Stakes is high: Life after the American dream

The events of the past decade have forced us to reckon with who we are and who we want to be. We have been invested in a set of beliefs about our American identity: our exceptionalism, the inn in the inevitable righteousness of our path, the promise that hard work and determination will carry us to freedom. But in stakes is high, Michael Denzel Smith confronts the shortcomings of these stories – and with the American dream itself – and calls on us to live up to the principles we profess but fail to realize.