THE FOUR PIVOTS: REIMAGINING JUSTICE, REIMAGINING OURSELVES--BY DR. SHAWN A. GINWRIGHT

Charis welcomes Shawn A. Ginwright, Ph.D. in conversation with Dr. Farima Pour-Khorshid for a discussion of The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves. For readers of Emergent Strategy and Dare to Lead, an activist's roadmap to long-term social justice impact through four simple shifts. This event is co-hosted by the ‪@AuburnAvenueResearchLibrary‬ .
We need a fundamental shift in our values--a pivot in how we think, act, work, and connect. Despite what we’ve been told, the most critical mainspring of social change isn’t coalition building or problem analysis. It’s healing: deep, whole, and systemic, inside and out.
Here, Shawn Ginwright, Ph.D., breaks down the common myths of social movements--a set of deeply ingrained beliefs that actually hold us back from healing and achieving sustainable systemic change. He shows us why these frames don’t work, proposing instead four revolutionary pivots for better activism and collective leadership:
Awareness: from lens to mirror
Connection: from transactional to transformative relationships
Vision: from problem-fixing to possibility-creating
Presence: from hustle to flow
Supplemented with reflections, prompts, cutting-edge research, and the author’s own insights and lived experience as an African American social scientist, professor, and movement builder, The Four Pivots helps us uncover our obstruction spots. It shows us how to discover new lenses and boldly assert our need for connection, transformation, trust, wholeness, and healing. It gives us permission to create a better future--to acknowledge that a broken system has been predefining our dreams and limiting what we allow ourselves to imagine, but that it doesn’t have to be that way at all. Are you ready to pivot?
Shawn Ginwright, Ph.D. is one of the nation’s leading innovators, provocateurs, and thought leaders on African American youth, youth activism, and youth development. He is Professor of Education in the Africana Studies Department and a Senior Research Associate at San Francisco State University. His research examines the ways in which youth in urban communities navigate through the constraints of poverty and struggle to create equality and justice in their schools and communities.
Dr. Ginwright is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Flourish Agenda, Inc., a national nonprofit consulting firm, whose mission is to design strategies that unlock the power of healing and engage youth of color and adult allies in transforming their schools and communities. He is the author of the new book “The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves.” His other books include “Hope and Healing in Urban Education: How Activists and Teachers are Reclaiming Matters of the Heart,” “Black Youth Rising, Activism and Radical Healing in Urban America,” “Black in School- Afrocentric Reform, Black Youth and the Promise of Hip-Hop Culture,” and co-editor of “Beyond Resistance!: Youth Resistance and Community Change: New Democratic Possibilities for Practice and Policy for America's Youth.”
Dr. Ginwright lives in Oakland, CA with his lovely wife and is currently an empty-nester-both children are in college.
Dr. Farima Pour-Khorshid (she/her/hers) is a Bay Area educator, organizer, and scholar. After teaching at the elementary grade levels in her community for over a decade, she spent the latter half of her teaching career also supporting educators locally, nationally, and internationally through her roles as a university professor, teacher supervisor, educational consultant, and community organizer. She is now a professor and teacher supervisor at the University of San Francisco in California. Much of her work is rooted in grassroots organizing with the Teachers 4 Social Justice, the Abolitionist Teaching Network, and the Education for Liberation Network, as well as her healing-centered facilitation and programming with Flourish Agenda. She is committed to centering abolitionist teaching, ethnic studies, and healing-centered engagement within and outside of the field of education. As such, she is one of the editors, authors, and organizers that collaborated on the recently released book, "Lessons in Liberation: An Abolitionist Toolkit for K-12 Educators."
This event is free and open to all people, especially to those who have no income or low income right now, but we encourage and appreciate a solidarity donation in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Charis Circle's mission is to foster sustainable feminist communities, work for social justice, and encourage the expression of diverse and marginalized voices. donatenow.networkforgood.org/...