Who Are We? How Racial Narratives Build (or Destroy) Shared Understanding and Identities

For this webinar, the Communications Network will be joined by Ian Haney López, the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Public Law at University of California, Berkeley, to discuss how storytelling has been exploited to deepen division among Americans, and how narrative-change strategies can be used to build bridges across our diverse social fabric. Ian will explain the stories about race that have been used to divide Americans, and also the common counter-stories that too often entrench rather than bridge those divisions.

This session will explore:

• What foundation and nonprofit communicators can do to rethink and deepen our most basic understandings of racism

• How race has been used to turn people against the idea of working together and against government itself

• Storytelling and messaging that help build bridges across communities and cultures

• Why answering the question “Who are we?” is key to building synergy among foundations and nonprofits and also to generating energy and enthusiasm among stakeholders