Part One Journaling Questions

Why do you think the Black Panther Party’s involvement in the disability rights movement is so little taught? What other surprising solidarity movements come to mind?

Who are some other lionized historical figures that you are surprised to learn aren’t all that righteous? What’s the point of uplifting these fellows?

Do you think Woodrow Wilson was the worst president ever? Why or why not? If not, who is worse, and why?

Can you think of other traditions that show a linkage between the three Abrahamic religions?

What are five awful stereotypes, images, or games that defile Native Americans, and which were a “normal” part of your growing-up experience?

What other SCOTUS decisions concerning race do you know of that have had a negative effect on people?

How does learning about cross-movement solidarities (e.g., Black Panthers and disability rights, Filipino and Mexican farmworkers, Muslims in Black religious history) shift your understanding of how social change actually happens?

What role does language (e.g., “pioneer,” “settler,” “Caucasian”) play in shaping your gut feelings about whose lives matter, and what words do you now feel called to retire or replace in your own speech?

Which examples of erasure in this document (Native representation, Islamic roots of Black culture, sanitized presidential legacies) most unsettled you, and why do you think those particular stories had been kept from you?

The text insists that “these are not just stories, these were people.” How does that reframing change the way you hold historical grief, and what responsibility does it awaken in you now?

Where, in your own work or community, might you be unintentionally reproducing “representation without us is representation done to us,” and what concrete steps could you take to move toward representation with and by affected communities?