I’m always interested in people doing big, helpful, transcendent things with whatever resources that they have.  I’m also interested in people’s activism or humanitarian work following from the things that are relevant in their life.  I heard a story this morning about one man’s work:

Bay Area Gardeners Foundation founder Catalino Tapia trims a tree at a client’s home in an affluent suburb of San Francisco. Tapia’s long-time clients donated money to the foundation, which gives college scholarships to students, regardless of their immigrant status.

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This is a comment to news article about efforts to confront the racist history and reputation of a town that is halfway between Bloomington and Indianapolis.  I liked that this commenter noted that a homogeneous community is fundamental to racist beliefs and that racism exists outside of the lower-class white communities (another commentor replied to the story with “It could be all the rednecks in Martinsville…..”) that are the stereotypical face of racism:

Keep in mind that there are racists everywhere, including our beloved and enlightened B-town. As far as a small Indiana town goes, M-ville is no more or less racist than the typical. Unfortunately, the “typical” is a homogenous, conservative community that can tend toward attitudes of prejudice. This, however, is true in most homogenous, conservative communities. I went to school with a bunch of folks from the North Shore suburbs of Chicago, and most of their attitudes would be considered racist. Bottomline, if we don’t experience heterogenous community, we will ALL tend toward prejudicial thought and attitude. M-ville folks are no different, and I encourage them (myself a grad from M-ville HS) to “see the world.”

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