plans of using Atlanta to accomplish a goal, it became clear that Atlanta was providing me a space to unpack societal traumas imposed on me; along with discovering who I could be.
As an African American, where you’re a minority almost everywhere in the U.S.A., experiencing a lack of familiarity is common. On a general level, this restricts the level of diversity that feels safe to exist within an already minority group as a result of our social needs. Why? Imagine you have a smaller pool of potential people to connect with. You’re certain to act in a way that is expected of you, restricting who you are on some level, and therefore who you grow to be, forgetting you’re in character. It’s an unconscious tradeoff made for the sake of satisfying a requirement- connection. This dilemma reveals itself in tactics such as bullying, drugs, what’s “black”, cool, or accepted, etc. Traveling for months at a time or moving is a sobering opportunity to receive a clean slate.
These revelations were sparked in my transition from a minority to moving to the “black mecca” and being the majority. Every day was a profound experience for me. So profound that I quickly proclaimed my belief that all people of African descent (everyone) deserve and need to experience what living in Atlanta or any other city filled with predominantly black professionals can reveal. No matter your identity, it will be impactful if you’re open to observing and interacting.
More broadly, all people should prioritize/seek to invest time in spaces with people of different ethnicities and beliefs.
It’s a practice that could drastically reduce the hatred and bigotry polarizing the country. We’re more divided than ever before certainly in my lifetime. One half of society speaks passively to not offend others and the other half aggressively to intentionally “weed out” their “enemies” planting their beliefs flag in the ground proudly. If we open-mindedly insert ourselves outside our tribal spaces, then we’d all become less antagonistic and more human.
Before Atlanta, as a courtesy of my environment, I was unaware of how much trauma and ignorance I learned to normalize. Coming from Washington, simply seeing cops struck fear in me triggering anxiety. I was often profiled and pulled over without reason. Eventually, I learned to just tint my windows never to be bothered again, but the feelings remained. Atlanta freed me of this fear and hatred of officers. In the “A”, with a large number of cops being black, and the white officers having more proximity to black people, I was never profiled or met with hostility. Instead, I was met with head nods, kind words or simply being seen as a human instead of a target or threat. This relief extended beyond cops, carrying over into stores. No more feeling judged upon entrance or feeling as if I needed to change my behavior, attire, or tone of voice to be respected. I was gifted with the nuance of being seen and just as important, the gift of not being seen. It is also important to mention that I was additionally relieved from being judged, profiled, envied, and targeted by black people. In Atlanta, my existence wasn’t something foreign or threatening. I wasn’t in a race to be the one person of color allowed in the room. Oftentimes, we occupy the entire room. As a result, diversity in blackness is not only embraced but welcomed.
I remember going to the club and seeing so many different representations of blackness in such a small space and being mind-blown that this many black people in a club did not inevitably have to end in violence as I was conditioned to think. In conversation with friends and family in Washington, I later realized this outcome existed back home because we’re uncomfortable in each other’s presence as the minority, and this leads to friction, then violence. I’d hear people I love say things like “there’s too many black people there for me”, in anticipation of violence; or gloatingly talk about how all their friends are white and correlate it with safety and success. Well-intentioned ignorance stemming from self-preservation, that, I’m very sympathetic to.
Beyond the introspection and healing the city developed within me, there are also the surface-level moments that exist from living in an entertainment paradise. Networking, entrepreneurs, and celebrities are widely accessible. I remember first meeting Jermaine Dupri just weeks after first arriving in Atlanta when he came to speak at GSU and being hit with an abundance of self-validation that someone successful cared to speak to us, to me. Then, there was David Banner a month or so later who sparked within me a deep desire for learning and gave us a huge list of books that would shape me for the coming years. Regularly, there were casual run-ins and humbling conversations with Waka, Killer Mike, actors, producers, business owners, etc. Again, surface level, but it is power for all people to see representations of themselves succeed, and to have it so in your face is just a bonus. Once, while driving my beat-up vehicle, Quavo, in a “turn only” lane, was intensely waving for my attention to ask if I’d let him get in front of me on green, which to me was an obvious “yes”. Any other city I’m not so sure he does that, but there’s just a togetherness the city carries. I use these examples not to further over-fetishize celebrities, but rather, to exemplify this level of respect present throughout the city, no matter the economic status one has, your humanity is acknowledged.
My love and ease of living in Atlanta is ultimately why I left on July 1st, 2023. It’s time for new challenges, cultures, and opportunities to learn and unlearn. Regardless of whether I ever visit Atlanta again, I’m forever indebted to what it propelled me into and glad that my spouse and I were able to share the moment of finding out that we’re becoming parents a day before we left the state of Georgia.
Atlanta is a place of choices for people of color, and I believe optionality is freedom. This city allowed me to understand what non-minorities always felt; that they can be whatever they put their mind to and be embraced. Obama didn’t offer me that, Atlanta did. I thank God for Atlanta.
Share spaces with:
Disabled people
Elders
Women
Indigenous
Former Prisoners
Impaired people
People you generalize
The forgotten
Learn from the purity of children,
Divorce the character.
