June 18, 2020
Statement in Response
The Maxine Greene Institute, in its mission to pursue Dr. Greene's vision of the Social Imagination, grieves with and stands in support of the protesters on the streets of America and offer these words, Maxine’s own--a light in dark times:
Democracy, we realize, means a community that is always in the making. Marked by an emerging solidarity, a sharing of certain beliefs, and a dialogue about others, it must remain open to newcomers, those too long thrust aside…Again, it ought to be a space infused by the kind of imaginative awareness that enables those involved to imagine alternative possibilities for their own becoming and their group’s becoming.
Community cannot be produced simply through rational formulation nor through edict. Like freedom, it has to be achieved by persons offered the space in which to discover what they recognize together and appreciate in common. *
Although Maxine Greene wrote those words decades ago and, while they do not address the events of the past few months specifically, they, continue to echo with powerful resonance today.
We believe Maxine would insist upon our living with steadfast humanity and embrace not only respect, wide-awakeness, humility, and inclusion but also each other. We imagine she would urge that this fight does not end when the protests end. Instead, we recommit ourselves together and each in our own way to creating a more humane, just world. We are tasked to act against racism, to imagine "alternative possibilities" and to actively support all black lives that at this moment are yet struggling to be free.
Please join us at www.maxinegreene.org and join the space we have provided for discourse and reflection.
Sincerely,
The Maxine Greene Institute
*Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers (p. 39)
For further reading we suggest this book list for parents and children
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