The Path Forward Project

Due: Wednesday July 29

You are invited to participate in The Path Forward Project, based at The Global Action Research Center (Global ARC). https://www.theglobalarc.org/(Links to an external site.) President / CEO Paul Watson will be visiting our class on Monday, July 27.

The Path Forward Project collects thoughts, impressions, and critiques of the current uprising from a diverse group of people of all ages, racial identities, gender identities, sexual identities, socioeconomic status, whoever you may be.

You are invited you to share your understanding of what you see going on, or personal experiences that support your understanding, or what you think we can do to transform our society into one that is more just, caring, and equitable.

Your submission can be in the form of:

Written word (from one paragraph, up to four pages in length)

You are asked to orient your comments to one or all of the following content areas

Racism (including thoughts on the value of a “Truth and Reconciliation” processes, based on the South African model for Racial Healing. The Global ARC advocates for a national healing campaign that is enacted at neighborhood / regional scale – a well-designed and tightly facilitated process that allows all residents to give account of their experiences, express their feelings, and work toward healing and reconciliation. The Global ARC also advocates for reparations, distributed not to individuals, but rather dedicated to economic strategies that address inequities in employment, business development, housing, education, health care, etc. For the Global ARC, reparations are understood as investments in systemic solutions that atone for centuries of this society’s misconduct.

Police Misconduct (including thoughts on accountability, ensuring equal application of justice for all, including protection of and service to the Black community and all communities of color; and policy constraints on the use of force.)

System Change If democracy is about majorities, how do we build coalitions and collaborations necessary to people together across racial, class, gender, and age lines to create a new America? The Global ARC identifies four basic steps necessary for community change:

1. Shared Vision– establishing community processes that facilitate people coming together at neighborhood-scale to create a shared vision of the future. “It is our dreams that call us forth”.
2. Contradictions– identifying the obstacles to achieving that shared vision right now, and their root causes. It is only by identifying the root causes that we can design effective and sustainable strategies to overcome the obstacles.
3. Strategic Directions–crafting strategies focused on overcoming the obstacles. Since systems change is difficult and sometimes messy, we must develop short- and long-term strategies. Short-term collective victories deepen motivation and commitment to longer-term ones.
4. Implementation Plan–developing an implementation plan where everyone has “skin in the game” – not handed off to politicians. All must be vested in the success of the plan and be willing to push and protect it.