What unites us? How do we overcome our divisions and differences? Can we discover ways to bridge the chasms that separate us? What tools can we turn to?
Amid the turmoil of 2020’s U.S. elections, we launched a project devoted to exploring these questions. We called it We Are Not Divided — a cheeky name, but cheeky with a purpose. We wanted to encourage readers to rethink and reexamine their assumptions about how divided we really need to be.
We recently decided now is an opportune time to revisit those stories.
Over these next few months, we’re republishing stories from We Are Not Divided. You can find the previous editions here, here and here. Each month, we’ll select three articles that feel relevant to the moment, and each month’s roundup has a loose theme. This month’s theme is inspiration. So prepare yourself for a heady dose of optimism — and a bike ride through a Trump-voting neighborhood with our founder, David Byrne.
We’re Closer Than We Realize
The notion that our common bonds are wearing away obscures a simple truth: difference and division are not the same thing. In this essay, bridging expert john a. powell and advocate Rachel Heydemann argue, “We can transcend the notion that difference divides us, and instead see that it makes us stronger.”
The Idea That Still Unites Us
A rowdy, opinionated nation of 330 million requires a special kind of bond. Theodore R. Johnson, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, believes America still has that.
The Complicated World of Staten Island
RTBC founder David Byrne takes a bike ride through the only New York City borough that voted for Donald Trump and finds a place both familiar and foreign.
