Welcome back to The Neighborhood Table - your seat is here.

At The Neighborhood Table, we gather to think deeper, speak honestly, and build the kind of community the world keeps saying is impossible. Every issue is a moment, a mirror, and a practice. Pull up a seat. The conversation begins here.

Hey, Neighbor.

Before I begin, I want to say this clearly.

This is not an attack. It’s not a callout.
It’s not a demand that anyone see the world the way I do.

This is an invitation to sit with something we rarely slow down enough to notice.

Because whether we admit it or not, we all walk into rooms with a box of colors already open in our minds.

Some we were taught.
Some we absorbed.
Some we inherited without asking for them.

This isn’t about blame.
It’s about awareness.

And awareness can feel unsettling before it feels useful.

I’ve been sitting with color a lot lately.

Not in the way we usually talk about it.
Not in the way people expect.

I mean the kind of color that enters a room before you speak.
The kind that forms opinions before you move.
The kind that shapes trust before anyone knows your name.

Blue.
Black.
Brown.

I wear blue.
I am Black.
I stand in rooms filled with every shade in between.

And no matter where I go, color arrives before I do.

I remember a time when the only colors that mattered to me lived in a crayon box.
The ones that rolled under tables.
The ones that stained fingers.
The ones that didn’t mean anything except imagination.

I didn’t know then that color would become something people read me through.
Something people would trust or fear.
Something people would use to decide who I was before I ever opened my mouth.

Some days I walk into rooms and feel eyes gather.

Not aggressively.
Not loudly.

Quietly.

It’s not a stare.
It’s not confrontation.

It’s a pause.

The kind of looking that lasts half a second longer than comfort.
The kind that happens before anyone decides what to say.

The kind that feels like measuring, even when no one intends harm.

The kind that asks questions without ever asking them.

Am I safe?
Am I credible?
Am I here for you or against you?

I don’t always know which color they’re responding to.

The blue I wear.
The Black I carry.
The assumptions attached to both.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we talk about color as if it’s always about sides.
As if it automatically signals right or wrong.
As if it’s something we’re supposed to take a position on.

But what if color is less about sides and more about weight?

What if it’s about what people bring with them when they see you?

Because here’s the part I don’t think we say enough.

Trust rarely starts with words.

It starts with what someone thinks they see.

Some people tell me they don’t see color.
And I love that for them.
I really do.

I love that there are communities where color doesn’t enter the room first.
Where belonging comes easily.
Where trust isn’t negotiated through appearance.

But not every room works that way.

And pretending they all do doesn’t make the others disappear.

In some spaces, color carries history.
In some spaces, it carries fear.
In some spaces, it carries expectation.

And in some spaces, knowing how you’re being seen is part of how you keep people safe.

That’s something I carry quietly.

Because I don’t want to be trusted because of the blue.
And I don’t want to be distrusted because of the Black.

I want to be seen.

Seen for how I show up.
Seen for how I hold space.
Seen for how I stand in the middle without abandoning myself or the people around me.

I’ve been thinking about how Black isn’t really a color at all.
It’s light.
It absorbs.
It reflects.
It holds more than people give it credit for.

So maybe when I walk into rooms, I’m not carrying darkness.
Maybe I’m carrying brightness people haven’t learned how to name.

I don’t know.

I’m still figuring that out.

What I do know is that every person you walk into a room with is carrying something you cannot see.

Judgment.
Insecurity.
Hope.
History.

And every crayon in the box colors differently.

Some blend.
Some stand out.
Some get questioned before they get welcomed.

This isn’t about blame.
It’s not about guilt.
It’s not about choosing a side.

It’s about noticing what we bring into rooms before we speak.
And how that shapes what trust even has a chance to become.

I want you to sit with this without fixing it.

Think about the last room you walked into where you didn’t feel immediately at ease.

Ask yourself quietly:

What do people see when I walk in, before they hear me?

And then ask:

What might others be carrying into that room with me?

You don’t have to answer it today.
You don’t have to agree with anyone.

Just notice.

Sometimes trust begins there.

The table is open.
And the bridges are yours to build.

P.S. If this issue made you pause, question, or see trust differently, invite someone else to the table. This neighborhood grows through conversation.

Drop a comment, I always love a moment at the table.