Community Dynamics Quotes

“Include and project the voices of underrepresented people in the spaces where their access is limited. Go love, and build, and restore, and speak, and engage, and create. Go be better and do better.”
― Kevin A. Patterson, Love's Not Color Blind: Race and Representation in Polyamorous and Other Alternative Communities

“If a group isn't being actively inclusive, it's being passively exclusive. This passive attitude results in lifestyle communities that do not reflect the local population.”
― Kevin A. Patterson, Love's Not Color Blind: Race and Representation in Polyamorous and Other Alternative Communities

“Without acknowledging the variety of the human experience, all you get is the perspective of majority representation, which is mostly white and male and straight and able-bodied and cisgender and "traditionally" attractive. None of those things are inherently negative... but neither are their alternatives. So, all deserve some spotlight.”
― Kevin A. Patterson, Love's Not Color Blind: Race and Representation in Polyamorous and Other Alternative Communities

“An animal is the sum of its behaviors, its community dynamics. Not just the physical body.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior

“Alternative lifestyle communities can easily become victim to cults of personality. Calling out problems in a community or running afoul of the wrong popular organizer, even for the right reasons, can lead to a social backlash.”
― Kevin A. Patterson, Love's Not Color Blind: Race and Representation in Polyamorous and Other Alternative Communities