Sample Discussion & Writing Prompts

Curated by Amy Minervini

The website Living Room Conversations features a Social Equity Conversation Guide, beginning with Conversation Agreements, ways in which to respectfully engage with others on more difficult topics. Those are as follows:

• Be curious and listen to understand.
• Show respect and suspend judgment.
• Note any common ground as well as any differences.
• Be authentic and welcome that from others.
• Be purposeful and to the point.
• Own and guide the conversation.

These general, open-ended ideas from Living Room Conversations (surrounding social equity, policing, anti-racism, gender, homelessness, culture, and pandemic-race intersection) can be modified to generate discussion or to fit various writing modes: personal narrative, reflection, informative, persuasive, and analysis depending on your purpose:

• What sense of purpose / mission / duty guides you in your life?
• What would your best friend say about who you are and what inspires you?
• What are your hopes and concerns for your community and/or the country?
• What does the concept of “social equity” mean to you?
• Are there “social equity” concerns in your community? If so, what are they? If not, should there be?
• When it comes to achieving social equity, do your values line up with the redistributing of wealth and resources? Is everyone entitled to a certain quality and standard of living?
• How racially/ethnically diverse is your congregation? Have you ever attended a place of worship where you were in the racial/ethnic minority? What was that experience like?
• How has your faith inspired you to respond in this moment? What are you feeling called to do? Where do you feel resistance?
• What messages have you internalized from your faith’s culture, history, and doctrine around Blackness and people of color?
• What challenges/barriers do you face in speaking up when you see anti-Blackness/racism/white supremacy in your faith community?
• Where do you see police in your community? How are they contributing to protection and safety? How do you see their presence supporting or detracting from community well-being?
• What interactions have you had with police? What was that like for you? What impact does that have on your expectations for possible encounters in the future?
• What do you expect from law enforcement personnel?
• What happens when you watch videos documenting police-citizen violence?
• What is your hope for police-community relations?
• What roles have you learned about gender from parents, school, peers, media, faith? Which do you hold true? And which do you break?
• What do gender and biological sex mean to you? Are they interchangeable, do they conflict with each other?
• What do masculinity and femininity mean to you? How do you express masculinity and femininity?
• What is something you would do if you could break the rules or roles of gender for a day?
• To what extent do you believe women are given the same rights, opportunities and privileges as men?
• What personal experiences, if any, do you have with gender inequality?
• What changes would you like to see in this country as it pertains to how women are regarded?
• What does the feminist movement mean to you? How has it affected you?
• What does an ideal society look like to you in the realm of sex/gender relations
• What is a powerful leadership moment you’ve experienced?
• What are the other issues around women, power and leadership?
• What is your hope or aspiration for women, leadership and power?
• What has been your personal response to homeless people whom you’ve seen? Who do you think makes up the homeless population?
• What do you think is contributing to homelessness right now?
• What do you expect from your city, county, state or federal government with regard to homelessness?
• What are your hopes regarding homelessness in the future?
• What is your cultural heritage?
• What experiences have you had with cultures other than your own? What did you appreciate? What made you uncomfortable?
• What value do you see in having a single, shared American culture? What would that look like?
• What value do you see in having a decidedly multicultural society?
• When should cultural symbols be public versus private?
• To what degree has addressing the issues of race in our country been a concern of yours prior to this pandemic? Has the pandemic made it more or less relevant to you? If so, how?
• How have you seen responses to the coronavirus impact racial polarization in the country? In your community? How have responses drawn us closer together or deepened our divisions?
• What factors contribute to your perceived degree of safety or lack of safety from contacting the coronavirus in your surroundings? What is that like for you?
• Have you witnessed/experienced events of racism or racial scapegoating in the time of the coronavirus? What happened and how did that affect you?
• How have you seen our society’s problems reflected by the politicization and racial discrimination of some people through reactions to coronavirus?
• Share what was most meaningful or valuable to you in the experience of this Living Room Conversation?
• What new understanding or common ground did you find within this topic?
• Has this conversation changed your perception of anyone in this group, including yourself?
• Name one important thing that was accomplished here.
• Is there a next step you would like to take based upon the conversation you just had?