View this email in your browser

The words "Dear Good People" written in script across a green boka background. Images at bottom of covers of The Person You Mean to Be and A More Just Future

I was today years old when . . .

Dear <<First Name>>,

I am a little obsessed with the whole “I was today years old when I found out …” trend.

You know, the sharing-something-you-did-not-know-that-maybe-possibly-everyone-else-already-knows-or-maybe-not-maybe-you-are-the-first-to-find-out-and-if-so-you-must-tell-everyone-right-now trend.

Here are a few that I can't stop thinking about ...

Seriously adorable

Twitter image of baby elephants sucking their trunks. One is standing with a red blanket on it, one is sitting facing forward and one is walking next to a larger elephant. Text on image: Just learned that baby elephants suck their trunks for comfort, just like baby humans suck their thumbs. Everyone look at this. Today Years Old twitter

I am confused (and also 54).

Twitter image: Flora Gill @FloraEGill twitter account. The main characters in the first season of Golden Girls are younger than in the current Sex and The City 53/ 54 in GG and 54/55 in And Just Like That!) Amazing how different our view of women at that age is now. Golden Girls Cast and Sex and The City Cast

Wait, whaa??

Twitter image : Today Years Old. How old were you when you found out that the drawer on your stove is for keeping food warm and not pots and pans... Bottom drawer on a stainless steel stove pulled out with dishes of food in the drawer.

Is this true???

No way!

Twitter image from Shea Coulee I was TODAY years old twitter.com/DannyDeraney/s... How old were you when you found out the voices for Musafa and Sarabi were also played by the King and Queen of Zamunda in Coming to America? Lion King picture of Musafa and Sarabi hugging and King and Queen of Zamunda standing next to each other.

This is oddly satisfying.

$Twitter post by Abdul @Advil: "i just found out that the division symbol is just a blank fraction with dots replacing the numerator and denominator. oh my god.$

Oh, wow, this is deep.

Today Years Old Twitter image from September 5. Martin Luther King Jr and Anne Frank would be the same age today as Barbara Walters. We tend to think they existed in very different times but they were all born in 1929. Martin Luther King Jr sitting and looking over his shoulder wearing a chestnut brown suit. Anne Frank smiling and wearing a grey jacket.

Negative Emotion Cascade

While most of my “I was today years old when I found out …” moments bring me delight or satisfaction, it is not always baby elephants and circular rainbows.

For example, when I realized that I had spent my life celebrating something literally called Independence Day without noticing the irony that millions of people were being enslaved at the time by those who declared their independence (including most of our country's forefathers).

Forbes article Celebrating America's Second Independence Day Dolly Chugh Former Contributor I write about race, gender, diversity, inclusion and bias. June 19, 2018 7:00 am EDT. Tweet this The key fact is that July 4, 1976, symbolized the day when white Americans became free. Enslaved black Americans did not. Many of us, myself included, forget this on Independence Day. If you have not heard of Juneteenth, you are not alone. Image of a diverse group of men sitting around a table talking, smiling and taking notes.

That moment of “I was today years old” opened up a cascade of negative emotions like shame, guilt, disbelief, and anger.

Another moment happened a few years ago, when I learned how recently the United States government coerced Native American parents to send away their children. The children were taken to “residential / boarding schools” where they were forbidden from speaking their native language, communicating with their families, and retaining their culture. It is now also understood that abuse was widespread in these schools.

This was not a long time ago. Those children are now adults you and I know, like my friend, Ina McNeil. Ina is the same age as my parents. I was today years old when I learned this happened ... and how recently it happened.

Dolly Chugh wearing a winter black coat smiling and standing next to Ina McNeil, wearing an army green jacket. Both ladies are standing in front of a brick wall.

More negative emotions cascade.

Or, I was today years old when I learned about the Tulsa Massacre, or the true story behind Thanksgiving, or the facts we did not learn about Christopher Columbus, or … cue the negative emotion cascade.

Well, you get the idea.

There is a lot about American history that I was today years old when I learned it. What does someone who loves this country deep in their bones do when these blood-boiling, heart-hurting moments happen? How do we respond when we realize that we have been telling ourselves - and our children - stories that are at best, incomplete, and sometimes, untrue?

For the first time ever, an excerpt ...

I sense that I am not alone in looking for a way to deal with those negative emotions in a productive and resilient way. That is why I wrote A MORE JUST FUTURE: Psychological Tools for Reckoning with our Past and Driving Social Change.

My publisher, Simon & Schuster / Atria, will be releasing the book in a few weeks (October 18!) but they have given me permission to share a sneak peek with you. For the first time ever in public, here are the opening 500 words of A MORE JUST FUTURE (with some bonus pictures)!

“In 2011, I read the entire Little House on the Prairie series aloud to my daughters. I loved sharing stories of this quintessential American family. We related so much to the Ingalls family that my husband and I devoted a weeklong summer road trip with our children through South Dakota and Minnesota, visiting the towns of Walnut Grove and DeSmet. We walked on the same soil, saw the same sky, and breathed the same American spirit as the family with whom we identified.”

Laura Ingall Wilders Little House on the Prairie book set. 9 Book covers Farmer Boy, Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, On the Banks of Plum Creek, By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, The Happy Golden Years, The First Four Years, and Little Town on the Prairie.

”Throughout the week, I found myself humming, This land is your land, this land is my land. As the children of immigrants, we loved immersing our kids in this deeply American story. The vacation delighted our children, spared our budget, and glorified the patriotic values of hard work, family, and love of country that we emphasize in our home and nation.

A parenting triple play. Nailed it, I remember thinking, with a non-
trivial bit of smugness.

Years later, I realized what a disservice I had done my children and the country I love.”

Little House on the Prairie Cast, sitting and standing on a large rock in front of the house and large prairie field behind the house. The three girls and mother is wearing prairie dresses and, Pa, the dad is wearing a shirt, pants, boots and holding a hat.

“If you have seen the television show Little House on the Prairie, you might remember the iconic opening, with the Ingalls girls in prairie dresses running through tall grass and wildflowers. At the time of our trip, our kids knew the books but had never seen the show from the 1970s and ’80s. In a general store in South Dakota, we bought them prairie dresses, handmade by a local resident, because . . . cuteness. Later that day, with no parental prompting from us, the kids spontaneously reenacted that iconic scene and in a parenting miracle, we managed to snap a photo. Prairie dresses, tall grasses, flowing tresses . . . how I savored the sweetness of that moment.” (Can you tell the Ingalls kids from mine below lol?)

Two young girls in left picture running down a grassy hill in prairie dress. One dress being red with a white apron and then the other little girl in a pink dress and white apron. Right picture is the opening scene of Little House on the Prairie. 3 girls running down a grassy hill in prairie dresses.

“Now I recall that trip with sweet nostalgia and sweet regret. The opportunity was literally in my lap to help my kids learn about our country’s past, its beauty and its burdens. I missed the chance because I was thinking about Ma, Pa, Mary, Laura, and baby Carrie, not about their historical context.

I doubt I paused to explain or consider that the Ingalls family built a house in ‘Indian country’ because, as Pa explained to Laura, ‘When white settlers come into a country, the Indians have to move on.’ I likely tsk-tsked at racist phrases like ‘the only good Indian is a dead Indian,’ yet overall, I never questioned who the heroes—and villains—were in the American story I had grown up reading and watching."

Ingalls Home and Museum sign in front of The House that Pa Built 1887. Laura Ingalls Wilder Tours begin at the Gift Shop. White house sitting behind the sign with a large tree in the middle of the picture. Two little girls standing on the front porch with a blue prairie dress and a pink prairie dress on.

"I am no history buff, but I could have asked basic questions. Whose land did that little house sit on? How did Laura’s family justify stealing land from the Osage Indians? Where did those Native Americans go?

These questions pinched my thoughts every now and then, but I ignored them because I lacked the tools to engage the contradictions that surfaced or to untangle complicated narratives. I let my kids believe the same fables I had grown up believing.

Looking back now, I wish I had seized the chance to help my kids learn age-appropriate truths. I wish I had named and embraced the paradox of the Ingallses as American heroes and colonizers. I wish I had connected the dots between events of Laura’s time and events of my children’s time. I wish I had rejected those fables of who the bad guys were. I wish I had helped my kids see that the Ingallses were good people benefiting from an unjust system that favored them and generations to come. Instead, I was burdening my kids with the same need to unlearn that I (and most Americans) carry."

My kids soaked it all up. When I look back at their drawings and school work of that year, the Ingalls appear everywhere, as do memories of our trip to "Walnut Grove, Minnesota and DeSmet, South Dakota."

A Child's art and written paper. This summer my family went whar Laura and her family. lied. We went to Walnut Gove Minata and Dusmet Saoush Dcota. Colored paper in the shape of a t shirt. People that look like a family on the shirt with grass, sky & sunshine.

A More Just Future

That is how the Prologue begins followed by three sections: 1) How do we start? 2) What do we do? and 3) Where do we go from here? I offer 7 evidence-based tools to help with the negative emotion cascade of “I was today years old moments” about our country. I weave together science we can use and stories we can relate to.

I hope A MORE JUST FUTURE meets the moment we are in and that readers leave feeling more equipped, more resilient, and more hopeful.

"Instant Classic"!

The early buzz and reviews are amazing. I asked one of my heroes, legal scholar and writer Kenji Yoshino, to read my manuscript and offer his thoughts (some might recall that I wrote about his amazing work on covering last July in Dear Good People; he and David Glasgow have a new book coming out next year!). Here is what Professor Yoshino had to say:

$Kenji Yoshino standing in a dark suit and purple tie smiling. Quote behind him. " In the Japanese art of kintsugi, artisans take broken pottery and restore it by sealing the cracks with precious metals. In this instant classic, Chugh teaches us her version of that art to address our own fractured national history. Instead of ignoring cracks or discording shards, she shows us how to restore the past in a way that makes the future feel all the more startling and precious. This book is required reading for all patriots who love their country enough to see its wounds - and heal them." Kenji Yoshino Author of Covering and Say the Right Thing$

Uh, you had me at “instant classic”!

Available for Pre-Order Now

I have been hearing SO much excitement from Dear Good People subscribers about the book. As an author and as an American, I am so touched by the solidarity around this work. A lot of us were today years old when we realized we had work to do. Thank you from deep in my soul.

A MORE JUST FUTURE will be released on October 18. You can pre-order the book here. Remember - pre-orders make a big difference in how algorithms and publishers promote books, so if you plan to buy anyway, I encourage you to buy now.

Book A More Just Future, Psychological Tools for Reckoning with Our Past and Driving Social Change. Dolly Chugh Book standing on table in front of a floral arrangement with a stack of A More Just Future books laying with the spines facing forward. Background is of a living room.

I wish baby elephants and circular rainbows were enough to counter the negative emotion cascade. We need tools and A MORE JUST FUTURE is a start for dealing with those I was today years old moments.

I’ll send you an update on the book launch in a few weeks. Until then, here’s to a more just future!

Dolly signature

Sources:
Bored Panda, Golden Girls / Sex and the City, Little House on the Prairie girls running Rainbow National Geographic, Little House on the Prairie cast , Little House on the Prairie book set Personal photos used

Enormous thanks to Anna McMullen for her thought partnership and creativity, and to Katie Sutton for her dedication and support.

Dolly Chugh is the Jacob B. Melnick Term Professor at the New York University Stern School of Business in the Department of Management and Organizations. She studies the psychology of good people and teaches leadership/management courses. All views are her own.