222 Irvington Ave, South Orange, NJ
Time: 7:30pm–9:00pm
Conversations on Race: Who Are We Now? is a community-wide conversation on integration, featuring a special screening of the award-winning film The New Metropolis, on Wednesday, May 18th, at 7:30 pm at Congregation Beth El, 222 Irvington Avenue, South Orange, NJ. This year we celebrate 15 years as a community that is not afraid to talk about race!
Film director Andrea Torrice will be with us for this important dialogue about the benefits of intentional integration. She uses compelling, personal stories in her films to facilitate a national dialogue on intentional integration and how it helps communities handle demographic and economic change.
The New Metropolis explores the challenges faced by first suburbs, and the film's experts call for new strategies and policies that promote intentional (or stable) integration and balanced growth. Some of the issues associated with being a first suburb that are current concerns of our towns are: aging infrastructure; high taxes; maintaining high quality schools and eliminating the achievement gap; green/environmental sustainability efforts; transportation issues; public safety issues—a regional challenge that has direct impact on the quality of life in South Orange and Maplewood and our neighbors.
Conversations on Race: Who Are We Now? will be a dialogue about the benefits of intentional integration and the on-going challenges faced by a community 15 years into the process. Our goals are to develop a renewed community commitment to intentional integration, to develop new strategies for achieving multiracial community engagement, and to develop pro-integrative strategies not in isolation from but in connection with other communities.
Event is free and open to all; registration requested, but not required, at www.twotowns.org
