Great Uncle Bill & Aunt Kay invited my Dad and I to sit down for a chat when we stopped by their house on some post-Thanksgiving errands. They asked about my thesis, and at their 87 years, I thought the most succinct explanation would be, “I’m looking at economically developing communities.”

I didn’t really want to get into structural inequities in planning and especially into the real meat of my paper, racialized spaces: how we marginalize cultures and people of color in planning.

When Uncle Bill started extolling The Economist and talking excitedly of Microfinance, I should have wisened up. Still, when trying to explain Tufts recent ventures into Microlending in, I said, “Tufts has been doing that in the East…”

Uncle Bill stopped me, and with the most grandfatherly tone, corrected,

“You know, when you say The East that’s just a direction - you’re saying that with a European-centered view of things.”

A lesson on Eurocentrism from my Great Uncle - I won’t be trying to dilute any progressive ideas for them again.