Democracy!!!

SCOTUS and POTUS and Backlash OH MY, but we still got each other

This photo deserves a little short story. On May 30th this year the three men pictured all held prominent positions within the universe of Harvard University. I, on the left, served as Chief Marshal of Alumni, representing all alumni on Alumni Day and leading a parade, sitting on the stage, and giving a speech during a luncheon.

Center is Courtney B. Vance, actor, producer, and activist, also husband to Angela Bassett. On the right is Ty Moore, then-president of the Harvard Alumni Association. In a year of unrelenting attacks on higher education, on Black people in higher education, and on the very idea of true education itself, we shared a moment of profound alignment, joy, and purpose. Truly this was a remarkable moment and reminder. The attacks we are experiencing are a response to change and progress. Keep on pushing.

Tweet from kdnerak33 which says, “BREAKING: The Surpreme Court has ruled that the American Revolution was a waste of time.”

Hi you,

It’s been a minute. We live in the downside up and the upside down. Absurdity is normalcy and normalcy is insane. There’s a lot happening but I wanted to share a relatively quick update of a few things on my mind and calendar related to this week’s holiday and commemoration of the founding and “independence” of the United States.

Join me in Philly July 9th talking democracy

Tickets here.

Nearly 250 years after the United States came into fruition, the country is still in pursuit of a more perfect union.

Join us in the birthplace of the nation for the launch of the TED Democracy Fireside Chat series. Hosted by author and journalist A.J. Jacobs in conversation with NPR president and CEO Katherine Maher and host, producer, and writer Baratunde Thurston. W e’ll challenge perspectives on modern democracy and exchange ideas about its impact on your daily life.

This is a free event. I’m going to be sharing a mini-TED talk and engaging in conversation with A.J. and Katherine and lots of audience Q&A.

Join the best July 4th event virtually

Register here

In years past, I have read / performed and re-broadcast my reading of Frederick Douglass’s What To The Slave is the Fourth of July. It’s become a regular tradition for me to revisit this re-founding text uttered at a time of upheaval and moral failure in U.S. history. This year I will be tuning in to an even older founding moment of the United States. The online event is called ReMembering Some of the Indigenous Origins of Democracy and Key American Values. Register here.

These past several months I’ve been engaged in deep study and increasing relationship with indigenous elders, specifically Haudenosaunee / Mohawk, Taino, and Lakota. We have all been denied the true history of this land even from before 1619, and as we deepen the era of so many crises, a return to first principles is called for, and that requires acknowledgement and engagement with First Peoples who have known a better way of being with each other on this land.

From the program:

The roots of the democratic governance system itself largely come from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. In this webinar, we pick up threads of conversation that were happening in the 1600s and 1700s and have largely been lost to how we remember and engage in history differently.

Check out this Reimagining Democracy Podcast

Listen to the podcast series

Angela Glover Blackwell has a podcast I was honored to help launch. It’s called Reimagining Democracy for a Good Life. Back when I had Ruha Benjamin on How To Citizen, she teased her now-released book this way, “the key sort of thread in the book is that imagination isn't a straightforward good. We are in many ways living in a eugenics imagination, a techno utopian imagination. We're living in imagination not of our own design. And so imaginations can be corrupting and limiting… When we work in groups, then we can see the edges of our own imagination. We can try to broaden the imagination in which all of us can flourish.”

That is the spirit of Angela’s podcast series. As the official description notes:

Democracy isn't dead. It just needs to be reimagined so that all of us can flourish. To think big, we're going to have to go granular to the city level - and that city is LA. We will look at how Los Angeles is striving to be a multiracial democracy and what lessons we can apply to the rest of the nation. Reimagining Democracy for a Good Life is a podcast hosted by Angela Glover Blackwell, which aims to infuse some hope into one of the founding principles of the United States.

These are exhausting times, and those who operate from fear and scarcity and hate want to limit the range of possibilities for many of us and reduce the scope of our imaginations. They want us to be constrained by narrow walls and low ceilings because they lack the imagination to envision a world of true justice, abundance, and balance. They hoard because the never learned to power of sharing. They separate because they’ve been denied the joy of true connection. I encourage you to hold fast to your imagination and do so with others. The onslaught is relentless. Make time for joy. Connect with loved ones. Remind yourself of the world you want to inhabit and co-create.

And remember as all around us seems to be collapsing, much if it is. And much of that collapse is overdue, being built on foundation that wasn’t fully sound to begin with. Let’s mitigate the harm from collapse, brace for impact, and keep our imaginations alive with visions of a more whole world for us all. Let’s commit to building something better.

With appreciation and love.

Baratunde