Bill Traynor is the Co-Facilitator, with Frankie Blackburn, of the Connectivity Task Force at Boston Rising. The Task Force is staffed by Talia Rivera and includes Imari Paris Jeffries, Paul Johnson, Chrismaldi Vasquez, Alice Stein, Damon Cox and Brittany Parker
The New Marketplaces of the Rising Class
The Connectivity Task Force at Boston Rising ensures that relationship building is at the center of all aspects of our work and central to the goal of eradicating poverty in Boston. I want to share some thoughts about how we see ‘connectivity’ in the context of the Rising Class.
Aspects of poverty that we experience in our own lives, and witness in the lives of others – economic, spiritual, emotional – those born of injustice and those born of isolation or fear – are the handiwork of a community that cannot imagine nor realize its interconnectedness. These communities are destined to be trapped in an ordeal of perpetual pain and distress – the evidence of which is the colossal investment that is made in things like insurance, health care, law enforcement, incarceration in the U.S.
The income and wealth disparity across our nation has yielded economic poverty for many and poverty of awareness, spirit and action for others. Greed, for instance, is born from fear and detachment. Aspiration is an impulse born from a sense of personal power and connection. Which of these dispositions contributed to the real estate/financial services debacle? Toxic assets can only be peddled in a toxic environment.
The Rising Class is a framing developed by Boston Rising and is based on the assumption that ending multi-generational poverty is completely doable if we clear the way for, and feed, the ambitions and aspirations that lie in the hearts and minds of all people, the “poor” being no exception. This idea is based on a few, surprisingly apparent, simple truths about Rising:
- No one rises alone.
- Relationships that span diverse networks create pivotal moments of opportunity in one’s life (e.g., professional and social networks).
- Our interconnectedness as a community – for better or worse – is a fact, not just a lovely idea.
- Class, power, race, geography, professionalism, paternalism, fear, bad habits – these things cultivate poverty and promote isolation in every corner of our community.
The Rising Class provides an interesting usage of the term “class.” Instead of seeing “class” as a socio-economic stamp, the identity of the Rising Class is rooted in a more universal condition. We can all Rise and we need all of us to Rise. This spurs an entirely new dialogue, what is the truth about Rising? And a new call-to-action, connect-up, people!
The Rising Class is interested in establishing deeper connections across a broad network. The expansive network of connections creates a vast and robust marketplace where value is exchanged and value becomes currency for building rapport, building a trusted space for exchange, and building community.
But in this assumption, the Rising Class has a problem. The world is not organized to facilitate this deeper and broader exchange – between the neighbor in 1A and the neighbor in 1B, the school principal and the parent, the Wellesley resident and the Grove Hall resident, the teen and the grandparent, the new immigrant and the old-timer, the homeowner and the renter. And it is definitely not set-up to reach isolated and marginalized members of the community. Instead, those experiencing poverty are offered help in exchange for control. They are not invited into the marketplace to explore their value.
As a result, the Rising Class needs to build its own marketplaces, establishing new kinds of “trusted spaces” that are explicitly designed to confront barriers by offering:
- New networks of relationships across differences,
- Intentional ways of revealing hidden or suppressed value, and
- New methods of, and spaces for, exchange.
- Means of marshaling aggregate [market] power, in addition to collective power, as a way to effectuate change.
Neighbors who live next door to each other for years but don’t know each other and consequently have no exchanged value – not even the minimum needed to defend their street. These same neighbors who have met through a Boston Rising Neighbor Circle, who share dinner and life stories, and then look out for each other’s children, exchange favors, appreciate and smile at each other on the street, take on local issues together – these neighbors are exploring, revealing and exchanging value in a trusted space, the exact function of a marketplace.
Families who come together through the Family Independence Initiative (FII) cohorts are invited to exchange help, networks, advice, favors and to offer each other opportunities and they do. In the process they are expanding the resource base to feed their own and others’ aspirations for jobs, homes, education and small business ventures.
Whether through a simple Neighbor Circle or the elegant FII approach, a small business accelerator space or neighborhood controlled trust fund to stimulate local connection and action, all these serve as early examples of the new marketplaces that the Rising Class demands; 21st Century trusted spaces where a deeper and broader exchange can take place, where value exchanges, and when new resources are unleashed. We need hundreds more of these examples, especially those kinds of trusted spaces that specialize in connecting people across different socio-economic backgrounds.
This then is the life and work of the Rising Class – to engage in ‘rising acts,’ to create new trusted spaces for exchange, to push us all to a greater place as a community, all fueled the unleashing of the still great and powerful aspirational spirit of human beings as we strive to connect, contribute and rise.