Common Good Collective

“May we raise children who love the unloved things”

When writer and friend of Common Good, adrienne marie brown, shared educator Nicolette Sowder’s poem on social media, we knew that the this spark would ignite the imaginations of our readers to see our children as the future gatherers and tenders of the collective.

May we raise children who love the unloved things
by Nicolette Sowder

May we raise children
who love the unloved things – the dandelion, the
worms & spiderlings.
Children who sense
the rose needs the thorn
& run into rainswept days
the same way they turn towards sun…

And when they’re grown &
someone has to speak for those
who have no voice
may they draw upon that
wilder bond, those days of
tending tender things
and be the ones.

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Passing the Torch

As the Olympics come to a close, summer vacation nears its end, and schools begin to open, we at Common Good have shifted our focus to the needs and voices of the next generation. In this week’s reader, we reflect on what it means to pass the torch, and what is the fueling the fire, and how do we protect it from the winds of ideology.

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On the Billionaire Space Race

This short excerpt from a conversation between Anand Giridharadas and Krista Tippett on the On Being podcast highlights two warring ideologies in our society: the significance of individual achievement versus collective accomplishments. Sometimes the answer sits outside of the binary.

What we do alone and what we do together
On the billionaire space race
by Anand Giridharadas

Jeff Bezos’ self-defenestration from this planet and hasty return got me thinking back to a conversation I once had with Krista Tippett, the brilliant host of On Being. And so today, on Billionaire Space Day No. 2, I share with you this brief reflection about the background ethos of the age: how we’ve come to venerate what we do alone and sneer at what we do together.

James Baldwin’s Faith in the Alternative Narrative

“Your history has led you to this moment, and you can only begin to change yourself by looking at what you are doing in the name of your history.” If Derrick Bell is the father of Critical Race Theory, then James Baldwin is its wisened grandfather. On Baldwin’s birthday, we share the brilliant reflections of Eddie Glaude as he reminds us of Baldwin’s faith in the power of a different story.

The History That James Baldwin Wanted America to See
By Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.

On March 16, 1968, James Baldwin walked to the podium at a fund-raiser, at Anaheim’s Disneyland Hotel, to introduce Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Baldwin had recently arrived in Los Angeles from New York, after Columbia Pictures had bought the rights to Alex Haley’s “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” and asked Baldwin to write the script. Though eager, he had ended up fighting desperately to bring his story of Malcolm to the screen. Baldwin wanted Billy Dee Williams to play the lead, but the studio had other actors in mind. There were even rumors that someone had suggested a darkened Charlton Heston.

Creative Justice

For this week’s Common Good Reader, we engaged dozens of pieces of content that push the boundaries of the concept of justice. From the victory climate garden, to the rising calls for media and information justice, to the justice we can only give to ourselves, each piece paints a picture of the common good past the mainstream’s canvas.

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