At the start of quarantine, the Brooklyn Rail asked how might we stay connected to each other in a time of self-isolation? Now we ask: How can we stay involved and engaged in upholding our civic responsibility to one another across communities? How can we deploy this community we have built through the New Social Environment—through hundreds of conversations and meals shared over the past six months—to mobilize daily action for grassroots movements, social justice and equity projects, and for the political good of our most marginalized communities across the nation? Common Ground will be taking over the New Social Environment Thursday 1pm slot—beginning immediately and continuing up to the presidential election—and will convene weekly on Thursdays at 1pm Eastern from Sept 3rd through Nov 5th.

Please join us for our second installment, with special guest Jodi Archambault (Hunkpapa and Oglala Lakota Standing Rock Sioux Tribe), acclaimed artist and traditional dancer, Director of Indigenous Peoples Initiatives at Wend Collective and Strategic Advisor to the Bush Foundation, as well as former policy advisor under the Administration of President Barack Obama.

She will be in joined by Abigail E. Disney, filmmaker, philanthropist, and Emmy Award-winning director of The Armor of Light (2015). As president and CEO of the documentary production company Fork Films, Disney has produced such groundbreaking films as Pray the Devil Back to Hell (2008), on Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, the women's organization that brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003, as well as co-created the subsequent nine-part PBS series Women, War, & Peace, spotlighting women-led political uprisings across the globe. She has executive-produced and supported over a hundred documentary projects through Fork Films's funding program—among which shines the critically-acclaimed 2019 documentary Knock Down the House, which follows the primary campaign of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez alongside three other progressive political newcomers. Disney's nonprofit advocacy group, Peace is Loud, uses storytelling to advance social and political movements, focusing on women's rights and gender justice.

They will discuss Archambault’s experiences as a policy advisor under the Obama Administration, being an interpreter between two radically different worlds, why we should each sign up to be poll workers in our communities in advance of the election, contextualizing Standing Rock after Ferguson and as a predecessor to our current moment of militarized policing, and the long resilience of Native Peoples.

We will close with a reading by poet Pamela Sneed.