As I read part of “on community,” by Casey Plett, the quote that stood out to me the most is “Somewhere along the line…, the word community to attain semantic satiation for me—the phenomenon in which a word is repeated so often it loses its meaning…” This quote stood out to me because I think it’s the perfect way to describe the overused word, “community.” 

It made me think about the communities that I am part of and weather or not they are actually my community or if I have just labeled them as such because defining something as community is easier then actually trying to figure out what it means to you. While in the thought process of trying to figure out whether I was defining my social groups correctly as “community”,  I searched up the dictionary definition of community and realized that it’s fine if I label all the groups I am part of as community. I think the word is inherently bound to feel semantic band cause its definition is so broad. The Oxford dictionary definition is “group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.” That definition describes so many groups I am a part of, and while I may not value all those different groups equally, they are still by definition a community where I share similar attitudes or interests with other people. 

Casey Plett also goes into detail about the subdivisions amongst the people in the communities she’s part of, like the trans community, and she talks about the nuances in the trans community with regards to people’s attitudes and behavior towards people of the same community. I can also relate with this; I feel like there’s always subdivisions in every community that I’m a part of but I think that’s natural. Its hard to find people that are so similar that subdivisions don’t form in larger communities, it’s bound to happen. 

The image above is the logo for one of my communities that perfectly describes what a community is for me. It’s called DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving), and it’s a grassroots organization that focuses on helping and seeking political advocacy for working class Desis, south Asian and indocarribean folks. This best describes what a community is for me because everyone in DRUM shares the same goal of advocacy and safe space for south Asian and indocaribbean people but within DRUM there’s all sorts of people that are different in their own ways and diverge into sub-communities but it’s still a unified community.