As we prepare for next week’s round of stories, tentatively including authors Glasgow and Wolfe, Dr. Ed Peeples, John Mitchell, Jr., Theresa Pollak, Pat Benatar and others we thought today might be a good time to post some of the underlying rationale that’s powering the themes and names you’re seeing.
The old saying goes, you can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been. Let’s add a corollary to that: You can’t have a new thing till you’ve settled the old thing….
It’s likely pretty clear by now that Richmond Matters doesn’t share the view that maybe it’s best to just park our our history in a shed and only look to the future. That’s really not an option in the sense that you can’t walk away from an unpaid mortgage. Too many relevant and powerful assets of our heritage have remained under-explained or not been given their due and context in the Region’s mattering. And the caring descendants of these aspects of our collected heritage cannot reasonably be expected to say “nevermind” any more than a banker would let someone default without serious consequence.
That said, “walking away” would be stupid in practical terms. It would be bad business, bad politics, bad management and a surrender of some very hard-won equity. That equity has always been there, with broader value to education, business, arts, individuals and groups — the things that make our “Culture.” Up to now, there’s been no means nor message to turn it into something besides a missed opportunity. On it’s face, it’s complex and maybe worrisome to a few. On closer examination, our differences are not so different, and our previous failures are not ultimate judgments. A city and a region is no different than a person in one important way: We simply want to like ourselves without pretending. Like any asset or raw material, the potential is there. What happens next is really a matter of focus and expectation.
We hope that the above and below diagrams and explanations might offer some food for thought and maybe spark some additions or corrections. We know that perhaps 1 or 2 out 10 people might be interested in seeing some of the enthnography and strategic reasoning behind all the eye candy on the main page. But if that’s you, please dive in and see what you think. (All 4 combined in PDF – 600kb )
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Scott Burger // Nov 21, 2009 at 4:53 pm
I still think you have only scratched the surface when it comes to the history. What about Quakers like Pleasants and Parsons? What about the anarchist communes near Charlottesville? The German immigrants from Bahaus?
2 mark b // Nov 21, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Surface? No doubt, Scott, no doubt.
But remember, we’re talking to a general audience that recoils at nuance, who barely bother to read or parse what their fanatically-loved candidates stand for – http://bit.ly/1A5y4W. Right now, we’re rebuilding perceptions and working to shake people of the idea that “history doesn’t sell” as Gregg Wingfield and others would like to believe, and repeat often. They’re right, “history” as they’ve presented it hasn’t sold because it’s been inert, inaithentic and soulless. it’s the last 5 letters of that word History that “sells.”
We’ll get there as the series unfolds, just as we’re going to more vigorously tackle social justice and the native american angle.
Our one big gap right now is a durable stand-alone website (www.therichmondregion.com) that allows us to elaborate on stories and to show their interconnected nature, leading, of course, to deeper sub-chapters of the region’s saga – like the Quakers, Mennonites, etc. And hey, I would like to know more about the Bauhaus thing (presuming you don’t mean the design movement), so bring it on.
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