The Shadow Side of Community, Part One

by Raven Glomus

This post and the next will be difficult to write (and probably read) because I intend to air as much of the dirty laundry of community living as I can think of. This can be seen as a follow up to my post called Lower Your Expectations. While I am all about communal living, I want to be honest here. I don’t want folks getting into communal living with illusions of how wonderful it’s going to be. Communes and communities are far from perfect—and sometimes very far from perfect.

In these two posts, I intend to point out all the nasty things that I know about communal living, all the things I (and many other folks) wish were different, where communities fall down and where they are making some headway on all this. I have to say that with everything that’s bad about communities, I still think that they are an improvement on mainstream life—and many of these problems are things that some communities are really trying to work on. So I will also report on improvement attempts and where I see successes.

In this first part I am going to focus on what we used to call, oppression issues or “isms”.

Let’s start with the most commonly commented on problem in communal life: racism. Yes, there is a lot of racism in the communities and it’s something that is being talked about and worked on. While there is definitely some overt racism in some of the communities, the more common problems have to do with what I would refer to as structural (or institutional) racism: things like microaggressions, cultural blindnesses, and, above all, communities that are structured to accommodate middle class white folks. This is racism that well meaning white folks practice, usually unintentionally. The result is that most communities are uncomfortable for many BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and the communities are left wondering why they are so white.

I do have to say that this is a problem that is actively being addressed by the communities movement. Right now, the Foundation for Intentional Communities is running trainings and panels actively talking about how to take on this issue. Unfortunately, you need to do more than simply take the training and thus movement on really dealing with racism is still very slow. My hope is that BIPOC led communities such as the Serenity Community for Justice and Peace will make a difference in changing this dynamic.

Similar to racism, but much less currently addressed, is classism. Most of the communes and communities are filled with middle class and upper middle class folks and this often makes it uncomfortable for people who grew up working class or poor. I think that an exception to this is the East Wind Community which has a lot of working class folks and more of a working class flavor to it. Unfortunately, instead of this being celebrated, East Wind often gets a bad reputation. This has been particularly true around racism—and there have been more incidents of overt racism there but, as several people I know have pointed out, most of the problems at East Wind are the same problems that have been found at all the communities and folks of color have had the same difficulties at Twin Oaks and Acorn, but because they aren’t as articulate, East Wind has often been singled out. Something that really bothered me at the 2018 FEC Assembly was watching upper middle class white folks lecturing East Winders on racism using jargon and academic terms. It felt quite condescending. Of course, the difficult intersections of race and class are rampant in the society at large and are not being dealt with well at all (look at Trump’s appeal to white working class folks), but I would need a whole piece to talk about this and it would take us far from communal living.

Going down the oppressions, I want to look at sexism and misogyny next. Here’s a place that I think the communes are doing quite a bit better. It’s not as if sexism has been banished or there’s no misogyny in the communities, but there seems to be a lot more freedom for women, a lot more respect for women, and a lot more female leadership in the communes than in mainstream society. In fact I know of several communities that are practically matriarchies—and Twin Oaks views itself as having a “feminist culture”. Again, there’s still quite a few pockets of sexism in the communes but I think that it’s being dealt with a lot better than in society at large. (Note: I am not talking about the awful problems of sexual harassment, abuse, and assault here. I will deal with these things later, in Part Two.)

On sexual orientation issues and homophobia, I also think that the communes are doing better than the mainstream world. Again, it’s not that you can’t run into homophobia in the communes; it’s just a lot less prevalent. I know at least one small commune that’s probably two thirds queer folks—and that’s not to mention the Tennessee queer communities. Twin Oaks also sponsors a Queer Gathering that is a lovely place for GLBTQ(etc) folks in community or wanting to be in community to gather.

Unfortunately, on trans and nonbinary issues, the communities don’t do quite as well. I think overall they are a lot safer and welcoming place than the mainstream, but there is still a lot more transphobia than I wish there was. Some of this is generational, with older lesbians and feminists being uncomfortable with transwomen declaring themselves women. Again, this is a difficulty being played out in the society at large and it seems somewhat less prevalent in the communes, but it’s far from being fully dealt with.

Finally, looking at the “isms”, comes ableism. This, too, is a place where the communes don’t do nearly enough. Most of the rural communes have few accessibility accommodations and are not particularly welcoming to the disabled. The one place that communes do provide accommodations is when someone who is already a member becomes disabled.

This brings me to something that is true of many situations within the communes and many other communities. Once you are there and have become an important part of the place, they will do whatever they can to help it work better for you, but they are not as willing to accommodate someone that they don’t already know. This applies to handicap accessibility, but also explains many racial issues and the problems the communes have with families (more on this in Part Two). It also explains why the communes do better on some gender and sexuality issues.

There have been women as part of most of the communes since the beginning. To the degree they were able to advocate for themselves (and, since a lot of the men were heterosexual, they didn’t want communities that would be all or mostly men), they got the changes that they wanted and needed. In fact, Twin Oaks made it policy to that they needed to have at least a 60:40 ratio between the genders (this was a time when folks only thought of two genders), so they actively recruited women and those women pushed for the leadership of women. Likewise, once there were a number of queer folks in a community, they worked to create an environment which would be welcoming to LGBTQ folks. I am convinced that the only way racial issues can really be dealt with in the communities is when there is a significant BIPOC presence. Twin Oaks did talk about trying to become as much as 40% folks of color, but that hasn’t gone anywhere. As I said, I think that the Serenity Community, as BIPOC led and majority BIPOC, has a better chance of making a difference.

In the next part (next week) I will look at a bunch of other problems in the communes. Again, with all their problems, I think that they’re better than mainstream living. But they’re sure not perfect.