Listening, Love, and Citizenship: Healing the Fractures in American Society

Aline and Leo Jacobsohn Foundation Lecture

On the one-year anniversary of the presidential election, join the Jewish Theological Seminary for a panel discussion exploring how the United States became such a fractured society. What forces divided our country into separate enclaves, populated by citizens who read different newspapers and blogs, watch different television stations, and live in different neighborhoods and states? What are the basic skills of citizenship that have eroded in our country? How can we learn to listen to one another and love one another to become responsible citizens?

Seven Stories author, Khary Lazarre-White will be there for the panel discussion and will be selling and signing copies of his novel, Passage, afterwards. Khary Lazarre-White is a social justice advocate, attorney and activist who has dedicated his life to the educational outcome and opportunities for young people of color at key life stages. His support base is far-reaching and diverse, built over the past twenty years as co-founder and executive director of The Brotherhood/Sister Sol. He has received awards for his work, including the Oprah Winfrey Angel Network Use Your Life Award, the Ford Foundation Leadership for a Changing World Award, the Black Girls Rock Soul Brother Award, the Andrew Goodman Hidden Heroes Award, and a Resident Fellowship Award to the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center. Khary Lazarre-White is a highly influential presence among national policymakers and broadcast, print, and social media outlets. He has written for the Huffington Post, NYU Press, Nation Books, and MSNBC.com, and has edited three books, The Brotherhood Speaks, Voices of the Brotherhood/Sister Sol, and Off the Subject. He lives in Harlem, New York City. Passage is his first novel.

Passage tells the story of Warrior, a young black man navigating the snowy winter streets of Harlem and Brooklyn in 1993. Warrior is surrounded by deep family love and a sustaining connection to his history, bonds that arm him as he confronts the urban forces that surround him--both supernatural and human--including some that seek his very destruction.