Calculating the Flip Side of Love

The most important calculation I ever made was simple subtraction: 

People of Color = Total Population – Non-Hispanic Whites 

I am the first person to define statistically what is a “person of color.” This of course may sound like an outrageous claim. But I know for certain that Public Data Access, Inc., a company I co-founded, was the first to file a Freedom of Information Act request for the 1980 ZIP-code Census, and to analyze these datasets for social science research in the early 80s after the phrase "colored people" had become taboo and was retired for the now-ubiquitous term "people of color."

That calculation, which came to me in my sleep in 1986, was used in a landmark study I coauthored that led to a Presidential executive order (No. 12898), public policy at all levels of government in the United States, and a new field of academic study called “environmental justice.” No one had bothered to aggregate all of these different population groups before; even our own study still used the term "minority percentage of the population." Some people knew I did this at the time, and it led to my being able to say on my resume that I was “an advisor to the Clinton Administration,” with several federal appointments and contracts to my name, as well as a string of influential publications. But mostly, it barely even registers as an historical footnote.

As a polymath provocateur, once I move onto my next challenge, others move in to stake claim for whatever ground I’ve laid. Most recently, for example, even before I left town, others tried to grab credit for initiating the City Murals program that I created from whole cloth, which can now boast more than two-dozen permanent, large-scale public murals throughout the City of Newark, created by contemporary artists working with inner-city kids, all of whom face incredible hardships and some even severe physical disabilities. When the program won New Jersey's top award for cultural access, because of a mural created with children in wheelchairs, I wasn't even invited to the ceremony.

Like Seth Godin’s professional lynchpins, when I “affirm that I am most fulfilled by championing others,” I must learn to separate passion from attachment. That’s an even more difficult challenge than loving without possessiveness.

It is Thich Nhat Hanh’s three-breath hug: 

1. I am going to die.

2. You are going to die.

3. We have just these precious moments together.

So profoundly ephemeral, so temporary, it may be life’s hardest lesson:

Loss is the flip side of love.