In Remedias Res (“In the remedy of the thing”)
The Pocket Truth Commission is not simply an analysis of what’s wrong, but an embodied exploration of what else could be. At the core of the book are three chapters that examine a person, place, and thing, using memoir and reportage to illuminate the interconnections that lie beneath what we simplify as “racism.” These are then expanded on using speculative fiction vignettes that map out several possible futures that could arise from the specific facts and situations. The goal is to show how histories connect to the present, and create futures unless we intercede; and also to show that other futures are possible.
The book ends with sample exercises for readers that name the imaginative strategies used by those fictional vignettes. They also show some foundational strategies of conflict transformation. The goal is to: (1) expand imagination, specifically past what white supremacism has trained as allowable, and (2) identify limits, either imaginative (“that’s not possible!”) or relational (“I can’t say or think that”).
