Have a conversation about America this July 4th

As we gather this July 4th, we want to try and answer the difficult question legal scholar and author Michelle Alexander asked in November:

In the words of William Faulkner, 'The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” What many of us have been attempting to do — build a thriving multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-faith, egalitarian democracy out of the rubble of slavery and genocide — has never been achieved in the history of the world. Some say it can never be done. Is America Possible?1

Pledge to have a conversation about America with your friends and family. We’ll ask about how it went after July 4th.

We’ve made a list of conversation starters to get you going:

  • What is your experience of American freedom? What is the America that you live in now? How is your experience of freedom different from other folks? What are things you can do that others can’t?
  • What kind of America do you want to live in? What’s keeping that America from being possible for everybody?
  • What can we do to make our neighborhoods and communities safe for people of color? What are you doing to stand up for racial justice? If you’re part of a resistance group, how are you working with groups led by people of color?
  • How do we build communities where both safety and justice are the norm? How do police interact with different communities? What are alternatives to calling the police?

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