Dec. 7, 2023

How to tell a new story about national security

More than two years ago we began a project with a handful of partner organizations to rethink the traditional national security narrative which tells us that safety is achieved through more guns, bigger bombs, and military power.

And today we are pleased to share with you the fruits of our collective labor, which comprise a set of five principles and a visually-stunning video, both available on our website, in which we envision a future where the earth and its inhabitants are put before the interests of the state and corporations.

Our public discourse is seeded with dangerous and counterproductive ideas concerning national security that are so deeply embedded we may often be unaware that we, as storytellers, are invoking or reinforcing them in our own narrations. Thus, the focus of our project was to develop a set of principles for reframing the public discourse on national security which could be widely adopted.

We hope to equip as many narrators as possible in organizations that focus on many diverse issues to frame their messages in a way that, over time, will shift the public’s assumptions and understanding of national security. For this reason, we articulated our five principles as broadly as possible in terms of values and vision.

This project was principally led by Open Society-US in partnership with Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security, and the Othering & Belonging Institute, with assistance from the Narrative Initiative. We hope you'll visit our website to view the principles and learn more.

Watch last week's talk on Disability & Blackness

Last Wednesday we co-hosted this talk at UC Berkeley on the contributions of the Black Panther Party in the California Bay Area to the nascent disability rights movement of the 1970s. The talk included blind disability activist Dennis Billups, who in 1977 participated in the Panthers-backed occupation of a federal building in San Francisco to demand the passage of legislation to outlaw ability-based discrimination in federally-financed programs. He, along with fellow disability rights activist Leroy Moore, shared stories of their backgrounds, activist work, and shed light on the intersections of disability and Blackness. Visit our website for a video and transcript of the talk, facilitated by OBI Director john a. powell.

Grid of thumbnails showing some of our merch

Check out our merch store for OBI swag

We're always adding new stuff to our swag catalog. We've got beanies and all types of clothing, posters, bags, mugs, and more. Visit our shop here.

From the Archives

In this new section of our newsletter we'll be resurfacing some resources we published in past years we believe are worth another look.

In May 2018, we profiled disability rights activist Ralf Hotchkiss, the co-founder of Whirlwind Wheelchair, a nonprofit which works with wheelchair riders and mechanics around the world to design and construct durable chairs using locally-sourced materials.

In November 2021, we hosted our first post-covid in-person event, featuring Georgetown law professor Sheryll Cashin who presented her new book on segregation and opportunity hoarding. Her talk was followed by a conversation with OBI Director john a. powell.

Report card showing grades for categories of social progress or regress

Earlier this year we released a first-of-its-kind interactive set of tools that measure the progress and/or regress for Black Americans in 15 areas. It shows that Black Americans have made big strides in education, voting, and reduction of poverty rates, but remain vastly unequal or have gotten worse in several other areas.