Tribe of Good People 3

Tribe
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I am a member of the tribe of good people and I meet new members every day.  We come from all backgrounds.  We hail from St. Louis, Boston, Chi-town, Hawaii, India, Charlotte, Alabama, Mississippi, Bermuda, Nigeria and too many other places to name.  We sing, we dance, we laugh, we work, we read, we think.  Some of us are rich in material things and/or money.  Others of us are rich in experience, opinions, and love. Some of us are broke and hoping that trouble don’t last always. We are straight and gay and “can’t be bothered.”  We are single, married, going-together, and looking for companionship.  We are parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, and friends.  We come in all the colors of the human race and in all configurations of race and culture.

Members of the tribe of good people meet “with an absence of strangeness.”  (That’s a quote from something I read a while ago – and don’t remember where.)  No matter how we meet, when we finally get to see each other…when we finally get to peak beneath the veneer of our role – there is a shock of recognition – because once again we have met another good and interesting person.  Someone fabulous and loud about it or someone fabulous and low-key.

As members of the tribe of good people we are all in this world not of our making that we must journey through as best we can.  It so helps to know you’re not alone in being an interesting and fabulous member of the tribe of good people.

We are survivors of a world that has tried to pull us into the tribe of bad people.  Somehow, some way we resisted the pull of that tribe.

Until we develop our official handshake, I send you a wink, a nod, a hug, a kiss, a wish for continued goodness.

About Candelaria Silva

Candelaria Silva-Collins is a marketing, community outreach and programming consultant; writer; and trainer/facilitator who lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She has designed and facilitated workshops on a wide variety of topics including communication, facilitation, job search skills, team building, and parenting issues. She currently coordinates the Community Membership Program of the Huntington Theatre Company. Her work as Director of ACT Roxbury was profiled in several publications, including The Creative Communities Builders Handbook. Candelaria’s children’s stories, short stories, essays and reviews have been published in local and national publications and she is an active blogger. Her publications include the booklets, Handling Rejection; Pushing through Shyness: Networking Tips when You’re Shy, Slow to Warm Up or Just don’t Feel you Belong; and Real Questions about Sex & Relationships for Teens: A Discussion Guide for Parents. She has served on the boards of Goddard College, Wheelock Family Theatre, Boston Foundation for Architecture, and Discover Roxbury. She is currently Chair, Designators of the Henderson Foundation.

3 thoughts on “Tribe of Good People”

  • Jenny

    Checked out your blog — really interesting — connected with your desire to (re)connect with friends and also thought the All White People, All the Time section was very important — I really liked your questions at the end, too, …about how much should one charge for all the different parts of being at a meeting or event …it also just struck me as how painful and lonely it can be as one of the few people of color at an event, conference, board, etc. even in the year 2007….and how much you also bring/give/share in those meetings….

  • Haywood Fennell

    Yes, there are tribes of “Good people’ and this article brings back such fond memories of the breaking down of the walls of strangeness when meeting folks, all kinds of folks that have that ‘spark’ to make you smile, laugh, think and just be yourself. Thanks for reminding me.

  • Carolyn Ruth

    I love your turn of phrase, Tribe of Good People. There needs to be a meeting place—a sanctuary of sorts—where people feel comfortable enough to step of out their “social role” skins in order to connect and experience members of the Good People Tribe they have not met. The host of such an event must be a recognized member of the Tribe so his/her guests are legitimized simply through association with the host—therefore the preliminaries are out of the way and all I have to do is figure out how I am going to establish my bond to these new extended family members. I experienced this at your Tribe of Good People meeting place and the memory of the people I met and/or reconnected with still makes me smile.

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