Patriotism can never express a common human aspiration nor a universal moral code—if everyone on earth claimed to be a fierce and focused patriot today, 20 % of the world’s people would be Chinese patriots, and only 4.4 % patriotic Americans. Patriotism promises a steady anchor, but it is, in reality, entirely unstable. We note that every human being is indigenous to planet Earth, and that there is, therefore, no such thing as a foreigner. We might work, then, to replace national patriotism with human solidarity—sin fronteras—in the spirit of Chicago’s poet laureate Gwendolyn Brooks: “We are each other’s harvest: / we are each other’s / business: / we are each other’s / magnitude and bond.”

We’re excited to be joined in discussion with two influential Chicago artist/activists Aaron Hughes and Amber Ginsburg,  authors and co-editors of two extraordinary books, Remaking the Exceptional which highlights the connections between policing in Chicago and human rights violations abroad, and Invitation to Tea which compiles 48 tea recipes, stories, and traditions, one for each of the countries that have had citizens held at the US military prison in Guantánamo. Amber and Aaron will be at our home base, Pilsen Community Books, at 7:00 pm on June 26, which is International Day in Support of Torture Survivors, and we hope you’ll come out that night and build community with us.