One World, One Community, One Love

Community is a word that gets thrown around a lot in modern vernacular. There is the black community, the gay community, and hundreds of others that seem to simply be excuses to lump together minorities. However, there is always proof that these groups are communities: that they will come together in a time of mourning or need.

American University is most certainly a community. Granted, it is not the most tightly knit community, but neither is it the most aloof of communities. AU embodies many of the characteristics we discussed for communities in class. First, it has leadership. We will be speaking with said leadership next week. Also, it is a group of individuals who all share a common interest in higher education in the DC area. We're not all brothers and sisters, but we all have the uniting bond that we chose this place to go to school, or to teach, or to work, and therefore we are a community.

While AU is more of a middle level community, many of the groups within it are even tighter. Within dorms, with the residence hall associations and interdependence on floors, you have a tighter community even than a neighborhood would sport. On the other hand, AU is located within the larger DC community. We act as part of DC, by interacting with the city, organizing events such as the Dalai Lama, and participating in events such as the Equality March. AU, like its cohorts GW and Georgetown, are large actors in the DC community and help to define it the way that Joe Gorman does Suffolk.

To take it even farther, you could say that DC and every city and state in the world belong to the larger state, country, and world communities. Each actor, no matter how big or small, has a larger effect on the community or world around them. We are all united by the common thread or our humanity at least. I think that 9/11 was the best example in recent memory that there is, in fact, a world community. After 9/11, not just New York, not just the US, not just the English speaking world, everyone came together to mourn the tragedy (with the exception of those who committed it). That is true proof of a world community.