Quote from FB
Apr. 2nd, 2013 07:34 pmLeigh Ann Hildebrand: I explain radical hospitality to my classmates by referencing the experience of arriving at a table where all the seats are already taken. Even if you've been invited to the meeting/dinner/event, if you arrive and there is no place to sit, there's a momentary experience of not-belonging. That feeling happens *before* people get a chance to offer a chair or move down or make room, and if there are additional factors like being already marginalized, being the only POC, the only woman, the only PWD -- that first impression can cast a long shadow on the organization. So I tell people, "Always have an empty chair. And if someone arrives to fill it, get ANOTHER empty chair. Make sure that there is always room at your table -- literally and metaphorically -- for the unexpected guest as well as the expected ones."