Over the past week or two, I’ve had a number of vigorous and civil conversations about police behavior, the use of force, and race in America. Emerging from those conversations are several points that, I think, are underrepresented right now in the public square. So here is what I’ve heard and learned and come to believe:
- We need to listen more and listen better. As I wrote in another article, “By listen, I don’t mean waiting impatiently for the other person to stop so I can have my say. I don’t mean listening through the filter of every belief I’ve ever held. I mean listening that is deep, openhearted, and fully attentive, that strives to experience the other person as she is, to accurately hear what she says.† Read more here.
- We need more both/and. Can we deplore the destruction of property in Ferguson and inquire into the dynamics that gave rise to the underlying anger? Can we express concern about police use of excessive force and note the difficult line that officers walk in carrying out their duties? Can we uphold the value of individual responsibility and acknowledge the broader social trends that make assuming responsibility an uphill climb? If not, why not?
- We need space to explore without shame. The dynamics behind the incidents in Ferguson, Cleveland, and other places are new to many people (mostly white people). To fully understand any concept new to us, we humans inevitably fumble around, ask clumsy questions, make rookie mistakes, so that eventually we get it and can be effective in addressing it. Exploration is difficult, however, if we fear being labeled immediately as bad or unacceptable just for asking questions. This happened after 9/11 with the label un-American; I hear it happening now with the label racism. Are some people who ask clumsy questions racist? You bet. Do some hold truly good intent despite their klutziness? Indeed they do.
- I wonder if, just maybe, we can restart the conversation in a different place. I have heard commentators address their white readers along these lines: “You are blind to the fact that racism is systemic—baked into our system. Just by being white, you benefit from it. That makes you part of the problem.†Wherever this statement is on the accuracy scale, it usually puts white readers on the defensive, which derails the conversation and leaves us even more polarized. What if we addressed white readers this way: “Did you know that racism is systemic—actually baked into our system? Here’s what I mean….†By separating the system from the individual initially, we might be able to spark not defensiveness but curiosity—and, from curiosity, engagement.
- There is a world of hurt around race, and it hurts on all sides. I spent part of yesterday listening to the experience of a friend—a teacher who felt threatened by the aggressive behavior of two students and mentioned it to management. In response, because she is white and the students are black, her entire work group was sent to a seminar on unconscious racism. The shaming she felt is palpable in her storytelling. No, I am not saying that white pain is equal to black pain: not even close. What I am saying is that an acknowledgment of pain from everyone, to everyone, might be a first step in the long, arduous process of opening our hearts to one another.
What do you think—not about the incidents themselves, but about the conversation they have sparked in the public square? What does it tell us about the way we do dialogue?
You’ve done a good thing by stepping back and looking at the conversation itself. I had a long talk with a friend who said that empathy is key to our understanding each other. I’m so looking forward to reading your book.
Thanks so much, Katie. Couldn’t agree more with your point about empathy.
John, I really appreciate the spirit and content of your thoughts. The issue of shame runs deep and often inhibits going to the heart of the matter. It is important that we white people stumble, because I believe practice is the only way we will learn which questions bring us to new conversations that won’t offend. These conversations are best done, I believe, with other allies, so we don’t have to place our racist comments, however well-intended, onto blacks. at a certain point, when I’m confident that I can identify questions that are supportive, it’s time to re-engage, listen, ask how I can be helpful. One important question I struggle with is how to sustain engagement over time on a wider scale? It’s relatively easy to keep these deep issues in the public square when there are daily marches, much more difficult when life returns to normal and those of us with white privilege don’t have to confront our, and systemic, racism on a daily basis. I deal with this having spent much of the last decade trying to build positive relations between Muslims and Jews in my town. When an incident occurs, people rally, but then disappear and don’t address underlying fears and tensions. In 2004 I founded Youth LEAD (Youth Leaders Engaging Across Differences) which gives teens the skills to communicate and facilitate respectful conversations across differences of identity. They go to college and the workplace with a very strong skill set to initiate positive conversations about race, religion, gender, etc. and report back that most of their peers are stuck in an “us/them” mentality. Discussion about dialogue appears to routinely ignore teens and I’d like to change that paradigm. This summer, I left the org and am in the process of exploring ways to share the methodology developed specifically for teens with the wider community, both nationally and internationally. Happy to hear any thoughts you have. thanks again for your thoughtful post
Thank you, Janet. That’s a great comment. This part, I think, is particularly important: “It is important that we white people stumble, because I believe practice is the only way we will learn which questions bring us to new conversations that won’t offend. These conversations are best done, I believe, with other allies, so we don’t have to place our racist comments, however well-intended, onto blacks.”
It sounds like you’ve done great work where you are. Yes, teens are underrepresented in most spheres of “adult endeavor,” and we’re missing out on invaluable perspectives as a result. These days I find myself drawn to listen deeply to people under 30, partly because they get postmodern, hyperdigital life in a way I never could without their input.
As for sustaining these efforts once the headlines fade: well, that’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it? I keep believing in the capacity of individual “champions” to keep the work moving forward in that space between instances of media attention. The people who are most committed thereby place the most consistent (and probably the most effective) effort toward progress. That makes for an excruciatingly slow and fitful process, but I’m thinking that’s the way we move forward as a species anyway. As an example: many commentators have noticed the rather breathtaking pace at which full acceptance of LGBTQIA people is happening–and that “pace” has taken what, almost 50 years since Stonewall? It really is like herding cats. Which makes that slow, steady work–as you’ve done with teens, as I’m doing with my writing–all the more important.
As a white woman who has been involved in progressive politics all my adult life, what I’ve learned in the past few weeks about this dialogue is that it seems that most white people don’t have a clue about the indignities (and worse) faced by black people on a regular basis, and few seem open to learning. I’ve seen and heard too many white people making transparently absurd excuses about why these black men deserved to die. I don’t see many white people making an effort to look beyond their comfort zone to try to understand the anger of the black community.
Yes, and that’s distressing. It’s ridiculously easy to ignore others’ issues when “we” are the dominant group. (This of course goes for any dominant group.) There are just so many of us that we can easily hide and ignore.
One thing that struck me about your comment is that (as I’ve learned in the past week) the same dynamic applies to police. Most of us have no clue what their lives are like, what they confront on a daily basis, etc., and this leads us to make absurd assumptions about those folks too. David Brooks just wrote a column about this, and I found it very helpful: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/opinion/the-cop-mind.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss.
Thanks so much, Emma.
John:Many Thanks for a piece that appreciates the reciprocity of respect that is necessary for a learning conversation (certainly for meaningful dialogue).Many speak of respecting the “other”, few are able to move beyond fight or flight and do same. Power plays and walk away’s will lead exactly nowhere – Only when we each fully respect the risks that we each take and take risks to speak and REALLY believe that the only bad question is the un-asked question will we make progress. I have admired your contributions to NCDD conversations and deeply respect this reflection! Keep On Keeping ON!! – Greg
Well and truly said, Greg. Thank you so much.
[…] John Backman wrote an excellent summary of points to think about when building a dialogue. One of the questions he raised was “how to make room for clumsy questions?”  There are many people of goodwill, who would like to bridge the divides, but who are also either afraid of offending, unintentionally offensive, fearful of emotion, hurting and in need of support and understanding, and untutored in the ways of helping each other through a difficult exchange. How can we help structure a process that both allows diverse people to connect and supports and cares for them at the same time? […]