The following is a letter from Executive Director Panthea Lee, shared with the Reboot community this month in response to the COVID-19 crisis around the world. It has been edited and adapted for this blog.
Dear friends,
You don’t need me to tell you that these are extraordinary times. In fact, extraordinary feels like a wholly inadequate word for this moment; “extra-ordinary” is a vast understatement.
The COVID-19 crisis has laid bare the deep injustices and failures of our dominant ideologies, systems, and institutions. These failures have driven many of us to feelings of rage, despair, anxiety, overwhelm, and guilt.
In recent conversations with Reboot’s allies near and far, many of us are asking ourselves: What could we have done differently? What is our role now? How do we build a more just and resilient future? And I’ve noticed that most of us aren’t satisfied working solely on immediate response and recovery. We want moral and structural transformation at scale.
For this, we need to marry the radical imaginations of our poets and artists, the principled courage of our bravest activists, the innovation and generosity of our community organizers, the agenda-setting influence of our media and civil society, the infrastructure and tools of our digital age, and the reach and durability of our public institutions.
Our team has found immense hope as we work alongside our community toward this future we know is possible. We’ve benefited deeply from your insights. So today I write to share back some offerings to support your thinking and work—and to extend an invitation.
Thank you for all that you do.
In solidarity,
Panthea and the Reboot team
It’s undeniable: We need to reimagine a radically better future. To do this, we need a space for courageous co-creation between unlikely allies. Many of you agree, and we’re ready to build this new space together.
Image: Isaiah Rustad on Unsplash