Why

One resource I keep coming back to as I read and talk to people about unequal justice and police brutality is this:

• Protecting Communities, Serving the Public, Police and Residents Building Relationships to Work Together: A Guide for Public Dialogue and Problem Solving

Over the years, I've been in several dialogue groups. Also through my job and through volunteer work I've worked on initiatives that address justice issues, particularly justice for immigrants and youth. But I have never been in a group where we were led to explore questions as simple and complex as these:

• If you are a police officer, how do you talk to your family and friends about your job?
• If you are not a police officer, how do you talk about the police to your family and friends?

To tell you the truth, I don't know how police officers in my community would respond to these questions. I don't know how I would feel giving honest answers to these questions in their presence. But I believe that this sort of dialogue can lay the basis for action steps to bring about the real change that civil rights lawyer Constance Rice described in her recent interview on NPR:

• Civil Rights Attorney On How She Built Trust With Police

I'm seeking ways to promote this type of dialogue in my home community of Memphis. But in the meantime I'm also interested in creating (or joining - let me know if I've reinvented the wheel) a virtual study circle operating according to the same guidelines as the study circles described in the Protecting Communities, Serving the Public guide. And that is the why of this blog.

I don't know the how yet. I'm working on that.