I don’t want to end up with more of what philanthropy has done to us, where philanthropy as an industry requires that there are always cash-poor and … - Nikkita Oliver

We’re at a pivotal point where we’re asking that big existential question of ‘who has the right to live in Seattle?’ but also ‘who has the right to stay in Seattle?’ I’m critiqued a lot for my stance on wanting developers to have to invest more, but you’re right — it’s not about investing in buildings when we want investors to invest more, it’s about actually investing in the people of Seattle — people who have made Seattle the attractive, beautiful, cultural place that it is. It’s becoming a museum of those things, things that folks who grew up in Seattle can come visit sometimes, but those folks can’t live there. We need some people who are willing to draw some hard lines in the sand and say, ‘This is our value. We value Seattlelites getting to stay here and live here.’ I also value this growing city. But if you are not investing in the people who are going to be living in your buildings then what are you building your buildings for?

no community is a monolith. Whether we’re talking about white communities or Black communities or the Asian diaspora or Native communities, there is disagreement around a lot of things – gender, age, class. Going back to Ericka Huggins, that conversation was very formative for me, because I asked her, “How do I interact with elders I disagree with?” And she said, “You know, I had elders I disagreed with. This is a tale as old as time and is not a new thing. But are you moving in a principled way? Are you moving transparently? Are you being accountable? Is it really coming from a place that is grounded in a bigger vision of community care and wellbeing? Then keep moving in that way. If you’re not causing harm and what is being built is actually transformative, that will come out in the long run.”

We’re not going to get to a place of change or transformation if we only want to engage in things that make us comfortable. As a non-binary person, very little about, I don’t know, going to buy clothes feels comfortable. Who decided that because you have X genitals that you needed to do X thing or act X way? I spent a lot of my life very uncomfortable in my body and very uncomfortable with what I was told was the expectation for me as a “woman.” When I finally came to the understanding that is actually not who or what I am and chose to move honestly, I started to feel more free, but also other people felt more uncomfortable.