A friend of mine is planning her wedding and has reserved a night at a country club in Buffalo. We were talking a bit about the blemished history of country clubs in our area, and how it wasn't that long ago that they were turning people away because of the color of their skin. We're talking the 1990s, not the 60s. Even today, it is questionable -- most clubs have a few black members but still there is an arduous screening, networking, and "sponsorship" process that continues to raise flags for me. Someone cracked, "I hope they won't turn any of our guests away" -- and then there was a pregnant pause -- "Wait, do we have any black guests?"

They concluded that, yes, out of the 200 guests, there was one. That's 200 of the future-bride-and-groom's most important family, friends, parents' friends and clients, business partners, coworkers, schoolmates, and neighbors, and only one is black.

I know this is awkward to talk about, and it's not meant to shame anyone in my life; this post is more to observe the current composition of Buffalo. Large weddings are emblematic of our social networks, and our social networks say a lot about the opportunities we've had in life. Anyone who is realistic about the power of networking can affirm this -- that our opportunities sometimes come prepackaged based on who our family members and family friends are. Many of my former high school classmates got their first jobs out of college through networking, whether it was networking through their families or through the resources of their privately-funded education. (Somewhere, there's someone reading this with a mouth full of Cheetos snarling, "Yea, yea, and hard work apparently doesn't get credit anymore, does it?" Of course hard work matters, but it is not the secret sauce to success. I think the topic of privilege has been written about plenty and I don't need to weigh in more. This post is about opportunity, and that is a different mechanism altogether.)

Based on the last Census, Buffalo is the 6th most segregated metropolitan in the country. It is also an impoverished, high-crime city (with a lot to offer! Sorry, had to represent) because when it comes to mobility, people's opportunities are quite limited: one, to whether they can access jobs with mobility, and two, whether they have built relationships with people or institutions who have the power to connect them. And yet, even for people of color who have high incomes, studies have shown they typically still live in neighborhoods of lower income that are predominantly black. Many studies have concluded that this has to do with steering in the real estate market, and others argue that this is a choice to stay in neighborhoods where they don't have to live with racial tension. This isn't to say black communities don't have powerful networks of their own that continuously reach out and help each other, because they do; however, the majority of wealth in Buffalo is concentrated in white populations.

White suburbanites do not typically branch out of their networks to meet people in positions of less power, i.e. any people of color who are living in cyclical poverty, lest it's through charity work, which creates a large gap in their ability to cross-network and promote real diversity in our neighborhoods and workplaces. While white suburbanites are disposed to benevolence and charity, and absolutely full of a great amount of compassion and altruism, their position stops there; they don't step out of their own comfort zone and collaborate with groups that, only on the surface, don't share their problems. Further, when predominantly white organizations and nonprofits bring in "diversity" to their boards and committees-to-save-Buffalo, they look for straight-laced perspectives, people who will represent approval rather than challenge the status quo. This is not a state of progress.

This brings me to the Dunbar number. Robert Dunbar was an Oxford anthropologist and psychologist. He studied how the neocortex relates to the size of primate social groups, and then he moved his hypothesis to humans. He concluded that, judging on homo sapiens brain size, the number of people any person can reasonably fit in a "friend" group is 150 (this doesn't include acquaintances, or people whose names you know). He then studied this from a social level; he asked people to break down their Christmas card recipient list according to levels of closeness, such as family, close friends, neighbors, and work colleagues. That magic number - one hundred fifty - remained pronounced even through the experimental phase. It continues to be relevant, even in the age of social media.

So a wedding of 200 people can often represent the hierarchy of your Dunbar number - especially when you have to narrow down your guest list, you are etching away at that hierarchy to determine who you are closest to. This is an important statement of whom we have opened our hearts to, reached out to, or simply who we have been exposed to in our little bubble lives. It is a snapshot reflection of not only the opportunity that is available to us, but may not be available to others.

What does the Dunbar number tell you about opportunity? We all have a similar networking threshold but different access. It comes down to who is in that network. When people are unwilling to navigate from their circles, their comfort zones, and even their self interests, they turn a blind eye to people who are marginalized. To me, this is an opportunity missed; our city could thrive through collaboration.

In yesterday's issue of Le Monde, Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen wrote about his reactions to Islamic extremism. Like most Muslims, he is frustrated - not just with those who have masked their violence with the name of his religion, but also - I sense - with the fact that all Muslims are now tasked with assuring everyone they don't prescribe to these "perverted ideologies." Worldwide, Muslims are standing up for the true meaning of their faith. In the US, this conversation is nudging its way to the front of a boisterous crowd. As anti-Islamic rhetoric bubbles to the surface of the Melting Pot, and the loose cannon spewing this hateful rhetoric (his name won't be mentioned here) still leads in Republican polls, and mosques are subjects of vandalism, and everyday Muslim citizens are vulnerable to harassment, American Muslims are in a precarious position. It is not the same position as the privileged American, who has the luxury of saying, "I am what I am, and this is a free country, so deal with it." Rather, they are put in the position of defending themselves over something that has about as much to do with them as Timothy McVeigh has to do with me (you know, he was from Buffalo too, and white, too, and came from a Catholic background, too, like me). It is a travesty that the air has to be cleared on that front.

There are two powerful quotes I want to point out from Gülen's op-ed. For one: "Our civilization will not progress until we treat the suffering of humans regardless of their religious or ethnic identity as equally tragic in our empathy and respond with the same determination." This is a thought I have been toiling with since San Bernardino, though he puts it more eloquently than I ever could. I can't find a way to express the sorrow of what happened in San Bernardino without being cliche. How can evil like that exist? Yet when I mourn for this, I'm slapped with a bitter realization that this is only the tip of the iceberg. In the U.S., we selectively grieve. After the Paris attacks, people changed their Facebook profile pictures to the French flag to show solidarity. Forget Beirut the day before and the thousands who have died in Iraq and Syria. This year alone, do you know there have been hundreds of lives lost to attacks in Tunisia, Nigeria, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Niger, Somalia...?

​What about solidarity of mankind? People talk about mourning tragedy and in the same breath say our government shouldn't let refugees resettle here. I say it is time to start acknowledging the pain of mankind, as it is our own. While most Americans don't directly experience the same carnage as other places in the world, we are not separate from it. We're all breathing the same air. We are all closer than we acknowledge. 

Next quote:

We believe in the dichotomous narrative. That is, the narrative of "East versus West." For ease of discussion, I do use these terms of Western/Eastern, as there are cultural tenets and attitudes that have distinctly sprung from each region, but I don't believe in the separateness. It is imaginary. We are not in a separate world, creating a separate history. We are in fact very involved in other governments and conflicts, not as mediators but as participants, and have been for a long time. It is brutally insightful how Gulen points out that this hypothesis could have come from "vision or desire." Some people stand to benefit from this "clash," this idea of separateness. That is enough for me to bridge into a concluding question: Does your perspective contribute to disruption or peace?

This is me on my wedding day. You can't tell, but I've taken painstaking efforts to hide the t-tube in my neck. For those who don't know, a t-tube is similar to a tracheostomy, but it is able to be capped given its T-shape, which allows air to flow in three directions. Especially in your 20s, having this in your life can be socially awkward; I have more scarves than shirts in my closet. When I'm unable to hide it from strangers, coworkers, even friends, I'm subject to stares, questions, even hurtful remarks.

It feels different to laugh, to swallow, to run. My lung transplant saved me, but it didn't free me from that feeling of not having enough air; the trach takes me back. And yet, that's not my biggest obstacle. I want to talk about beauty here, and how having a t-tube has been a lesson in self-acceptance and comfortable self-awareness.

On my wedding day, I felt more beautiful than I'd felt in a long time. Maybe it was the fact that I had a jeweler design a special necklace to hide the t-tube. I also had the privilege of wearing that dress. And I was marrying someone I love deeply, and who loves me. Perhaps this latter fact is what makes me able to feel beautiful in the day to day, when I no longer have these frills and sparkles to mask reality. I believe his love is what carried me through the changes that I couldn't control: all the scars that have become a part of me, the seven-inch line where surgeons cracked opened my sternum twice. That not-so-glamorous trach that was placed three years ago. The heavy breathing. The fear of losing that breath. 

What 20-something does not want to feel attractive? I have a trach but I still want to wear cute dresses and tank tops without the stares and commentary: is that permanent? Oh, poor thing. Why don't you just cover it? And I do; even on hot, humid days, even when it hurts, even when it keeps ruining my scarves, I try to hide this part of me on days where I'm not emotionally equipped to deal with rudeness.

Because pretty girls do pretty things, my 11th-grade Spanish teacher said more than once when I coughed too much in her class. 

Pretty girls are healthy, vibrant, unmarked, unscarred. I am not a pretty girl. That is not what I do. I'm no damsel in distress. I don't need to be rescued. (I clung to that Ani DiFranco song in high school). But what if I were bold and just wore what I wanted? I tried that for a while; the not-hiding. People then made it their business to dole out advice, they were callous, or they would inadvertantly make me feel as though I were intruding on their space.

He always called me beautiful, even when I weighed 70 pounds after my transplant. Even when I had to have this invasive piece of plastic inserted into my neck. He says he doesn't notice it. He says, wear those pretty summer dresses; you make them look good; who cares if people look at it, comment. I worry that these words are rehearsed, insincere. But he does not give me any reasons to reinforce those worries.

Every few months, I go through a procedure to change the t- tube, and sometimes I can't talk for days or weeks. The voice box is blocked. These are times I can't hide it with a scarf. He tries to read my lips, my impromptu sign language. To speak is not to be heard; you need listeners for that, someone who will take time to understand who you are and what your words mean, at heart. These are the days after a procedure, something we call "routine." He playfully calls the humidifier machine that I hook up to the trach my "scuba." He watches me more, just to be sure I'm okay, but not in a way that makes me feel weak, incapable. Sometimes, I wake up and see ghosts next to my bed, staring at me, and I jump and he pulls me to him, half asleep, without even realizing; we laugh it off in the morning. My crazy dreams.

Normal is how we adapt. How we come to look at challenges - not as challenges but as pieces of our lives that can be held or disposed from our memories, if we try. We can choose what we see. There are people who define me by this, who call me "strong," whose first question when they see me is, "How is your health?" The outside world often forces my self-awareness. "You don't sound so good," strangers say to my cough; in line, at the store. "I'm not sick," I mutter.  He is my haven of myself; he allows me to talk of my differences only when I want to. He does not bring attention to them. He trusts that I can care for me.

I've reminded myself that to be attractive is not the same as being valued, and it would be redundant to elaborate on the opposite messages society pounds into our minds on a daily basis. Beauty and value are not equals, and what we define for ourselves will always be different than what the outsider defines us as -- and we must let that be. He and I share a perfect space; when we look at each other, we feel who we are, without criticism, without self-loathing, without fearing what we lack. To be beautiful, one must be seen. To be seen, one must simply allow it.