Each is rooted in a commitment to seeing the human dignity in our opponents and healing the divides of society in so doing. But the Nonviolent Movement was the leading edge of the Civil Rights Movement, which was a movement for social justice in American society, while our movement (the Civic Renewal Movement, or alternatively, the Bridging Movement) is a movement to revive (or ignite anew) trust between the American people, and between the people and their institutions. In principle at least these goals should be complimentary. But given the decades old tradition of exploiting the moral standing of Martin Luther King Jr. to legitimize political projects that have had little to do with King, it is worth asking if the connection between the work of Braver Angels and that of Martin Luther King Jr. is in fact a meaningful one. My answer to this question is that it is – and over time is likely to become more so. But it raises in me the question as to Braver Angels predominant influences, to which must be added at least one other name that has also long been questionably appropriated by opportunistic partisans and politicians…and that is the name of Abraham Lincoln. It is from the language of Lincoln that Braver Angels ultimately derives its name, and whose mission to preserve the union of the states serves as a certain backdrop for our own efforts to bridge the partisan divide in the modern day. In the mainstream telling of American history the names of Lincoln and King, separated by a century in their works, are linked in a thread by the issues of race, equality and the goal of reconciling American principles to the living realities of our society. But the ethics and spirit of their practical politics and philosophy also leave a legacy, one that has nurtured the character of Braver Angels at the roots.

A Politics of Empathy

Braver Angels is a community of practice with a mission to mend the wounds that fester between the American people so that democracy itself can endure. We are an ideologically diverse community to our core. As such Braver Angels is influenced by many traditions and many strands of history. Most conspicuously, the influence of Abraham Lincoln looms largest over the founding of Braver Angels. Originally named Better Angels by David Blankenhorn (president and co-founder of Braver Angels), this phrase harkens back to the closing words of Lincoln’s inaugural address, delivered on the cusp of the Civil War, in which he beseeched a divided nation to turn back from the precipice of armed conflict:

            “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Lincoln’s pleas failed to steer the United States away from the bloody Armageddon to which it was headed. Yet the United States stands today, functionally united (however tenuously) and though this union was ultimately held together by cannon fire the time that has intervened between now and that historic collision has reinforced the fraternal bonds of American society. For all our great diversity there are overarching themes of American culture that can be identified across geography and generations. The independence of spirit and the resistance to the rigid hierarchies of old Europe that Alexis de Tocqueville identified in America nearly two-hundred years ago still largely characterize the nation we live in today.  The idea of the union, that we are “one nation, under God [though we must grant that the role of God in events grows more controversial as America has become more secular], indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” is a deeply ingrained sentiment that immerged a generation after the Civil War and has generally traveled down with us to the present day.

Perhaps more importantly than any of that however, the interconnectedness of the American people through commerce, culture, and the continuity of time has ensured that we as a people exist in a fabric of relationships that ties us to friends, relatives and associates that defies the expanse of geography and politics. We leave our home states for far flung coasts and regions to go to school. Corporate America calls enterprising Americans from all corners of the nation into its ranks. And the children of immigrants and descendants of slaves wear the uniform of the United States military alongside rural “rednecks” and “good ol’ boys” from the once slave-holding south.

One might still argue the idea that “we are not enemies, but friends,” in Lincoln’s words, is a mere matter of perspective. One could argue that we are both, or neither. As an aspiration and an affirmation, however, this is the perspective we stand upon at Braver Angels.

The relevance of Abraham Lincoln to the spirit of Braver Angels goes beyond grand appreciation of the sanctity of the union and efforts to effectively preserve it. Lincoln also speaks to us in the interpersonal ethos with which he practiced his political craft. As a politician Abraham Lincoln was a uniquely empathetic statesman, and though the word ‘empathy’ was not a part of the lexicon in his time he articulated the value of it in practice nevertheless. In a speech given to the Washingtonian Temperance Society as far back as February 1842 (and back when the Temperance movement was a rising force in the land) Lincoln applauded the swelling influence of that cause. He then attributed much of that success to the shifting of the movement’s leadership away from an old class of “champions” who suffered from “a want of approachability.” For “these champions for the most part, have been Preachers, Lawyers, and hired agents.”

            “The preacher, it is said, advocates, temperance because he is a fanatic, and desires a union of Church and State; the lawyer, from his pride and vanity of hearing himself speak; and the hired agent, for his salary. But when one, who has long been known as a victim of intemperance, bursts the fetters that have bound him, and appears before his neighbors…however simple his language, there is a logic, and an eloquence in it, that few, with human feelings, can resist…Nor can his sincerity in any way be doubted; or his sympathy for those he would persuade to imitate his example, be denied.”

Lincoln continued further to suggest that the old class of champions might have been more effective if they had been less judgmental.

“Too much denunciation against the dram sellers and dram-drinkers was indulged in…When the dram-seller and drinker, were incessantly told, not in the accents of entreaty and persuasion, diffidently addressed by erring man to an erring brother; but in the thundering tones of anathema and denunciation…that they were the authors of all the vice and misery and crime in the land…I say, when they were told all this, and in this way, it is not wonderful that they were slow,..to join the ranks of their denouncers, in a hue and cry against themselves.”

These early insights of Lincoln’s speak to his understanding of the power of fellow feeling in human persuasion. It is through the development of shared feelings that so much of the fabric of human relationships is woven. As David Blankenhorn has written of Lincoln, “This way of thinking meant that Lincoln never treated opponents as enemies. Even during the Civil War, he did not demonize Southerners or the South. He did not view those fighting on the other side as evil.”

Those familiar with the work of Braver Angels know that this is what the foundational layer of our work is dedicated to, through one method or another. Braver Angels Red/Blue Workshop teaches Americans how to question one another’s beliefs in ways that eschew condemnation in favor of curiosity. Our Disagreeing Better workshops train Americans in the art of empathetic communication, stressing the value of accurately paraphrasing the positions of others, listening to hear rather than respond, and more. Though he was an effective debater these softer skills were traits Lincoln possessed in abundance and that made his brand of political communication distinct.

From Trusting People to Trustworthy Institutions

Ultimately, while Braver Angels’ model for social impact begins with the exercise of fellow feeling in civic relationships, it matures in the spreading of this culture of “patriotic empathy” across the landscape of American communities and institutions. Fundamentally, the problem of affective polarization (a polarization based on inter-group alienation as opposed to mere policy disagreements) in America is one of declining trust not only between groups of the American people, but between the American people and their institutions. Rehabilitating trust in our institutions (and making our institutions worthy of that trust) is central to our movements mission because, absent trusted and trustworthy institutions, democracy can only careen into chaos.

This was a topic upon which Abraham Lincoln had much to say even before it became a visceral concern of his eventual presidency. Bemoaning the proliferation of vigilante justice and lawless mobs “from New England to Louisiana” to the Young Men’s Lyceum as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1838, Lincoln sought to educate his audience on the critical need for confidence in our political institutions—a confidence threatened by the inconsistent application of the rule of law:

“I know the American People are much attached to their Government;—I know they would suffer much for its sake;— I know they would endure evils long and patiently, before they would ever think of exchanging it for another. Yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually despised and disregarded, if their rights to be secure in their persons and property, are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alienation of their affections from the Government is the natural consequence; and to that, sooner or later, it must come.”

There are reasonable parallels that could be drawn between Lincoln’s description of a moment of falling trust in institutions and our own, particularly with respect to the rise of mob culture. Federal and state government and law enforcement failures to curb the riots of the summer of 2020 and to protect law abiding citizens in various cities across America deeply diminished confidence in these institutions. (One might also be tempted to cite January 6^th as an example, though the drop in institutional confidence that resulted from that day accrued most specifically to the president.) Rising crime in parts of the country and real or perceived reluctance on the part of public officials to respond fits into this pattern.

But the word ‘mob’ has expanded applications in our own time which serve the basic point even further. From campus mobs to social media mobs ours is a moment where popular anger seems to trump institutional protections of the right to free speech in the eyes of many. When college faculty, corporate leadership and politicians seem to defer to or even abet the demands of offended groups in ways that threaten liberties and livelihoods, institutional confidence also diminishes. Such groups may in fact be righteous in their views. But as Americans have come to feel that certain fundamental liberties “are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob” their affections for American institutions have become alienated in much the way Lincoln suggests.

In a generation where Americans have quickly gone from taking the workings of our institutions for granted to taking it for granted that our institutions don’t work, Braver Angels refuses either posture. Instead, implicit in our culture is an ethic of citizenship—far from a mere legal status, it is roughly the notion that to be a part of democratic society is active participation in the work of self-government and a felt responsibility for the welfare of the nation and its people. It is an applied patriotism that is willing to apply itself from within our institutions and our communities alike.

A Vision of Citizenship

As is often the case with military service, part of what rouses us to greater civic participation is an aspiration to serve a project worth believing in. To be a part of the American story as not merely a passive observer but as one who rose to the challenge of advancing the most audacious experiment in human history, this is one principal motivation that has moved many to the service of their country over the ages, in whatever way that service manifests.

This romantic commitment to the cause of America has had its high and lows tides over the generations. In the revolutionary era, according to Abraham Lincoln, a common drive for social recognition led to the advance of the American experiment. “Then, all that sought celebrity and fame, and distinction, expected to find them in the success of that experiment…Their ambition aspired to display before an admiring world, a practical demonstration of the truth of a proposition…namely, the capability of a people to govern themselves.”

Yet when the experiment was proven successful, when the fledging republic passed the tests facing the new nation and showed that a free people could peaceably pass the torch of power with continuity and legitimacy, the glory to be gained by being a part of proving that experiment in its earliest phases was gone. “The question then, is can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others?” So Lincoln asked. His answer was grim. “Most certainly it cannot.” Lincoln feared the fading glory of the Revolution. Rather, he feared the consequences of its receding beyond the dim reaches of memory.

In our time, however, there are many who claim the Reverend/Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. as our modern American founding father. The Civil Rights Movement, and the period of time extending from 1956 to 1968 (from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to the assassination of Dr. King) was a time in which the foundations of American civil rights and the heart of American social conscience were refreshed and revolutionized in ways that new media broadcast unto a newly dawning modern world.

It may not have been lost upon King that the Civil Rights Movement was ushering forth a transformation of the nation’s consciousness that was arguably tantamount to a renewed founding. Looking out upon the assembled hundreds of thousands on the National Mall King referenced Abraham Lincoln in declaring “Fivescore years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.”

If Dr. King could be looked at as a modern founder, it is hard to argue that a similar distinction was not attained by President Lincoln a century before. In freeing the slaves and preserving the union, Lincoln shifted the identity of the nation in a manner punctuated by the moral leap forward described by King in these glittering terms. “But one hundred years later,” so King continued, “the Negro still is not free…”

The cause of their time, so King argued before the nation standing before the Lincoln Monument, was to continue onward in stride towards the realization of the American promise—a promise King described in the following way:

“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was the promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

The heroics of that age still reside in living memory. There are still among us Americans who remember Martin Luther King Jr., including some who were there to hear him speak on the National Mall, who marched alongside of him, and who in one way or another were a part of this movement to awaken the conscience of America.

“At the close of that struggle,” Abraham Lincoln said of the Revolutionary War era, “nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was, that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son, or a brother, a living history was to be found in every family—a history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related—a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all…But those histories are gone.”

The living histories of the Civil Rights Era are not quite gone in our time. But they are leaving us, with every passing year, for those eternal shores beyond the oceans of this life. The passing of former chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and hero of the Edmund Pettus Bridge John Lewis, in 2020, brought our nation together in mourning in a way that we might now expect to be the case for few living Americans. 2024 saw the home-going of the reverend James Lawson, a leading peer and ally of Dr. King’s. Reverend Jesse Jackson, a younger contemporary of Dr. King’s, still lives and there are others. Of the most preeminent leaders of that movement, however, most of them have by now passed on.

Within Braver Angels however, the living memory of the Nonviolent Movement and the spirit and ethos of Martin Luther King Jr. is kept alive in the person of Harry Boyte Jr., a leading organizer and a professor of Public Work at Augsburg University, and once field secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference organizing poor white southerners in advance of the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968 for Dr. King. Boyte’s father, Harry Sr., was one of the sole white members of staff at SCLC, leading dialogue programs across racial lines in ways that would seem to resemble the work of Braver Angels today. Harry Boyte Jr. (whose room adjoined that of Dr. King’s, whom he could hear rehearsing his I Have a Dream Speech through the hotel walls the day before that monumental event) bears witness to the civic organizing work of the movement that instilled a patriotic commitment to traditional civic values of free speech, discussion, and active citizenship through grassroots community organizing.

In an America’s Public Forum program from 2020 Professor Boyte spoke to Braver Angels members about the invitational nature of King’s iconic address and that of the larger strategic framing of the March on Washington of which it was the culmination.

[Bayard Rustin, a principal organizer of the March on Washington and a chief proponent of the philosophy of Nonviolence] “framed the march as a way to have a conversation with the American people. So that’s the way to see King’s great speech…he was actually having a conversation with the American people about what we share…”

This being said, the success of the March on Washington, in Boyte’s recollection, was dependent not merely on the power of King’s visionary eloquence but a larger culture of civic organizing at its foundation.

Thus, “nonviolence was not simply a philosophy that was articulated by great leaders like King…what gave the march its power was the everyday citizens who came from across the country on buses on railroads on cars, sometimes by foot, to be involved. And the program notes of the march read that ‘in a neighborhood dispute there may be stunts, rough words and hot insults but when a whole people speaks to its government the quality of the action and the dialogue needs to reflect the worth of the people and the responsibility of the government.”

This spirit was cultivated across an organizing infrastructure that developed the civic knowledge and character of the marchers and foot soldiers of the movement in what were called “citizenship schools.”

As Boyte explains, “we had over 900 across the south. And they educated people in Nonviolence, they also developed people’s literacy skills to pass the stringent tests, [tests used to disqualify voters of color and sometimes poor white voters in the Jim Crow south] there was historical dimension. Unlike a lot of activists today there was a professed love of America.”

These citizenship schools were “held in church basements and community centers.” Active members of Braver Angels listening to Professor Boyte at this event would no doubt relate to the community based organizing spirit that in our own work often unfolds at libraries, campuses, and churches as well. Braver Angels, holistically, is itself a community that deeply prizes and leans upon civic education in a variety of forms, and in ways that strengthen our understanding of American values, our shared history, and that equips citizens to engage in the difficult work of conversing, debating and organizing across the deep seated tribal/political differences that rend our social fabric here in the 2020’s. Harry Boyte’s living witness to the spirit and culture of the Nonviolent Movement helps solidify our own felt connection to the organizing legacy of this extraordinary social enterprise. In no small way, this helps to preserve in Braver Angels a sense of our own potential to reform the conscience of America in a way that may contribute to a transformation that honors the ideals of the Founding such as the Civil Rights Movement sought to do some 60 years ago.

Redemption and the Braver Angels Way

It is a dramatic understatement to say that Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. were challenged by their opponents. But each was also challenged by allies who at times could be adversarial.

For Lincoln, it was the abolitionist faction of his party known as the “Radical Republicans” who scourged him, for whom Lincoln’s efforts were never bold nor decisive enough. As David Blankenhorn explains of Lincoln:

“Within his own party, the ‘Radical Republicans,’ those most fervently opposed to slavery, never trusted him. Lincoln, in turn, considered them unreasonable zealots. He complained to his secretary that they were ‘utterly lawless’ and ‘the unhandiest devils in the world to deal with.’ But he also could admire their idealism and recognize their goodness, explaining to his secretary that ‘after all, their faces are set Zionwards.’”

The second principle of the “Braver Angels Way” states that “we treat people who disagree with us with honesty, dignity and respect.” Though, to allude again to Lincoln, passion may strain the bonds of affection, what we have deeply ingrained at Braver Angels is an understanding that the manner in which we pursue our disagreements determines whether or not disagreements shall break them.

Like Lincoln and the Radical Republicans, King was challenged as moderate and naïve by what would become the Black Power wing of the Civil Rights Movement, as represented in the person of Stokley Carmichael (who succeeded John Lewis as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). The more militant wing that came into its own in 1966 wished for King to abandon Nonviolence as a fundamental commitment and wished to push in the direction of an all-Black movement.

Dr. King reflected upon the rise of these criticisms and sentiments in his book Where Do We Go From Here? During the Mississippi Freedom March of ’66, King recalled hearing SNCC activists exclaiming, “I’m not for that nonviolence stuff any more,” “If one of these damn white Mississippi crackers touches me, I’m gonna knock the hell out of him,” and “We don’t need any more white phonies and liberals invading our movement. This is our march.” As the march matured, unprecedented rhetorical battles broke out between activists, with dueling chants of “Black Power!” being met by retorts of “We shall overcome!” in collisions that threatened to tear the movement apart.

King was heartbroken by the rise of Black Power as a phrase and a rallying cry, and what it signified in the rejection of his commitments to integration and Nonviolence. But while King felt wounded by these developments and was pointed in his criticisms, this did not prevent him from being generous in his expressed understanding of the legitimate feelings that motivated Carmichael and his followers:

“First, it is necessary to understand that Black Power is a cry of disappointment. The Black Power slogan did not spring full grown from the head of some philosophical Zeus. It was born from the wounds of despair and disappointment. It is a cry of daily hurt and persistent pain…If Stokley Carmicahel now says that nonviolence is irrelevant, it is because he, as a dedicated veteran of many battles, has seen with his own eyes the most brutal white violence against Negroes and white civil rights workers, and he has seen it go unpunished.”

Lincoln and King alike were charitable to their enemies. Lincoln and King alike sought to engage those with whom they disagreed. The third principle of the Braver Angels Way states that “we welcome opportunities to engage those with whom we disagree,” and indeed this civic spirit is evidenced in the four hours Dr. King spent seeking persuade Stokley Carmichael from his path in a spirit of friendship, the long hours Abraham Lincoln spent debating Stephen Douglas with civility and sophistication in their legendary debates on the question of slavery in the western territories, Lincoln’s earnest appeals to the humanity of the slave-holding south, and King’s insistence that the way of Nonviolence demanded his followers recognized that those who stood against them were not truly their enemies in the most fundamental sense. They were their opponents, but their mission included not the annihilation, but rather the redemption, of those who stood against them.

In a speech given to the YMCA at UC Berkeley in 1957, King remarked:

“…the nonviolent resister does not seek to humiliate or defeat the opponent but to win his friendship and understanding. This was always a cry that we had to set before people that our aim is not to defeat the white community, not to humiliate the white community, but to win the friendship of all of the persons who had perpetrated this system in the past. The end of violence or the aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the creation of the beloved community…the end is redemption.”

King went on to say that “the nonviolent resister seeks to attack the evil system rather than individuals who happen to be caught up in the system.” In this again, King and Lincoln were of the very same spirit. Speaking of southern defenders of slavery Lincoln once said “We mean to remember that you are as good as we; that there is no difference between us other than the difference of circumstances.” Like King, Lincoln believed that those who were caught in the throes of racism where people who were afflicted with something rather like a disease by which they were made susceptible by the circumstances of the society into which they were enmeshed. Lincoln hoped to free both slaves, and those who believed in slavery, from its evil grip, as King hoped to free both those who were victims of racial segregation as well as those who would uphold it. Each man saw his political foes as redeemable, and calibrated their political language to emphasize this fact.

The Better Angels of our Heritage

The fourth principle of the Braver Angels Way states that “We believe all of us have blind spots and none of us are not worth talking to.” What is implicit in this is a recognition of the human worth of those who may disagree with us, even on the most profound issues, and an acceptance of the reality that, as Lincoln made clear, we are all of us human-beings with human failings. Martin Luther King Jr.’s philosophy of Nonviolence rested first and foremost on the virtue of “agape love”—that is to say an overarching goodwill for one’s fellow man regardless of their race, color, creed, or even their political opinion. It was the sort of love demonstrated by Jesus in the gospels, by Gandhi in the struggle for Indian independence, and by anyone who is willing to refrain from hating their opponent in politics and society. even if their opponent should hate them.

Braver Angels, and the Civic Renewal Movement that finds itself nurtured in the wake of our work, is one that is born forth in an effort to heal the wounds of the body politic opened by an ever more polarized political society. These are wounds that tear apart families over questions of justice, questions of morality, in ways that add up to conflicts of identity that produce the collisions of warring political tribes. To reverse this momentum Braver Angels has given life to a suite of workshops and programs aimed to rebuild the bonds of affection between relatives, between friends, between classmates and coworkers, and ordinary Americans at every level of society who have forgotten how to see the good in each other due to the rampant demonization of our times.

But the effort to heal these wounds has always been understood by Braver Angels as the first level of a mission that reaches further upwards into the healing of our institutions and the stabilizing of the pillars by which our republic may hold together. Thus Braver Angels programs and influence reaches into government, academia, media, art and culture, as well as local communities where American life is rooted in place. For, as Lincoln knew well, the institutions of society cannot endure absent the trust and affection of the people they serve. And they fail to be worthy of that trust and affection, society itself may be condemned to the flames of violence and anarchy…at which point our experiment in constitutional democracy may find itself at an end.

But the stability of institutions does suggest the absence of injustice. Indeed powerful institutions may themselves become tools of injustice, as Dr. King well knew. Braver Angels commitment to debate, to fostering consensus on questions of reform, and to elevating the experiences of Americans across the spectrum of social experience in our country stands as testimony to the fact that activism and speaking truth to power (and each other) is the method by which we refresh the American conscience in every age. The question is, can we do so in a way that brings out the best in our opponents and ourselves, as Martin Luther King Jr. and the Nonviolent movement ultimately sought to do?

Ours is a community and a movement unique in American history. I do not mean anything grandiose by that statement. It is a novel movement, small but dynamic, and still finding itself after eight years time. It is a movement predicated on uniting Americans on the basis of our differences politically, but in the conviction that there are deeper values that yet unite us as an American people.

As was written, and voted into approval, in our 2019 Platform by Braver Angels delegates at our 2019 convention in St. Louis, MO:

Proud of our origins, today we dedicate ourselves to the great task before us—to safeguard the spirit of our republic and to preserve its deepest unity. In our politics, let us work together when agreement is found and oppose one another in civility and good faith when it is not. In the work of Braver Angels, let us build trust between individuals and restore trust in our institutions. Let us labor together to discover and cherish our common heritage and identity as Americans. Let us strive as one for the “beloved community” of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s vision and the “more perfect Union” of the Founders’ summoning.

We find ourselves as Americans, in part, by rediscovering the better angels of our common heritage. What the destiny of our work shall be in this modern day is up to we of this generation to make known. But as we do so, let us do so remembering that we are buoyed forward by the moral and civic examples of many might forebearers.

And that among them stand Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.

The post Lincoln, King and Braver Angels appeared first on Braver Angels.

This past Thursday a jury of 12 rendered its verdict in the New York District Attorney’s case against the presumptive Republican nominee for president, Donald J. Trump. The court found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a payment his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. That payment was made in an effort, the prosecution alleged, to mislead voters in the interests of winning the 2016 presidential election.

This is a troubling but historic moment: our leading candidate for president stands as a convicted felon. On this we can all agree.

What we disagree on is why this moment is so troubling.

For some of us, it is the “fact” of Trump’s obvious guilt and that a criminal may retake the White House; one whose multiple and flagrant abuses of the law may be rewarded by the votes of their fellow Americans to the detriment of the nation.

For others, it is the “truth” that Donald Trump was subjected to a political prosecution on flimsy grounds in order to derail his candidacy. The greater indictment, so many of us believe, is not of Donald Trump, but of a corrupt and politicized judicial system in the state of New York.

We can be angry with one another for failing to acknowledge facts and truth as we see them. But our warring convictions arise from compelling stories about this man who, for better or worse, has transformed politics in America.

On the one hand, the rage and frustration that spills out towards the former president from the vast majority of Democrats, many independents, and some disaffected Republicans, arises from a view of Trump as a consummate and corrupt liar going back years before his time in politics, but metastasizing in his performance as a politician and president.

From this point of view, this is a man who lied about Barack Obama’s place of birth to undermine his presidency, who obstructed an FBI investigation into his ties with Russia, who tried intimidating Ukrainian president Vladimir Zolensky to investigate the now current president Joe Biden just as he tried intimidating Georgia Secretary of State Ben Raffensperger to find more votes in the state, who lied about and attempted to steal the 2020 election, who provoked an insurrection, who was impeached twice, and who even today is unwilling to accept the outcome of a 2024 election if he should lose. This is a deep and bitter way to feel, full of pain and indignation, about the man who led and may again lead all of us at the helm of the US government and the free world.

Yet it is no less deep and bitter than the grievance felt by the vast majority of Republicans, many independents, and some disaffected Democrats towards the Biden administration, the justice department, and the media they see as accomplices to their corruption.

This is one in which a Washington outsider who dared expose the wrongs of the political establishment found his campaign spied upon at the behest of the Obama administration, found the legitimacy of his election denied over allegations of collusion with Russia that a special counsel investigation admitted it had little evidence to prove, subjected to the indignity of unjust impeachment, and who Joe Biden continues to link to white supremacy even as he declares his support for historically Black colleges and universities and has moved the American embassy back to Jerusalem. And now his political enemies have weaponized the justice system to make him look like a criminal for challenging their own corruption.

As Americans, we tend to live in one of these stories or the other. When you live in a story, that story is compelling. The stories that surround us become the eyes through which we see the world.

Yet the way we see Biden and Trump must not be the way we see each other.

Truth is often different than the stories we tell. But the most false story of all is the one that says the politics of our neighbors render them morally useless as human beings. We can search for truth together in defiance of the powers that profit from our divisions. We can dig for common ground and reform our politics and institutions along those lines. But we can only do this if we perceive enough humanity in one another to extend the hand of goodwill.

This moment marks one more step on the dangerous road that lies before the United States of America. We will cast our ballots as we will. But there is hope for a nation whose people are willing to challenge one another without abandoning the bonds of friendship.

In such a nation truth may gain the final say, the story we ultimately emerge with may be a shared one, and the union of the people may endure.

The post The Conviction appeared first on Braver Angels.

To refer briefly to a foundational piece of wisdom literature, the first Epistle to the Corinthians states that “knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.” Though anti-intellectualism may seem to be on the rise it is perhaps fair to say that we live in a time where facts and information are seen by many to be the answer to problems of severe social and political division. The truth however is more nuanced. Affective polarization is not a phenomenon of misinformation (though this may be both a consequence and a contributing factor) but rather a collapse of trust between opposing groups, as well as between the public and its institutions. Braver Angels seeks to rebuild trust between Americans in the context of politics, and between the American people and their vital civic institutions. Yet even as this is true there can be no such trust in the realm of political life without intellectual engagement. The question for Braver Angels therefore becomes how do we advance the work of rebuilding trust in the context of intellectual and ideological debate and discussion? The virtue of intellectual humility is foundational to our capacity to accomplish this. How intellectual humility expresses itself across the tapestry of Braver Angels activities and grassroots infrastructure building is the focus of this essay.

Braver Angels is not just an organization, it is a mission driven community. It is generally bound by both a love of country and an essential goodwill towards the people of this country (whether they are people we agree with or not). As such, Braver Angels has a creed. That creed is illustrated in what we call the Braver Angels Way:

We state our views freely and fully, without fear.

We treat people who disagree with us with honesty, dignity and respect.

We welcome opportunities to engage those with whom we disagree.

We believe all of us have blind spots and none of us are not worth talking to.

We seek to disagree accurately, avoiding exaggeration and stereotypes.

We look for common ground where it exists and, if possible, find ways to work together.

We believe that, in disagreements, both sides share and learn.

In Braver Angels, neither side is teaching the other or giving feedback on how to think or say things differently.

Within the text of the Braver Angels Way one finds statements that are meaningless if they are not founded upon a commitment to intellectual humility.

“We believe all of us have blind spots and none of us are not worth talking to.” This statement is a reflection upon our inability to know, or be right about, everything that matters in both politics and life.

“We seek to disagree accurately, avoiding exaggeration and stereotypes.” In this we acknowledge that our own prejudices, the biases of our own emotions, are no fit substitutes for truth (whether these embellished opinions are about issues or people).

“We believe that, in disagreements, both sides share and learn.” This statement asserts that, not only do we know ourselves to be wrong however often merely by virtue of being human, but that those with whom we find ourselves at odds do in fact have things to teach us that we can learn from. It contains a faith in the value of other perspectives that de-centers one’s own opinion in a way that is only possible through an internalization of intellectual humility.

Upon these philosophical foundations Braver Angels community supports and implements a wide range of events, programs, and content creation that cultivates goodwill, trust and understanding across our political divides between individuals and within communities and institutions. While these offerings are dynamic and wide spreading, Braver Angels program work began with a single workshop design. Rooted in principles of family therapy, our “Red/Blue” workshop does not center argument or debate, but rather the elevation of each side’s life experiences in terms of why they see politics the way that they do.

Deference to the validity of “lived” experience is built into the character of Braver Angels workshops. Our workshop offerings have now expanded into a roster of seven group workshops and several other one-to-one scripted conversational offerings focused on differences as varying as race, geography, generation as well as political ideology.

Bill Doherty (noted family therapist, professor of psychology, Braver Angels co-founder and architect of Braver Angels workshops) describes the role of intellectual humility in workshop culture and design in this way:

“Humility about the weaknesses and limitations of one’s own political side is at the heart of Braver Angels workshops. For example, in our red/blue workshop, we pair the question ‘Why are your side’s values and policies good for the country’ with a follow up question, ‘What are your reservations or concerns about your own side?’”

Reflection upon our individual and group capacity for error and imperfection is a consistent feature of Braver Angels’ programmatic culture. This is impossible without a commitment to intellectual humility.

Braver Angels work links personal experiences to narrative, debate and direct civic engagement. In the messaging of Braver Angels there is a focus on challenging Americans to empathize with both sides of an argument (and the experiences that give rise to such arguments) that loudly implies a foundational commitment to intellectual humility.

Braver Angels Instagram page, for example, is replete with quotations from figures in history exhorting us to this effect:

“Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim. We attain unity only through variety. Differences must be integrated, not annihilated, not absorbed.” – Mary Parker Follett (philosopher).

“The test of a first-rate intellect is that ability to hold two opposing ideas in your head at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

In an essay published as part of a special issue of Deseret Magazine this author, in his role as Braver Angels National Ambassador, talks about his own background as a mixed-race American with an African-American mother from urban Los Angeles who is a democrat and a white father from the south who is a Republican, the challenge of polarization, and the lessons drawn from a life spent learning from the divisions of a polarized family:

“The antidote was in understanding. I carried this attitude with me throughout life right into politics. So in an age where Democrats and Republicans view each other as the enemy, I cannot help but see them as merely Mom and Dad.”

Intellectual humility may come more easily in contexts where there is affection between parties to a disagreement. It is for this reason that goodwill at least also stands as a foundational value of the work of Braver Angels. Yet one of the fruits of such goodwill is intellectual humility. When we have affection for one another it is easier to imagine that we each may have some valid perspective to contribute to a conversation.

That said, in the real world of politics stakes are high, competition is fierce, and material interests are often zero-sum. Politics is not necessarily a natural place to make friends. We must be able to advocate for and defend our points of view on living questions whose consequences matter. Yet even in this truth matters, and so too does our ultimate capacity to trust one another’s intentions across lines of political ideology and “tribal” affiliation. The constructive tension we at Braver Angels seek to restore to the American understanding of civic life is the tension between fierce advocacy on the one hand and winning the interpersonal trust and goodwill of the opposition on the other. Even in the throes of debate, democracy at its best rests on the presupposition that even in conflict we are engaged in a dialectic that moves us collectively towards a greater appreciation of truth. Even in debate then, bonds of civic trust and our collective pursuit of truth are strengthened through intellectual humility.

Braver Angels work extends deeply into the realms of both popular political debate on the one hand and professional political polemics as exist between candidates and elected officials on the other.

The Braver Angels Debates model is predicated upon a commitment to community building and the collective pursuit of truth that is only possible through a commitment to intellectual humility. Based upon the debate format of the Yale Student Union, Braver Angels Debates is a parliamentary process designed to minimize contests of personality while maximizing engagement with ideas and experience. All people in a given room have the opportunity to volunteer to give a speech in support or defense of a given resolution (be it ‘resolved: we should defund the police’ or ‘resolved: America should build a wall along its southern border’). This is itself a marker of intellectual humility in design because this ironclad commitment to inclusion rests in part upon the presupposition that there is something to be learned from everyone in a given discussion, whether we are hearing from a university professor or the janitor. Questioners, when responding to speeches given on the other side, are not allowed to address the speakers directly or by name but rather are required to address their question to the chairperson. (This again keeps the focus on ideas, not on personalities.) Most strikingly, perhaps, participants in these debates are encouraged not only to marshal logic and data in support of their arguments, but to also be candid with respect to doubts they may have about their own arguments, and to be honest about the ways in which they think they might be wrong. In fact participants who begin a debate on one side of a debate are allowed to switch sides during the course of it if they hear something from the opposition that sways their view.

April Lawson, the architect of the Braver Angels Debate format, describes the spirit of the program this way:

“What we think about when we think about Braver Angels Debates is the spirit of it, which is a collective search for truth. So what that means is that we invite everybody into the room to share what they particularly have to say about a topic. They don’t have to be the best spoken person in the world, they don’t have to have lots of statistics. But we do ask that they say what they actually believe.”

Braver Politics, on the other hand, is an effort encompassing a suite of programs aimed at directly impacting the culture of political campaigning in American elections. It includes, among other items, its own debate model specified to candidates and electeds in a manners that focuses in on issues of genuine concern to constituents while discouraging the sort of ad hominem and personal attacks that too often corrupt the competition of ideas in electoral contests. There is a degree to which our overarching Braver Politics initiative can be understood as a direct effort at injecting intellectual humility into electoral politics.

Braver Politics director Elizabeth Doll analyzes the relationship between Braver Politics and intellectual humility in this way:

“One of the most important qualities a public official can have is intellectual humility. Whether supporting and pursuing the best policies or building relationships with constituents, effective work requires a consistent willingness to change your mind (even when you think you’re right), being sure that there are things you can still learn (even – maybe especially – when you already know a lot.)”

Intellectual humility is both a value and a disposition. It reflects an understanding those who have it possess about how we may best channel uncertainty into wisdom. In this it stands as an epistemological conviction. Yet even more so intellectual humility connotes a way of being in the world. Embodied as a virtue it animates the way in which we relate to one another in ways that open up possibilities previously closed to us.

Monica Guzman, Braver Angels senior fellow for public discourse and author of I Never Thought of it That Way: How to have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times, has established curiosity as a virtue within the culture of Braver Angels and indeed across the bridging space and beyond. Curiosity allows us to open up space for knowing others and in turn being known be them, diffusing the anxiety that may surround our differences in favor of a clarifying humanization. Yet curiosity as a virtue does not travel far outside the company of intellectual humility. About the relationship between the two Monica says the following:

“Curiosity is a craving for information, for what we don’t understand that we want to understand. Intellectual humility is the capacity to receive information, to hold a posture that lets us stay open to new ideas, even and especially if they challenge us. Curiosity is a very narrow thing without intellectual humility. IH is what turns the tunnels it travels through in search of information into vast landscapes. They strengthen each other, need each other, and work together.”

In the work of Braver Angels, and indeed a larger community of organizations, scholars and practitioners brought together by the work of the Greater Good Science Center and the John Templeton Foundation, we see evidence of a shift towards a renewed appreciation of intellectual humility as both virtue and subject matter in a dynamic landscape of innovators dedicated to constructive social change. This is a trend that must continue if the spirit of American pluralism is ever to overcome the polarization that undermines the foundation of America democracy.

The post Intellectual Humility and Braver Angels appeared first on Braver Angels.

Today, you are far more likely to find a lawyer in Congress than a laborer. While more than half of U.S. senators have a net worth exceeding a million dollars, less than 9% percent of the American public will ever reach that mark.

Politics is seen as the realm of lawyers and experts, not truckers and nurses. This has become so embedded in our thinking that an electrician friend of David’s was recently shocked when David told him that you didn’t need a college degree in order to be President of the United States; he had always assumed it was a requirement and that the position wasn’t meant for people like him.

When we gather in Gettysburg July 5-8 for the Braver Angels National Convention, it will mark 160 years since a president who himself had only a handful of years of formal schooling called for America to renew herself as a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

At the We The People’s Project of Braver Angels, we are taking up that call. It’s time those who are often spoken of but seldom spoken with get their turn to speak.

“Our project’s tagline is ‘where everyday Americans get time at the podium.'”

Our project’s tagline is “where everyday Americans get time at the podium.” This is why our core leadership team is made up of people whose bios include electrician, arborist, pipe welder, factory worker, and tool and die maker — people who see themselves as working-class, everyday Americans.

That’s why our expanding We The People’s Council — which comprises Braver Angels members who identify themselves as working class, convenes four times a year to serve as our extended leadership team. Its purpose is to provide advice to the Braver Angels community on how we can effectively accomplish our mission. We are now reaching out to our balanced group of Red and Blue members, asking them, “What are the issues where we can discover common ground and collaborate towards meaningful action?'”

When we organize our monthly We The People’s Forum events, we seek to find those everyday Americans whose voices are seldom heard even though they have knowledge and experience on the issue at hand.

It’s why one of our initiatives, “The Truth and Trust Project,” is co-led by a “deplorable” who voted for Trump and whose day job has nothing to do with public health (that’s Wilk) and an “elitist” who ran the National Institutes of Health and is a recognized public health expert (that’s Dr. Francis Collins). (Be sure to check out their conversation at the Convention in the session “An Elitist and a Deplorable Walk Into a Bar…”)  

We find time and again that cooler heads prevail as individuals approach discussions with curiosity, open minds, and a willingness to listen to differing perspectives; a culture where agitators find limited space to disrupt the discourse as people engage respectfully to find common ground. The prevailing goal is to seek unity, bridge divides, and reduce polarization.So, if you’re reading this and you see yourself as a working-class, everyday American, join us. Sign up for ourWe The People’s Council. If you’re a part of or know of an organization that works with working-class Americans, reach out to them and invite them to join the Braver Network.

For all of us: let’s build a political culture that truly honors and reflects “We the People.”

The post “We The People” is all Americans appeared first on Braver Angels.

What will it take for us to embrace a culture of goodwill in American life and American politics? What will it take for us to heal the wounds of our society? 

There are many ideas and solutions on offer. Some say it will take electoral reform. Some say it will take a change in institutional incentives. Some argue that we need to abandon the left/right paradigm. And some will say we need the work of groups like Braver Angels.

But… maybe we need Jesus?

This is the message of the He Gets Us campaign, which has launched a massive, one-hundred-million-dollar ad campaign to “rebrand” Jesus in America. 

With beautifully-produced commercials that aired to an audience of nearly one-hundred-million viewers during the Super Bowl, the people behind He Gets Us presented a Jesus whose teachings and example, they stressed, are the answer to America’s deep-seated polarization. 

“Jesus loved the people we hate,” declared the ending text of one of the two Super Bowl advertisements, after a montage of images depicting bitter social conflict in the United States rolled. 

“He gets us. All of us.” The ad calls upon us, in the words of the Bible, to “Love your enemies.”

For many people, religious and non-religious, it was an uplifting message.

Yet there was serious backlash to the commercial, and the backlash itself came from remarkably far across the spectrum. 

Superstar progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took issue with the ad on Twitter, stating “Something tells me Jesus would not spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads to make fascism look benign.” 

AOC was preceded, however, by leading conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk, who declared “The marketing group behind ‘He Gets Us’ has done one of the worst services to Christianity in the modern era. The Green family are decent and wonderful people who have been taken for a ride by these woke tricksters!”

The Green family refers to the family of David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby, the arts and crafts corporation known by many for their tremendous financial support of socially conservative causes, including pro-life activism and efforts opposing the redefinition of marriage.

For the many Americans who simply thought the commercials to be positive or well-meaning, both Kirk’s and AOC’s reactions were confusing. The financial connection to the Green Family and other conservative interests does, however, give context to Ocasio-Cortez’s reaction. 

Yet many conservative Christians such as Kirk were just as offended by a portrayal of Jesus that made no mention of Jesus as messiah, no mention of Jesus as the enemy of sin, no mention of Jesus as the only path to salvation, no mention of Jesus as “the way, and the truth, and the life.”

I can understand these views. But I wonder if our insistence on purity of political association and purity of theology alike both do not stand in the way of our building a trust between each other as Americans that can allow us to overcome the political bitterness that really is undoing the fabric of American life?

A cultural moment like the Super Bowl brings together the very broadest collection of Americans imaginable. As we watch the game (not to mention the halftime show and the commercials) we sit alongside each other, with all our political and religious differences, bound up together in this unofficial but very real American ritual. It is remarkable how popular culture affords a moment for us to tap, however perfectly or imperfectly, into the timeless teachings of a figure in Jesus of Nazareth, who speaks to us as if from beyond time.

To many, it is dangerous to mix popular culture with the realm of the holy, but maybe there is promise for healing in precisely this mix. 

(That is certainly the view of Chloe Valdary, innovator of the Theory of Enchantment and my most recent guest on Uniting America, whose invitational approach to diversity, equity and inclusion shines light on the human condition by recognizing the transcendent truths that connect pop-culture and ancient wisdom. For those interested in fixing DEI, the Kingdom of God, and the spiritual dimensions of our political and racial divides, it is not a conversation to miss.)

For myself, I am a Christian. I am a Christian who believes in the separation of church and state, one who believes that we ought to be able to hear a message from a person or organization even if we do not agree with all of their politics, and I am certainly a Christian who believes that Jesus cannot quite be captured by a 60-second commercial, no matter how much money is spent on it.

But if I want to see Jesus in the political conversation a bit more, it is only because I, like many Christians and many non-Christians, believe that loving one’s neighbor and loving one’s enemies is the way to a better world.

This belief that love can transcend our differences is a belief that yet binds many Christians and non-Christians alike. We need love if we are to heal America. And we need the teachings and exemplars of love to come forth from our heritage to show us the way to mend.

We do need love and forgiveness in America.

Is it wrong therefore to say that we need Jesus too?

-John Wood Jr., National Ambassador, Braver Angels

The post Can Jesus Cross Our Divides? appeared first on Braver Angels.

That same week, I watched the show Our Universe, narrated by none other than Morgan Freeman. This documentary distinguishes itself by fusing the story of that universe with the story of life on Earth. And indeed how it all began was itself, fusion.

At its dawn, our universe was essentially a nothingness of uniform density. And it might have stayed that way if not for the tiniest variances caused by Herr Heisenberg’s famous uncertainty principle.

The reason, you might say, that there’s something instead of nothing, is that somewhere around one decillionth of a second after the start of the Big Bang, these minuscule variances of material density began to coalesce into a quark soup of elementary particles. Difference had made all the difference.

From there it was more of the same. The story of how our universe was formed is one of endless combination—taking two things and making them one. And this was only possible because of a fundamental force that had formed just a moment before, at one tredecillionth of a second in: gravity. Because of this force, which dictates that everything in the universe is attracted to everything else, after only 379 thousand more years, those subatomic particles combined to form atoms.

And here we get back to nuclear fusion, where these hydrogen atoms started joining forces within the stars, smashing together and forming bigger, ever more complex atoms. This chain of combination flows through the history of creation, with atoms forming molecules that finally started to resemble matter as we know it. “Stuff” was born. But this stuff wasn’t done combining. Dust particles started to coalesce into chunks, which gradually grew to the most incredible sizes, forming the planets that would give birth to life.

And of course, life itself is a continuation of this story. Organic chemical compounds of increasing complexity formed the primordial soup that gave rise to life. The most basic of organisms began to combine into cells, themselves joining forces and exploding into a tree of life through yet another example of the magic of combination: genetic variation.  

This idea reinforces one of the most important aspects of combination—that it’s often at its best when the things coming together are quite different.

Let’s take a moment to consider this. As they say, two heads are better than one, and when two of anything join forces, there’s a good chance one might bring something to the table the other doesn’t have.

These days it doesn’t feel like we value difference enough, instead preferring that others believe the same things we do. That would ultimately mean we all pretty much have the same experiences in life. If our neighbor thinks the same way about everything, we needn’t bother trying to see things from their distinct perspective.

I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather learn something from my interactions with others, leaning into curiosity to embrace those differences, rather than criticizing them. It would be nice if, instead of seeing how wrong someone’s conclusion is, we see one more data point to expand our understanding of the human condition.

The benefits of combination, in particular combinations of difference, are part of the philosophy that informs the work of Braver Angels and our recently launched Braver Partners program. 

Braver Partners acknowledges that the scale of the polarization problem in this country calls for a larger movement that pulls together as many organizations as possible of every type—civic, business, educational, religious, etc.— and calls upon them to contribute whatever it is they do best to the cause of holding our country together, combining our unique and different strengths and efforts for good.

In addition to calling on organizations large and small to help realize our shared mission, the Braver Partners program offers our partner organizations tools to help their internal cultures harness the power of ideological diversity and curiosity. 

And when they join us at our convention in Gettysburg, we’ll give them the chance to create new coalitions, unleashing the power of combination to transform our national culture and reunite us as people.

Want to contribute? Tell us about an organization that might be a good fit, or help us manage our partner relationships! We’ve gotten started with nonprofits like Move for America and the Listen First Project, local religious congregations and Rotary clubs, schools like Dakota Wesleyan University, and companies like Mejdi Tours. Click here to join the effort!

By combining the ideas of very different people—and organizations—to discover not only what each can contribute but what collectively we can create, we might finally accept that together, we’re greater than the sum of our parts. 

The post The Sum of Our Parts appeared first on Braver Angels.

Ellen Laird (Red):

My opinion piece contains no statistics.  There are no quotes from esteemed economists, academicians or trendologists.  It’s simply a story about a fellow citizen, communal values and fairness.

Kris is my friend. Because he was born into a dysfunctional family he ended up in five different foster homes and had a stint in juvenile detention.  At age 19 he was married with a baby on the way.  To support his family he took a job as an apprentice to a local electrician. He earned a HS degree at night and subsequently went to Community College night school for 7 years to obtain his BA in electrical engineering. Next, he got his Masters which took another 5-6 years and, currently, he is studying for his PhD all paid entirely from savings.  Presently, he is SVP for a nationwide electrical company, has 4 children (all college graduates) and earns in the mid six figures. 

Kris has never benefitted from Student Debt Forgiveness. He, like many others, made the decision not to attend a 4 year University full-time because he could not afford it.  He chose to pay for his own education.  Others have worked diligently to pay off college debt using savings and earnings.   Should people who chose to pursue alternative opportunities i.e electricians, plumbers be told that the college educated are more valued citizens whose debt must be shared by all? Is it fair that the debt incurred by college graduates be the responsibility of people who chose a different financial or educational course of action?

We used to have an appreciation for the value of personal responsibility.  Student Debt Forgiveness replaces that with an irreversible expectation that other people will pay for one’s life decisions. And, it would be foolish to think this slick ploy to “buy” votes will not be repeated in perpetuity.   In my opinion, it will only breed resentment and not bode well for the future of our nation.

Randy Lioz (Blue):

With a fraught and divisive issue like canceling debt for a limited group of Americans, it’s best to start with some common ground. It seems there are few people in this country who see the current cost of college as reasonable, especially when the average yearly tuition has climbed to nearly $20,000, while in Europe most schools charge less than $2,225.

We tell American kids that college is the best route to a good job (indeed it often can be), yet we saddle them with debt that starts accruing interest before they leave school, at higher rates than mortgages (but with no similar protections against poorly structured loans that grow instead of shrink), are hard to refinance (especially without losing already meager consumer protections), and usually can’t be shed in bankruptcy. And those with loans suffer the same chance (2 in 5) that they won’t graduate as everyone else, but must keep the debt after, even if they were scammed by for-profit schools.

Something needs to be done, and this debt relief is not nearly enough. But should it also be cast aside just because it benefits us unevenly? There are plenty of other vulnerable groups, but relief shouldn’t wait until we address everyone else’s needs first.

Further inflation risk of relief is small. It’s currently driven by supply constraints and the unprecedented level of wealth we happened to accrue over the past 2 years—up over 35% overall and almost 40% for those with only a high school diploma. The money this break gives students is less than 0.2% of our yearly personal consumption, but for many it would mean finally being able to start building a future—contributing more to the economy.

Righting this wrong needs to end with major reform. But it can start with a small sacrifice from each of us.

Maria Luisa Palma (Red):

I promise to pay. These first words to every promissory note state the borrower’s intention as a “promise” to pay the funds borrowed. They echo in my mind every time I think about student loan forgiveness and inevitably lead me to the concept of personal responsibility.
 
Yes, there are many inequities in our society. Some may be correctable, while others are rooted in human nature and therefore impossible to eradicate. But do those inequities warrant voiding, on a blanket basis, legal, enforceable contracts entered into by two parties with the expectation of repayment according to the terms stated therein? In the case of federally guaranteed student loans, one party was the student borrower, the other was the U.S. Government (AKA: the public).
 
As a general policy, I believe our society has an interest in promoting education. We provide a free public education to any child living anywhere in the U.S., from grades K-12, generally while they are minors. Higher education, already subsidized to various degrees, is supplemented with borrowing to complete undergraduate or advanced degrees by adults. These adults make a promise to repay those debts.

Yes, these individuals may believe they have no other option available to complete their education. When student loans are presented as part of a “financial aid package”, it is easy for a student to be lulled into a sense of inevitability and complacency about the money borrowed. But this is real money changing hands, from a lender to their college, or perhaps into the student’s own hands for living expenses.

As a citizen and taxpayer, I see that as a debt owed to the public. Now one person, our President, waved a magic pen making a portion of those debts disappear. I understand that I am merely one small, lone voice, but our elected officials in the legislature had no say in this decision either. It is an inadequate “solution” with major financial repercussions that only addresses a symptom of a complex issue that has many players, and not the root cause of the problem. Now you and I are on the hook for those debts. I don’t like it.

Dave Greene (Blue):

A poor kid from the Bronx, I had no student loans when I went to Fordham University from 1966-1970 because tuition was $1,800, (~$13k now) and I received several grants to pay almost all of it. 

Now students choose between private colleges with staggering debt packages, and public institutions whose funding has been slashed to the bone, causing them to raise tuition and, also pile on the loans to pay for it.

Student debt played a minor role in American life through the 1960s, then shot up repeatedly since the 1970s and 1980s. The last class who received more grants than loans was 1984.

It started in California. In 1970, Governor Reagan shut down all 28 California campuses during student protests against the Vietnam War. Reagan pushed to cut state funding for California’s public colleges but rather than reveal his ideological motivation, he said the state needed to save money. As a result, California public colleges charged residents’ tuition for the first time and that tuition “must be accompanied by adequate loans to be paid back after graduation.” 

In 1968, California residents paid a $300 yearly fee-not tuition- to attend Berkeley (~$2,500 now). Presently, tuition at Berkeley is ~$15,000, with total yearly student costs reaching almost $40,000.

This action set the states for all states. Private Universities jumped on the trend.

Fordham University’s tuition is now $58,082. I would now have to pay ~$26K just for tuition. Room and board are now ~$21K, and loans are the primary way of financing tuition. My 16-year-old self and my mom could not afford to do that.

We must figure out a way to make both public and private college more affordable. To say don’t go is not the answer.

In the meantime, why should so many be saddled with loans that may take decades to pay off that their parents and grandparents never had to pay? 

If governments are at least partly responsible for this huge increase in both costs and loans, shouldn’t they be at least partly responsible for helping pay those costs?

The post ACROSS THE DIVIDE: Perspectives on President Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness appeared first on Braver Angels.

Editor’s Note: A version of this piece was originally published by the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, available here. -LNP

I wasn’t aware of it at the time. But looking back on my suburban upbringing in 1990’s Los Angeles it is clear that I grew up upon the foundation of a sort of end of history thesis with respect to race. Race, biological fiction though it may be, had existed as social reality in the past and continued to exist as an aesthetic and something of a cultural differentiator in the present. Yet we had reached Dr. King’s Promised Land on the question of whether or not race determined anybody’s value or treatment in society.

            ‘End of history’ theses posit that at a certain point the social and political order of society reaches an ideal state (i.e. some form of liberal democracy, as argued by Francis Fukuyama in The End of History and the Last Man), at which sustained progress is only a matter of continuing to build upon this order. Growing up half Black and half White (or half African-American and half Anglo-American to be more specific) with extended family from across Latin-America in the multicultural, liberal suburb of Culver City, California it was not so much easy for me to embrace the colorblind paradigm of racial tolerance as it was impossible to see outside of it. When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 his election seemed to crown this happy understanding of our social reality.

            Beyond the borders of my understanding, however, from Black and brown inner-cities to White and Asian suburbs lay a nation that was steering away from complacent acceptance of our claims to a racially well-adjusted status-quo and towards a visceral reckoning with the reality of whiteness.

            An unstable element in the periodic table of our political awareness, as common as carbon in composing the molecules that make up our social reality in the eyes of some, White supremacy, White privilege and White identity itself is oft regarded as the acute toxin perpetuating injustice and inequality in society. We can say that the problem is racism. But in the antiracist awakening of America it is whiteness, we feel ourselves learning, that is the spirit that animates the racist structures of America and the western world. Hence a focus on racism is futile if one is not more specifically concerned with the abolition of White supremacy.

            But the question of whiteness is a profound one, arching over history, society, psychology and identity. Is whiteness a cancer? A legitimate identity? Or is it just another divisive racial category that obscures the value of the individual?

            The answer is complicated for a Black man like me.

            I WASN’T ALWAYS BLACK. I wasn’t always White either. For the first five years of my life in fact I do not recall having a racial identity. And when I did finally get one it happened to fall outside of the usual categories.

            Skin color was always interesting to me because our home had so many of them. My mother was some shade of milk chocolate, my father a more beige sort of hue. My brother and I fell somewhere in between. This fact became significant to me when I realized that most families I observed seemed to generally be colored the same. So one day I found my dad in the kitchen as he made himself a sandwich and I asked him a question.

            “Dad,” I started. “Mom is Black, right?”

            Dad paused and looked at me. “Yes.”

            “And you’re White, right?”

            “Yes,” he responded, studying me.

            “Well, if you’re White and Mom’s Black…then what does that make me?”

            I remember my father smiling as he turned towards me. “Well can’t you tell?” he asked.

            No, I answered. He knelt down and took the palm of my right hand between his fingertips. Holding my palm to face forward he lifted my hand so that the back of it rose to my line of sight, that I might see clearly the color of me.

            “You’re tan!” he answered.

            “I’m tan?” I responded. I looked at my hand. Made sense. “Tan” seemed to describe where I fell on the color spectrum.

            “You’re tan,” Dad repeated. And so for the next two years of my life my self-professed racial identification to anybody who would ask was “tan.”

            At some point I was disabused of the notion that this was a legitimate racial category. I was mixed perhaps. But Black kids I knew knew themselves to be Black. And if you were light-skinned or “high-yellow” or mixed-Black like I was, well, you were Black too. That’s not to say no one ever called me White. Black kids would (usually by saying “you’re so White”) as a way of commenting on my speech, dress or taste in music. Some White kids would as a way of highlighting the fact that I was really more like them then other people my color. (“John’s as White as I am” or, alternatively “John’s not really Black.”) But the circumstance that made any of these jabs relevant was that I was really Black…at least technically.

            At a certain point however I wanted to be more than technically Black; I wanted to be authentically so.

            So began a journey for me which involved changing my body language, my dialect, even the way I dressed, so that at least when around other Black people I would not find myself on the outskirts of “blackness.”

            Given the time and place, the idea of authentic blackness that I sought to step into was inextricably bound to the trappings of Hip-Hop culture. In this my identity journey was not unlike that of author Thomas Chatterton Williams, who in reflecting on his own coming of age experience as a mixed-race Black teenager wrote, “If it is true that it feels good to look good, then it is equally true that it can feel gangsta to look gangsta…” I had uncles who were rappers. They were from the hood. Blackness in the eyes of my peers was the embodiment or at least the approximation of the sort of swagger life in the streets had taught others of my relatives to master.

            By the age of 13 I thought I was getting a handle on this. Pride in my blackness became important to announce, important to signal, especially among Black peers whose acceptance I craved.

            There was one kid in particular whose respect as a Black man I hoped to earn. Tony was a star on campus; a Hollywood smile, moves on the basketball court and threads like one of the guys from the R&B boy band B2K, Tony was everything I thought I wanted to be. That is to say, nobody questioned his Blackness. And yet, like myself, Tony was half-White. But that was only a technical matter. Tony was vibrationally Black, essentially Black and qualitatively Black. And that’s what I wanted to be.

            Then one day I found myself sitting next to Tony at the beginning of class. Others were milling about and taking their seats coming back from lunch. We spoke a little bit and somehow found ourselves on the subject of being Black. I took the opportunity to play up my own blackness for him, to boldly declare how proud I was of being Black…and to do so in a lingo that would drive my authenticity home for him.

            Tony listened to me, nodding his head patiently. “Yeah. I’m proud of being Black too,” he started. “But don’t ever forget, you’re just as White as you are Black. Just like I am. And you should be proud of that as well.”

            He turned to face the teacher as class started. But Tony had left me stunned, my conscience convicted. In seeking to play up my blackness and obscure my whiteness had I diminished an entire side of my being? Beyond simply not being true to myself was I dishonoring the White father who raised me with as much love and as much pride as my Black mother? Was I dishonoring my father’s entire family, our lineage, the grandparents and ancestors I’d heard stories about who were as much the reason for my existence as my mother’s ancestors? It seemed to me that I was and that this was a terrible shame. It was in that moment that I made up my mind to be as proud of being White as I was of being Black—and to never lose sight of the equal honor both cultural identities were entitled to hold in my mind.

            FROM THAT DAY until now I have thought of myself as being White as well as being Black, not just technically but meaningfully. This consciousness does not follow automatically from the mere fact of being biracial, clearly. Williams writes in Losing My Cool, “Despite my mother’s being White, we were a Black and not an interracial family…My parents adhered to a strict and unified philosophy of race, the contents of which boil down to the following: There is no such thing as being half-White, for Black, they explained, is less a biological category than a social one.”

            True as this may be for some this particular way of viewing Black racial reality held in place the one drop rule of racial identification that my interracial family ultimately, if tacitly, rejected. I was Black and White and would remain so.

            This principled conviction that I was my father’s son, however, did not in and of itself reveal to me the substance of whiteness as even a cultural differentiator. A picture formed within me and a White experience took shape. But the question of what Whiteness actually is remains here to be answered.

            It is important to recognize the fact that, while the identity aspect of this question may seem naturally relevant to White people and perhaps even to some mixed White people such as myself, there is a deep and often uncomfortable question of identity within the heart of the Black experience that is left unanswerable absent a reflection on the American experience of being White.

            Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed to this reality in Where Do We Go From Here, published in 1967:

            “The language, the cultural patterns, the music, the material prosperity and even the food of America are an amalgam of Black and White…This is the dilemma of being a Negro in America. In physical as well as cultural terms every Negro is a little bit colored and a little bit White. In our search for identity we must recognize this dilemma.”

            This desire to shake our Whiteness, at the very least the desire to not be perceived as insufficiently Black as a consequence of presumed White cultural influence, is not a feature of the Black experience reserved solely for conspicuously biracial Black people such as myself. Nor is it limited to the ultimately parochial contrast between White culture and the urban-centered culture of 90’s Hip-Hop.

            Bertrand Cooper, writing for Current Affairs, recalls the example of John McWhorter. McWhorter has admitted that, earlier in his career, he feared publicly debating Michael Eric Dyson because of his sense that he would be perceived as insufficiently Black given his academic demeanor and middle-class origins in contrast to Professor’s Dyson’s Black Baptist preacher-style of speaking. Cooper cites the example of the Nigerian-American writer Ijeoma Oluo, who has written about the “difference between the expectations of the type of Black we were supposed to be, and the type of Black we were—which was Black nerds raised by a White woman in a poor White neighborhood.”

            Yet even as some Black people seek to dissociate themselves from the perception of having been culturally adulterated (or psychologically “colonized”) by whiteness, so too do many white people either seek this distance from whiteness as well, or feel shrunken by the void that the lack of a positive racial identity seems to leave.

            As someone who was trying to demonstrate his pride in Blackness it was easy for me to observe that, to a certain degree at least, racial pride was social currency within African-American culture both at school and beyond. Yet it took my conscious decision to embrace my White identity for me to fully realize that there was not even the shadow of an equivalence to the bold racial pride experienced by Blacks in my school among Whites in the same classrooms. I may have been the only student in my high school who actively took pride in being White—a fact that was only possible because I was also Black.

            There were indeed White kids who wanted to be Black however. This expressed itself in some of my suburban White classmate’s culture shocking their parents’ homes, dressing in baggy jeans and backwards caps, blasting rap music and passing the n-word back and forth amongst themselves and maybe a protective circle of Black friends who might let them get away with it.

            Shy of this flattering cultural appropriation however there was merely a longing to experience the cultural solidarity that Black people so easily took refuge in. It is a longing that led a White boy sitting behind me at a graduation ceremony to grumble “I wish I was Black” as every White kid crossing the stage received her diploma to polite applause, whereas almost every Black kid to get hers received a field-filling, rapturous roar from the booming minority of Black students and family members scattered across the bleachers. The larger part of the student body and the audience was White, but Black pride literally reverberated through the stands.

            “As a white person, you’re just desperate to find something else to grab onto,” wrote Christian Lander, author of the popular satirical blog and later best-selling book Stuff White People Like. “Pretty much every white person I grew up with wished they’d grown up in, you know, an ethnic home that gave them a second language.”

            Of course, Lander and I both grew up in liberal Los Angeles. White people in other parts of America respond to the cultural mainstream’s moral and social repudiation of Whiteness with a reactionary embrace of White identity that, in its worst form, continues a centuries old tradition of White racial terrorism right into episodes like Charlottesville. It echoes forth in the chants of “You will not replace us!” In this we hear the paranoia of a people who believe themselves to be shoved to the margins of American life, madly flinging themselves off these social cliffs for fear of being pushed.

            Yet for all the ethnic cultural envy one can point to, particularly among more progressive leaning White people of recent generations, critical race theorists and White studies scholars stand in agreement in observing a steel thread connecting the psychology of overt White supremacists to that of the broader psychology of White America. This thread is the romanticization of Whiteness, the expectation that White identity should be rewarded, and the real (whether loud or silent) consensus that it is the culture of Whiteness that must determine the ultimate distribution of power within American institutional society.

            It is here that we come to the substance of whiteness, to reckon with it as both reality and illusion.

            WHITENESS IS A REALITY. Or at least, the term “whiteness” points to some things that are very real, both in the currents of history and contemporary American society. It is vital that these dynamics be both understood and responded to. But the concept of whiteness is also, if not an illusion, than an obscurant as well. (I mean this with respect to whiteness as both a thing with which people identify as well as a force to which people are opposed.) Our emphasis on whiteness hides as much as it reveals, both about the American people as well as the social reality in which we live.

            There is a history to whiteness. A slow and unevenly emergent pan-European identity began to be brought into stark relief in the idea of the shared racial identity of “White” during the crescendo of the African slave trade. The latter had everything to do with the former.

            It would be hard to add to the scholarship on this, so well established it seems to be. In the American colonies in particular the tying of slavery to racial identity and the institution of the racial caste system that would continue into the founding of the United States (despite its flagrant contradiction of the idea that “all men are created equal,” entitled to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”) served to protect the economic interests of particularly the landed, southern elite. It did so by providing a social status to poorer White Americans that would give them something to lose in establishing common cause with enslaved Africans. This caste system, having entered the law principally to justify slavery, expanded to separate and then absorb other identity groups whose whiteness would seem to have been further removed from that of the Anglo-Saxon bulk of the British settler population and their descendants. Over time this included the Irish, Italians, Greeks, and even Slavs and other Eastern Europeans. This gradual expansion of the concept of whiteness within the realm of American law corresponded to a larger cultural integration of various European descended peoples whose children and grandchildren intermingled and intermarried with “White” Americans. Through both breeding and simple cultural immersion they became “White” themselves.

            Critical Race Theory and related scholarship tracks the legal and larger institutional development of American society as the structural manifestation of this consciousness. It assumes this reality, and charts it, not until 1865 or 1965, but to the present day.

            As Michelle Alexander writes in a recent foreword for Derrick Bell’s Faces at the Bottom of the Well:

            “Yes, the old Jim Crow system of legal segregation was officially ended by a carefully crafted legal campaign combined with an extraordinary, multiracial grassroots movement. But it is also true that less than two decades later public schools resegregated, and a new system of racial and social control was born in the United States-a system of mass incarceration that swept millions of poor people and people of color behind bars…stripping them of the very civil and human rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement…”

            She quotes Bryan Stevenson, saying “slavery didn’t end in 1865. It evolved.”

            To say that slavery merely evolved after 1865 is true perhaps in the most technical sense. It is certainly true in the metaphorical sense, in the way that Dr. King meant it when he declared during the I Have a Dream Speech of 1963 that 100 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation “the Negro still is not free.”

            What becomes more questionable in the minds of some (and conspicuously at odds with the oft heard claim that arguments against racism are not arguments against racist people but merely against racist systems) is the connection of this history and present circumstances to the larger psychology of White America generally. To them historic racial oppression, possibly merely misguided contemporary public policies and the occasional, innocent faux pas of millions of ordinary White people become crudely forced together in an overarching narrative of White supremacy in a manner that leaves most White people feeling unjustly maligned.

            One hears this narrative spelled out in all its punch and poignancy in the first episode of the Netflix original series Dear White People, through the words of the shows protagonist, Black campus activist Samantha White:

            “Dear White people…I get that being reduced to a race-based generalization is a new and devastating experience for some of you. But here’s the difference: my jokes don’t incarcerate your youth at alarming rates, or make it unsafe for you to walk around your neighborhoods. But yours do. When you mock or belittle us, you enforce an existing system.”

            Samantha goes on to connect White college students showing up to a Halloween party in blackface with the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland and Philando Castile.

            For many White people this juxtaposition seems arbitrary. Stereotyping is a rude fact of life but everybody deals with it. Microaggressions are not real, and if they are they have nothing to do with the larger inequities of society.

            One can indeed take issue with this narrative. But these juxtapositions, so random to many mostly White people, are eminently obvious to most African-Americans and other people of color.

            Part of the difficulty many White Americans have had in understanding the present state of particularly Black American struggles and grievances is that we (I do say “we”) fail to see the larger reality of American life for Black people beyond the contrary proof points of Black Americans such as myself.

            Growing up in Culver City I experienced a richly tolerant, multicultural universe in which I was treated well by kind White people who loved, respected and saw themselves as one with people of all colors. This is a fair description of the reality I remember. But I was set apart in my circumstances, and in the treatment I received, from other Black kids my age because my cultural bearings were largely a product of this very culture of integration. I spoke (at my father’s insistence) “the king’s English.” Until my performative Hip-Hop phase I dressed out of something more or less like an Old Navy catalogue. I had a standard, “White” name and was well adjusted.

            I was easier to understand and easier to deal with then the Jamals, Hakeems, Tamikas and Latoyas that were bused into my suburban school from the inner-city parts of L.A. that most of my relatives lived in. To this day I operate culturally in a manner that yields me an appreciative ease in the attitudes of certain White individuals and institutional environments on account of that bearing. Black cultural idioms and mannerisms are etched in my personality. But a la John McWhorter, Wayne Brady, Condoleezza Rice and any number of Black people one can name, my “Whiteness” whether natural or performative is seen as the currency by which I gain entre into the privileged treatment of American society.

            To some degree at least they are surely right. Yet while this is just a way to be, or to aspire to be, for some Black people many others see this Americanization (in its White-cultured sense) of Blackness and the opportunity it yields for some Blacks as a threat to the larger ascendency of the entire race.

            This is the dual consciousness that both King and (Ibram X.) Kendi have talked about from one angle or another. Derek Bell gives voice to the critical appraisal of the cultural integrationist side of this consciousness in Faces when, in illustrating a conversation between two Black men from either side of this divide, he writes: “I mean no offense, but the fact is you movin-on-up black folks hurt us everyday blacks simply by being successful.” In this analysis Black people like me become the unfair standard by which other Black people are judged, rendering the more authentic Black experience, culture and struggle comfortably invisible to complacent White folks by virtue of the proximity of our own success to theirs.

            In other words, a few of us Blacks have achieved success in America by managing to submerge ourselves in the homogenizing stew of cultural (though never racial) whiteness, just like the Irish and Italians before us. But unlike them, we can only ever be exceptions to the rule because whiteness is itself only real in opposition to blackness. Our success as individual Black people can only ever truly come in the context of the larger marginalization of Black America—whether we are Larry Elder or Barack Obama.

            WHAT I AM describing is the Black experience, or much of it, as it exists in interaction with, and on the other side of, whiteness. The consequences of whiteness for so many Black people and other people of color therefore become the only meaningful thing defining whiteness. How could it be any other way?

            Early in American colonial history the identity system by which slavery was justified was not based on race but rather on religion. Africans were eligible for slavery not because they were Black but because they were not Christians. As pressure to convert Africans to Christianity threatened to undermine this justification however the racial rationale for bondage became the more sustainable premise for enslavement. Thus was innovated what historian Edmund Morgan described as “a screen of racial contempt” that would justify the vicious subjugation of Africans in America for centuries to come.

            This screen of racial contempt exists within the larger mesh of what is in truth the screen of whiteness. Whiteness is, at the end of the day, not but a screen. It is a thin frame through which one sees. Through one side one sees people of color and the non-white world. Through the other one sees the white race and the world that whiteness is said to shape. Through this frame we are also liable to see ourselves. There is nothing inside of the screen itself. But we struggle with what the screen shows us from either side of its divided illusions.

            Whiteness is purity. Whiteness is virtue. The mythology of the superior race (its vestiges sputtering traceably into the present in episodes like the Good Morning D.C. anchors hailing pseudo-scientific studies asserting beauty standards that only White women can meet) one might think to be a psychological gift to those in a position to receive it. But the screen of whiteness has proven itself a cruel burden.

            The White supremacist order demanded the sacrifice of more than a million White Americans killed, wounded, sickened or starved during the Civil War. The razing of the south still lives in the cultural memory of southern whites. Slavery itself robbed White workers of economic opportunity; subsequently racism in the labor movement, it has long been argued at least, undermined the economic interests of working class Whites by diminishing the bargaining power of labor for generations. But perhaps more than anything it is the legacy of guilt, shame, and for many the willing disassociation with their own ancestors and heritage that defines much of the burden for White people that whiteness has left us with.

            There is much that is right and much that is wrong in this impulse. But one can see the wrestling of conscience that leads to this place drawn out over the long arc of American history.

            One can obviously see this unfolding in the rising Abolitionist and Civil Rights Movements that, taken together, have nearly as deep a history in our nation as racism itself. But it is in the internal conflicts with whiteness within White people who are not activists wherein this struggle is perhaps most poignant. This is because it is in such cases where we see whiteness as an ideology of racial superiority slowly undermined by people who naturally take for granted that they must have allegiance to the concept.

            Such was the case with a young woman named Harriet Ruggles Gold whose short life spanned the early decades of the 19^th century. The daughter of a prominent religious family in Cornwall, Connecticut, she fell in love with the nephew of the chief of the Cherokee nation, a young man named Elias Boudinot. They met through the missionary school her family supported to help cultivate Christian learning in the leading young of the Cherokee. However a love affair and marriage between Boudinot’s cousin and another prominent daughter of the community had already scandalized the town, threatening violence in response and the ruination of the Foreign Mission School. Yet despite the threats of the mob, the protestations of her parents and minister, and her own racial status as a White woman, Harriet held fast to her love and the convictions upon which it rested. She married Elias in 1826, telling her parents: “We have vowed, and our vows are heard in Heaven; color is nothing to me; his soul is as white as mine.”

            Harriet would live the rest of her short years amongst the Cherokee, and would die with the Cherokee Nation. As the Cherokee were driven out of Georgia, terrorized, despoiled of their land and riches, and divided by political intrigues nudged by the outside, Harriet fell ill. She passed away under the gaze of her loving husband. He wrote to her parents in Christian prose, “her immortal spirit forsook its early home to join the righteous and just men made perfect, and ‘to sing the conqueror’s song.’”

            Why should his soul have been “white” modern readers might ask? But in her love Harriet was driven to see Elias’ character and to recognize that whiteness was transcended by the substance of humanity—an affront to the very concept of White superiority itself.

            I remember being a boy, reading about the retired, undefeated heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries, reclining in his Alfalfa farm in tranquil obesity. Jeffries was not a White nationalist, not a member of the Klan. But he had participated in the embargo on Black fighters in heavyweight championship fights—a policy meant to ensure that a Black man would never win the ultimate symbol of athletic glory.

            The charismatic Jack Johnson however, rallying public pressure, had seized that prize in a dominant performance against Jeffries successor, Tommy Burns. Jeffries had no interest in coming out of retirement and was conflicted about the pressure he felt to do so. But called upon to defend the honor of the White race he slimmed down and emerged from retirement, only to be dispatched by the matchless Johnson on July 4^th, 1910.

            Black people celebrated. Many Whites raged. The outcome should not have surprised sober observers, but what may have were Jeffries’ words in the aftermath: “I could never have whipped Johnson at my best…I could never have reached him in a thousand years.”

            Taken in context these words were startling. In his time Jim Jeffries was considered the greatest boxer in history, the iconic embodiment of White manhood. He fought, pushed though he was, to defend the honor of whiteness. He could easily have blamed his loss on age. Instead he freely chose to acknowledge that Johnson was the better man—and in so doing undermined the very premise of the White supremacy he fought for; an ideology that was willing to sacrifice a quiet man content on his farm to a brutal battle of fists that he could never win.

            About a hundred years later, in 2013, country singer Braid Paisley joined forces with rapper LL Cool J to release a Country-Rap song called Accidental Racist. It portrayed a conversation between a White southerner and a “Black Yankee” reaching out across the chasms of history and experience to set aside racism in favor of friendship and understanding.

            The song’s reception was highly critical, with many racial commentators lambasting the false equivalencies between Black and White racism they saw the lyrics as trafficking in.

            But I at least am grateful for the effort. For if one listens one hears in Paisley’s lyrics the honest struggling with whiteness, history and White identity that has led most of White America to morally grow in the shadow of its burden. And ironically, this growth becomes partially definitive of the White experience itself. So it is apparently for “a proud rebel son with an ol’ can of worms, lookin’ like I got a lot to learn.”

            The song continues:

            “I’m just a white man, comin’ to you from the southland, trying to understand what it’s like not to be. I’m proud of where I’m from, but not everything we’ve done, and it ain’t like you and me can rewrite history. Our generation didn’t start this nation. We’re still pickin’ up the pieces, walkin’ on eggshells, fightin’ over yesterday, and caught somewhere between southern pride and southern blame.”

            THE FIGHT IS not merely over yesterday, of course. The fight is over today. Whiteness as a social construct in American history has yielded a centuries old story of oppression, struggle and inequality for African-Americans and other people of color that in one way or another travels right down to the present day. In this “whiteness” is the enemy.

            And yet, the story of White people is far more complicated, defined not just by moral failing but by moral progress. This progress has always been pushed by minorities willing to take up the cause of their own equality. But the story of White America is not just the story of slaveholders and the Klan, Lilly White Republicanism and minstrel shows, police brutality and gentrification.

            The story of White America is also found in the abolitionist movement and the antiracism of progressive liberalism. It is found in the integration of the Church and the de-whitening of Christ in the revivalist movements of the early 20th century and the crusades of Billy Graham. It is found in the revolutionizing of Hollywood in the embrace of multiculturalism. It is found in the White allies for Civil Rights who took to the streets before the death of King and after the death of George Floyd. It is indeed found in the words of the Declaration Independence that “all men are created equal.” And—yes damn it, yes—it is found in the election of Barack Obama, where millions of White Americans from every region and both parties decided to make a man who would have been a slave at this nation’s founding the symbol of America to all the world.

            Am I proud to be White?

            I see the damage whiteness has done. I see, perhaps, the damage it is still doing. One thing I know above all is that America is right to center its social energies on the uncompleted work of realizing Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream; not a colorblind America so much as an America in which justice and freedom confront the ancient inequities of our racial caste system to produce a world in which we can be reconciled to each other in a beloved community of equals.

            But I remain proud to be my father’s son; a White man who sees himself as such who raised me to be proud of my Blackness, and the intersection of culture and identities that makes each of us Americans.

            There may come a day when whiteness is destroyed in the conceptual lexicon. We may one day return to being Anglo, Italian, Irish or simply European Americans. More likely than not the label of White will continue to be an identifier for many or most of those who have used it for 400 hundred years, while others will try to move through the world discarding racial labels altogether, as much as the world will allow them to.

            Let history take its course. What matters more is that we see beyond the screen of whiteness to the more complicated and yet more hopeful realities of the full lived experience of Americans on either side of this tragic divide. And as far as the people we call White are concerned, there have always been those among us, consciously and subconsciously, who have sought to transcend the false veneer of White supremacy in the name of greater humanist and religious ideals.

            Our numbers have, and only ever have, grown across the generations right on up to now. I am proud of that.

The post The Screen of Whiteness appeared first on Braver Angels.

Remember when comedian Jon Stewart went on that old CNN show Crossfire and all but destroyed it?

“I watch your show every day, and it kills me,” Stewart tells Red / Blue co-hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala in a 2004 segment I’ve watched and rewatched countless times. It’s one of the nicer ways he skewers them for the point-scoring Left v. Right showdowns they frame as “debate.” Stewart outs their format as pure partisan theater — all in front of a live, stunned studio audience.

“Here’s what I want to tell you guys,” Stewart says to the co-hosts, batting away their attempts to get him to mock anything else. “Stop. Stop hurting America.”

What happened next is the stuff of legend: CNN canceled the show, citing Stewart’s takedown, and the whole thing went down as one shining example of media justice served.  

‘Stupid, incompetent, or both’

Setting aside his broader political work, I can’t tell you how much I admired Stewart’s courage and clarity in the segment. The way he spoke up for so much frustration with how our media can exploit us. It was nothing short of an epic win for me… until I stumbled on an essay that made me see what we’d lost.

“In 2003, the idea of a show where Republicans and Democrats would meet and debate — on equal terms — felt mundane and taken for granted,” writes Will Chamberlain in Human Events. “In 2019, however, there isn’t a single show on cable television where Republicans and Democrats routinely meet on equal terms.”

In fact, Chamberlain argues, “By ‘destroying’ Crossfire, Stewart unintentionally brought on an era of monologue-driven news shows that portray their adversary as stupid, incompetent, or both.”

Drat, I thought. He’s right. Tucker Carlson Tonight, The Rachel Maddow Show, you know the ones. Even when these shows speak powerfully for their side and for our shared struggle toward a better society, they build ideological fortresses within which the idea of making equal space for opposing voices — let alone the practice — isn’t just pointless. It’s a joke.

But as I look around at where these one-way citadels have led us, how we’re crushed by the weight of assumptions we don’t test and certainties we don’t challenge, I’m not laughing.

Sharing ground and sharing power

Do I think Crossfire was worth saving? Absolutely not. But I do think that losing stages where liberals and conservatives meet on shared ground with shared power hurts America more than we realize.

Which is precisely what I was thinking as I watched and rewatched two powerful clips from recent Braver Angels Debates, produced for our Instagram account by summer media intern Andrew Mister: the first from our debate on abortion, the second from our debate on guns.

In each debate, everyday Americans — sorry pundits! — met on equal footing to give honest, opposing takes on two of the toughest issues we face with no hostility, no theatrics, no lack of genuine conflict or passion, and whole heaps of courage.

• How come all these mass shootings stop whether by death or suicide when the insane meet a reactive force? … Are the kids not worth protecting?

• The idea of having armed teachers is a scary thought, and the idea of needing a gun to be safe in society certainly doesn’t make me feel safer.

• Do we wish to be known as a country that preys on our most vulnerable? If we begin to justify abortion on this basis, what prevents us from doing the same with the elderly, those with mental illness, and those with genetic disabilities?
  
• How can we help stop pregnancy before it starts, help people not get pregnant when they don’t want to be? Can this be about men and not about women?

Maybe cable news lacks models for how opposing perspectives can engage each other on equal ground. But we don’t. Apart from our debates we have our podcasts, our workshops, and a full slate of alliance meetings challenging the status quo all across the country.

If we’re going to stop hurting and start truly sharing a country that is sometimes a battleground but always our home, we need to create and recreate these models as often and as strongly as we possibly can.

The post What Jon Stewart missed: Sharing space (and power) across the divide appeared first on Braver Angels.

Let’s be honest. As social animals, human beings want to have influence. Why would we not want others to believe similar things to us? Or things that are in our interest to believe? And if we’re really honest, it’s why many people come to Braver Angels.

“There’s got to be a way to reach out to those who are so misguided in their thinking! If only I could connect with them, I could help them to see their blind spots!”

But when they land in their first workshop, they’re quickly disabused of the notion that the conversations are about changing each other’s minds. The first rule of a Red-Blue workshop? We’re here to understand one another, and to see if there exists common ground. No one’s here to change anyone else’s mind.

We’re here not to drag each other to the middle, but to discover there’s already a place where we meet, and where we can work together, without forsaking what we believe.

That is, if we’re willing to have a conversation.

I do hear some consistent reasons that people give up on Braver Angels. Is it really okay to give a platform to someone just for the sake of being nice to each other? Must I actually give my time to someone who believes that dangerous lie? You have to draw a line somewhere, don’t you?

Well, if we’re talking about a personal line, absolutely. Most of us have our limits in terms of what we can handle, especially those who’ve had experiences that give them good reason not to trust that others won’t abuse them.

But should there be a socially enforced line? A line we refuse to cross out of solidarity, when we say enough is enough, and declare someone so hopeless that we can’t possibly hold a good-faith conversation with them without risking legitimizing their behavior and ideas?

Well, if I were ever the one considered irredeemable, I would greatly appreciate someone reaching out to me across that divide. And it just so happens that they did.

I experienced cancellation recently. I was set to appear with the CEO of a leading national animal welfare organization, Best Friends Animal Society, at a keynote event for their organization. It would set the stage for some trainings we were planning with them as well, so I was excited for the event. But I didn’t quite get the chance.

Leading up to the event, I was planning for the demo conversation she and I would do, and since I had just written an article concerning dogs and breed restrictions, I suggested it might be a good topic of conversation. Now, before you click this link to read it—or if you already have—please know that there are several things in it that I would now change.

That article landed with a thud at Best Friends. And it set off internal consternation about my appearance before their organization.

Let me say upfront that the people of Best Friends have been unfailingly kind to me. When my dog Ferry passed earlier this year, they sent me a set of memorial windchimes that, even at this moment, are reminding me of him with the loveliest tones. And I get the sense that they would do the same thing now.

So the cancellation was of the event—there was a very understandable hesitation about putting me in front of a crowd who might not take kindly to my words—not of me personally. Let me explain that hesitation.

First of all, I compared dogs to guns. Strike one in their book, and I totally understand. Objectifying dogs as a means of defense, while perhaps a reasoned analogy in the circumstance I mentioned, is quite upsetting to a group that constantly fights against the notion that certain dogs are utter killing machines that cannot be allowed to live.

Best Friends does amazing work; they stepped up to rehabilitate and rehome many of the dogs rescued from Michael Vick’s infamous fighting ring, even as others—including PETA—said they’d never be suitable for adoption and should be put down.

Far beyond my poorly considered metaphor, however, was the argument I was making about breeds. One of my Facebook friends had been making what I’d felt were some powerful arguments that pit bulls were a legitimate problem for society. I’d run across a compelling 2014 article in Time Magazine about it. And a reader had commented on my previous article about my love for a certain pit mix with links from a website that aggregated these stats and claimed that two-thirds of fatal dog attacks were the work of pit bulls.

While I actually argued against breed restrictions for communities, I based it on the benefit that owners might get from that very fearsome reputation. And I said their reproductive breeding should be restricted, largely buying into the notion that breed is destiny.

While Best Friends pulled the plug on my appearance, they did not pull the plug on our connection. One of my contacts there patiently and kindly walked me through their position, listening carefully to my responses. The group expressed sadness at the irony, that because my view was so painful to some in their organization, they’d have to shelve a workshop about listening to the views we disagree with. After the cancellation they kept up their exchanges with me, and one of their staff who was particularly upset by my article even reached out to set up a conversation.

When I spoke at another conference, a member of their staff who happened to be there gave me some supportive words, as well as some reading material about their position. While I’d linked to one of their blog posts in my column, I hadn’t actually seen the info in that booklet, which cited significant research attesting to the ineffectiveness of breed restrictions in benefiting public safety. And it offered salient support for my emerging realization that I’d been misguided about the entire breed issue.

I’ve come to understand that there are significant problems with breed identification when it comes to incident reporting. Many dogs possess characteristics associated with pit bulls, but DNA tests are fuzzier on the correlation between ancestry and appearance. The fact is that there’s more variation than we appreciate in dogs, just the same way that there’s more variation in us humans than things like race, ethnicity or gender can ever account for.

Yet breed often gets blamed in deadly incidents, with significant confirmation bias involved. If the breed is unknown, but the dog in question has certain pit characteristics… well it makes perfect sense that it was a pit bull! They’re dangerous dogs, right?

The parallels with racism are certainly not lost on me. Nor the parallels with so many other stereotypes and assumptions we foist upon one another, based upon categorical thinking.

I was hit pretty hard by the whole incident, since I’d been excited to speak to Best Friends, and because I’d had such positive experiences with them prior. I’d been open about it with my girlfriend, who knew that I was eager to learn from the episode. So she sent me this article, citing new research that confirmed that breed is next to useless when explaining dog behaviors. (The new study had the advantage of including mixed-breed dogs, which many pits and animals blamed for fatal attacks are, and points out that while genetics do have a hand in dog behavior, these traits were actually formed well before the physical characteristics we associate with breed.) With it, the last of my doubts about my folly were obliterated, and I’d finally come to the full measure of my error.

I credit this change to kindness. The sort of kindness that sustains connections, and enables vulnerability. The sort of kindness that says, although people I love are too hurt by your views to do so, I’ll still reach out to you to try to understand them more fully.

Each one of us can, and should always seek to, keep growing and changing for the better. But our only hope is for others to give us the space, and the grace, to do so.

The post On Doggedly Sustaining Connection appeared first on Braver Angels.

Launched in 2018, our College Debates and Discourse Program is an alliance between Braver Angels, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), and BridgeUSA — three organizations that believe in the power of free expression and respectful exchange of ideas on America’s college campuses. By the end of this spring semester, our team will have staged nearly 100 campus and classroom debates engaging several thousand students across the nation.

The students who participate in our debates — and especially those who co-organize them with us — are inspiring to be around. It’s not a stretch to envision them as future leaders, public servants, and influencers in the social and political landscape. When they stand up to speak, they show courage, original thinking, deep listening, and compassion for each other. What’s particularly riveting is seeing them drive the same kind of dialogue that I think must have sparked the creation of American democracy.

At the Xavier debate, 40 students wrestled with the topic, “Should America send troops to protect democracies in peril?” The eloquence and wide scope of their thought moved me close to tears — probably because, troops and wars aside, this is one clear way we protect our own democracy in peril.

Our college debates program has gained momentum as we refine our ground game with each school. A key enabler is the new Curricular Toolkit we provide for faculty who want to build classroom debates into their lesson plans. We also partner with students themselves, giving them ownership of what they want their Braver Angels campus debate to be. With our help, they choose their own debate resolutions, recruit opening speakers, publicize the debates… and all of this integrates seamlessly into their busy schedules — even in the midst of midterm exams and college assignments.

The payoff is gratifying. Consider these impacts:

– Following their debate at Denison University in Ohio, students agreed that something profound took place and that the experience had changed them. “I’m asking myself how I can carry this forward to other students,” one student said, “and even more, I’m wondering how we can expand and bring it to a multiplicity of campuses.”

– Professors at Sul Ross State University in Texas and the University of Alabama reported that their students said that they “felt lighter” after their classroom debates — and asked how soon we could come back to campus to conduct more.

– After a debate on April 6 at Occidental College chaired by my colleague and co-director, April Lawson, Professor Jacob Mackey messaged us: “This was a faith-restoring example of students dialoguing with each other with intellectual integrity and passion, yet also with mutual respect and even mutual love.”

– That same night, after I chaired a debate at Duke University, Professor Deondra Rose wrote, “It was truly inspiring to see Duke students engage in such a rich conversation about speech on college campuses, cancel culture, and related issues. We’re looking forward to continuing our collaboration with Braver Angels and can’t thank you enough for the work that you do.”

How long will these effects on students last, and what might be their long-term impact? I’m glad that Professor Lindsay Hoffman at the University of Delaware has begun working with us to shape a research and evaluation approach that will help us refine best practices and share findings with the higher education community. She’s even exploring how to define and measure an intriguing trait she calls — in all seriousness — “Braver Angel-ness.”

The road ahead holds great promise for those of us seeking to cascade “Braver Angel-ness” across America. I’m gratified to watch our college program grow and discover new synergy with BA’s national and regional initiatives. We’re now looking into how we might stage college-based debates that welcome participation from locals in the surrounding community. One might even come to a campus near you.

Our team is so grateful for your support and encouragement. If you have connections to local faculty or students who are interested in bringing Braver Angels debates to their classrooms and campuses, please get in touch with me. Thank you for building this movement with us, and we hope to welcome your voice at one of our debates — whether in person or virtual — soon.
— Doug Sprei, Co-Director, College Debates and Discourse

The post ‘A faith restoring example’ appeared first on Braver Angels.

This year, especially, seems to be a time when that lesson needs to be reinforced. As the Russian military bears down on Ukraine at the behest of a seemingly isolated, paranoid and vengeful Vladimir Putin, everyone that I know is pulling for its vanquishing defeat. I’ve certainly taken solace in the news about the struggling and demoralized Russian troops, and have supported the full weight of international sanctions being imposed on the Russian economy in the hopes that its people—not least of all its oligarchs—would exert the pressure needed to bring this war to an end.

I’ll even admit to a surge of schadenfreude at seeing posts about the long lines of Muscovites trying to access the metro after electronic payment systems stopped working.

But the glee with which I have witnessed Americans reacting to this sort of news snapped me back to the realization of how easy it can be to lose sight of the cruel reality so many Russians face. Many of its most globally interconnected citizens, especially those in its IT workforce, have been streaming out of the country en masse since the start of the invasion, as they’ve realized the limits to their future in a country increasingly isolating itself from the rest of the world.

Even as they do so, there are those who refuse to welcome them. In this BBC report, tech workers in exile recounted their struggles with finding housing, as Airbnb hosts put these emigrants’ Russian or Belarusian nationality ahead of their humanity when considering whether to provide for basic needs like shelter.

“‘They think we are running away from Russia because Apple Pay no longer works there,’ Igor complained. ‘We are not running for comfort, we’ve lost everything there, we are basically refugees. Putin’s geopolitics has destroyed our lives.’”

This xenophobia paints an entire people as tainted by the sins of the few, and it begets an endless cycle of hurt that bounces from one group to another.

Many of us who see the polls within Russia citing overwhelming support for Putin and the war try to focus on the most charitable explanations—that the lack of accessibility of information outside of state-controlled media blinds them to reality, and that the polls may be seriously inflated by self-censorship among Russians. Still, as is usually the case, the picture is more complex.

Washington University professor James V. Wertsch argues in the South China Morning Post that a vast swath of Russian society has truly bought into “an ‘expulsion of alien enemies’ narrative” that colors their view of their geopolitical experience. This thread, Wertsch points out, includes the celebrated Nobel prize-winning Soviet dissident author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose pan-Slavic nationalism fostered an ever more strident opposition to Ukrainian independence towards the end of his life.

A distrust of outsiders and their influence is far from uniquely Russian, of course. In fact, as I mentioned in my earlier piece, it lies at the heart of the story of Exodus, with the Pharoah of Egypt demonizing the Israelites as a potential foreign threat, and pushing his people to subjugate them with slavery.

It was precisely the Egyptians’ loss of their ability to empathize with the Israelites that makes the lesson of our sadness over Egyptian suffering so important. If their humanity were to remain easily accessible, it would make our reciprocal demonization much harder. But because their actions appear so monstrous, we must be reminded through the power of biblical narrative to return to the basic truth of our shared human story.

There is no shortage of examples of societies retreating into themselves in the face of great fear and anger towards outside forces. As someone focused on the challenges of U.S. political polarization over the past several years, I see this fear of outsiders as a key component of the internal demonization we’ve experienced.

Prior to the modern age of global interconnection, the tribalism that fostered this fear made sense. Our early human ancestors’ healthy distrust of outsiders kept them safe from ambush and perpetuated their genetic legacy. But with the rise of mass remote communication, we have the tools to encounter one another intellectually even before we meet physically, letting us connect as humans before we clash as adversaries.

To truly connect, though, we must be willing to face one another’s fears, and acknowledge just how human those truly are. We must go beyond the anger and vengeance of those who see us as the sinners, and focus on the narratives that create it.

Yes, we should support our Ukrainian sisters and brothers who are the victims of this destructive narrative with all we can muster. But unless we keep in mind the essential—and attendantly flawed—humanity that we share with the Russian people, and strive to connect with them in any and every way possible, we cannot hope to transcend the cycle of aggression that continues to haunt the human race.

The post We Are All God’s Fearful Children appeared first on Braver Angels.

In such a world facts have to matter. But before we can get there we have to be able to restore trust in one another. Only through the rekindling of social trust will we be able to reason together once again.

We cannot trust each other if we cannot tolerate the differences in our points of view. Still, aren’t some views wrong and perhaps dangerous as well?

Braver Angels members and followers deserve a clear understanding of the principles that guide us. That is why we have published these Braver Angels Guidelines on Tolerance so that everyone who participates in and observes Braver Angels may understand exactly what informs our editorial and programming decisions.

At Braver Angels we do not shy away from discussing controversial and difficult issues. In the past this has included subjects ranging from whether or not the United States is a white supremacist society to exploring the issues of alleged voter fraud and voter suppression in the 2020 election. But as you will observe in our guidelines, we do not engage controversies for controversy’s sake. We talk about the issues that actively divide the American people; the very subjects we need to be in communication over if we are to understand each other enough to heal the wounds between us.

Please take a look at the guidelines linked to above and let us know your thoughts, agreements and concerns. Braver Angels continues to evolve, as we all do, in the work of bridging the divide. This work is neither easy, nor simple. But the moving that rises from it promises to revive the heart of goodwill in America. It is through this transformation that the promise of democracy survives.

Happy Easter (or Resurrection Sunday) to all those who may be celebrating. May the hope that fills you this day be a gift to us all.

The post Introducing the Braver Angels Guidelines on Tolerance appeared first on Braver Angels.

I remember the first time I encountered “D-Wink” (as he was affectionately known within the Debate Team) at a debate on the topic, “Resolved: Re-elect Trump.” He was big, forceful, articulate, and totally unafraid of giving offense. “I’m tired of people saying they like Trump’s policies, but not the man; I like Trump’s style,” he declared. “Who is this guy?” I thought to myself. But I had to admit, he also seemed somehow a lot like me. And I am grateful to Braver Angels and the Debate Program for giving me the chance to see that.
Our differences went deep. I am mixed race, from an immigrant family, and grew up in multi-ethnic, urban Houston; he was white, 20 years my senior, and from rural southwest Pennsylvania. I protested in the street against gun violence; he was a Second Amendment enthusiast who loved to show off the two pistols he kept on his desk. He believed, genuinely and persistently, that the 2020 election was literally stolen, while I argued that even debating that question gave credence to a dangerous lie.

Yet we worked together — and well — on the Braver Angels Debate Team. We weren’t the kind to just “listen and empathize.” We wanted to have it out, to make the case, to really argue for what we believed. Thanks to “Madame Chair,” (Managing Director of Debate & Public Discourse April Lawson) and the culture of debate she created, our arguments led not to antagonism or alienation, but to deeper understanding and friendship.

David’s speeches got me fired up and made me want to debate him. He helped us all go beyond civility to genuine engagement with disagreement. Like a rival boxer, he pushed me to be my best, to defend my positions as passionately and intelligently as he defended his. A happy gladiator, David put himself on the line and invited you to do the same. “Ten Blues vs. me? I like them odds,” he would say. Dueling publicly with “D-Wink” was easily the most fun I ever had at Braver Angels.

David was also an outstanding leader of the Debate Executive Team, a workhorse and a thinker. Politically we disagreed, but in building the program he was my ally. We both liked efficient meetings and controversial debate topics. We worked our butts off together to recruit great speakers. We agreed that we had to recruit more Trump Reds and more people of color Blues to fulfill our mission.

Our commonalities didn’t end there. We both valued honor, tradition, and heritage. We both came from large “clans” of families and treated friends like family. Like mine, David’s family straddled two worlds. His father was a long-haul trucker while his mother became one of the first female nuclear scientists in the country. If you knew David, you could see both these sides of him. He was a lawyer and an intellectual. He also knew how to operate a backhoe and lived on a farm.

Curious, generous, and funny, David defied so many stereotypes we Blues have about Reds. I once mentioned to him my love of C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man; a week later David had read the entire book and written me a long and thoughtful email about it. In our first conversation, he invited me to come stay at his family farm with him and his nearly 100 cousins, aunts, and uncles. Deeply compassionate, he rescued and raised seven standard poodles.

Ask him his favorite place in the world and he would say Udi, India. He lived in China and married a woman of a different race. He built businesses abroad that provided opportunity and empowerment for women and the disabled, arguing, self-effacingly, that it was just smart business to do so. You simply could not put David in the mainstream media’s “Trump supporter” box. He was a good man, a smart man, and just a terrible lot of fun.

David and I had a famous friendship within the organization, the kind that Braver Angels so often produces. He was a passionate Red, a vocal, unapologetic Trump supporter. I am a Blue, a Democrat, and a Trump protester. We were political antagonists. But of all the relationships that I formed through Braver Angels, my friendship with David was uniquely meaningful. He embodied the best of BA for me. It was an honor to have known him.

I’ll miss you, David. It won’t be the same without you.
— Silas Kulkarni, Former Chief of Staff of the Braver Angels Debate and Public Discourse Team

The post Remembering a true Braver Angel appeared first on Braver Angels.

Social conflict is when groups struggle against each other over social goals or arrangements. I’m engaged in social conflict when my group attempts to resist, oppose, or coerce the will of others. Social conflict is a core feature of modern societies and appears to be a universal or near-universal feature of human groups.

Social conflict can take many forms. Some forms (such as sullen silence) are tacit, while other forms (from verbal debate to organized warfare) are open and explicit.

Conflict is related to competition, but the two are not the same. Competition becomes conflict only when the attention of the competitors is diverted from the objects of competition to each other. Social conflict, then, is when my group seeks to achieve its goals at least in part by preventing other groups from achieving theirs.

Many great thinkers have tried to identify the fundamental sources of social conflict. Saint Augustine, the early Christian writer, traced social conflict to libido dominandi, or the lust to dominate others. The 17th-century political philosopher Thomas Hobbes traced it to man’s innate desire to “do as he pleases.” Hobbes’ fellow philosopher John Locke traced it to humankind’s limited capacity for generosity. The great 19th-century student of American democracy Alexis de Tocqueville pointed to the diminished influence in society of what he called “self-interest rightly understood,” by which he meant the understanding that, in general, what’s good for others is also good for me and mine. Marxists and other writers have emphasized the role of competition for scarce or valuable economic resources. According to many writers, an important engine of social conflict in modern societies is clashing moral values, or strong disagreements over what is good and how we should treat one another.

Is social conflict a blessing or a curse? On the one hand, we could stipulate a moral continuum, with cooperation (the best) on one end of the continuum and conflict (the worst) on the other. In this way of thinking, conflict is clearly something we should be against—the more of it we have, the worse off we become.

Another and likely fuller understanding is that social conflict is not only a universal occurrence in human societies, but is also frequently a healthy and at times necessary occurrence. After all, in many cases social progress is impossible without social conflict. Probably the most important question about social conflict, then, is not whether it exists (it does), or whether we can eliminate it (we can’t), or even whether we should try to eliminate it (we shouldn’t). The real question is how we should approach it.

Our national motto, E pluribus unum, means “from many, one.” It tells us that people from many and often conflicting backgrounds and views can live on this continent in conditions of unprecedented freedom while also thriving together as one people. It tells us neither to deny nor to inflame our differences, but instead to seek to reconcile them at higher levels in order to form what our Constitution calls “a more perfect Union.”

Implicit in our national motto—implicit in the founders’ vision—is a theory of conflict. It seems that there are three basic approaches to conflict, which we can also think of as three stages, from simplest and worst to hardest and best.

1. Submit

In the first approach or stage, we submit to conflict. Conflict is in charge. Some people in this stage ignore conflict, failing to acknowledge that it exists. Others internalize conflict and thus make conflict their cause, becoming both its relentless advocate as well as its captive. Either way, polarization is perpetuated, as conflict dominates society rather than the other way around.

2. Manage

A second approach is when we seek to clarify and manage conflict. By trying to assume good faith in our adversaries and trying to correct partial understandings and false stereotypes, we aim in this stage to achieve actual rather than inflated or imagined disagreement. This better and more difficult approach to dealing with conflict requires both civility in our treatment of one another and a willingness to acknowledge areas of common ground. At least as importantly, insofar as we want conflict not only clarified but also managed for the good of society, this approach also requires the capacity for negotiation, compromise, and mutual accommodation.

3. Transform

A third approach is when we seek to transform conflict. In this approach, we do not avoid or deny conflict. Nor do we become its pliant servant and enabler. Nor do we stop and declare victory once we have understood conflict accurately by using the tools of reason and empathy and managed it pragmatically by using the tools of compromise. In this hardest and yet arguably most fruitful way of dealing with conflict, we try to go beyond polarization and beyond compromise, toward a creative new framing—a higher synthesis—that includes what is valid and helpful on both sides, leading us, together, to a new place in the discussion. This approach depends significantly on epistemological humility, recognizing relationship-building as a valid shaper of identity and viewpoint, and a belief in the equal dignity of every person.
-David Blankenhorn

The post Three Approaches to Conflict appeared first on Braver Angels.

Jackson stands to be the first African-American woman appointed to the Supreme Court. She stands on the precipice of being a historic first, and for many African-American women in particular they see themselves and their own struggles in her.

For many who have forged careers in predominantly white spaces and paths through predominantly white institutions, this includes a sense that they have been demeaned and disrespected because of their race. Persistent Republican questioning on subjects that many liberal commentators felt to be irrelevant to the question of her judicial competence evoke familiar feelings of having to patiently endure condescension whereas a white man might be allowed to respond with righteous anger.

“Brett Kavanaugh was allowed to do that, to show his righteous indignation,” the New York Times quotes Professor Andra Gillespie, a black woman, as saying. “But if Ketanji Brown Jackson had done that, we’d be talking about the angry black woman being temperamentally unfit.”

No doubt many black women and others felt this way observing parts of these hearings, a significant part of which included references to the prior confirmation hearings for Trump appointee Brett Kavanaugh…references that many democrats considered to be irrelevant to the issue at hand.

Yet for Republicans, the experience of Brett Kavanaugh was highly relevant in a way that is of a piece with the way that many on the right are experiencing the coverage of these confirmation hearings now.

In an age where many conservative leaning and white Americans feel themselves presumed to be misogynist and racist merely on account of their politics, race or gender, the accusations leveled against Kavanaugh and the outrage they engendered seemed a product not of the credibility of the evidence put forward against him but rather a smear on his character allowed only because he was a conservative white man.
Thus writes Isaac Schorr and Britney Bernstein at National Review “…Brett Kavanaugh, endured hell when Democrats abandoned any sense of objectivity, taking an uncorroborated allegation of sexual assault from thirty years ago and treated it as the gospel truth.” Commenting on hearings in which Republican senators opened by praising Jackson for her personal charm and the historic nature of her nomination Schorr and Bernstein conclude by saying “Ketanji Brown Jackson will no doubt face some tough lines of questioning over the course of her confirmation process, but she should wake up every day this week thanking God she wasn’t nominated by a Republican.”

We can argue with the validity of each others claims. But the validity of our experiences, whether or not they arise in part at least out of misinterpretations, must be addressed with a humility that recognizes that the bias that affects the human condition is not merely an affliction of my opponent but is something I am vulnerable to as well.

Yet if we can take heart from these hearings it is because of the humanity that shines through even our flawed elected officials.

Corey Booker and Ted Cruz alike have been ridiculed by their opposing sides for their conduct whether in these hearings or in those of Brett Kavanaugh. Yet, though differing with Cruz, Booker stated for Justice Jackson and all to hear with respect to the Texas Senator that Ted Cruz “…is my friend. He is my friend, I like him…in this culture of tribal politics, the reality is we know each other, we get to know each other over years, and I’ve had the privilege of working with Ted on a lot of really good policy.”

It may not seem like much…but in a sense it is everything. When the bonds of affection break entirely, contempt and even violence bleed between us. It is through hearing one another that we begin to move back towards friendship. And that is a cause we can never abandon.

The post Ketanji Brown Jackson and the prism of experience appeared first on Braver Angels.

I think it’s safe to say most of us have been involved in heated political discussions with family or friends, whether we initiated them or not. But what flipped the switch from polite family discussions about whose turn is it to go pick up groceries to tense discussions about politics?

Personally, arguments began in my house after the election of Joe Biden. After that, my mom and I became a part of the 32 percent of Americans who said in one survey that political divisiveness has made it tough to get along with relatives.

Before the election, I had never particularly cared about politics, and I had never voted in any previous elections because I was not of age until 2017. When the time came to vote in the 2020 election, I, and many other people my age, hit the polls for the first time ever with our primary goal being to get Trump out of office.

But when I told my mother that I was against Trump, she shocked me by disagreeing.

I had never heard her take a stance on anything political. At the time, like many other Americans, I took her position as an attack on my own values. Americans today are still at war with each other for this very reason. The New Public Agenda/USA Today/Ipsos poll above tells us that political divisiveness has negatively impacted personal relationships with loved ones.

My mom and I have always been very close because I’m her only child, and my dad is out of the picture. Before the 2020 election, she and I never argued, and we rarely got annoyed with each other. But, during the election process—from when I registered to vote to the final announcement of the winner—we could become very hostile towards each other if politics came up. I remember my mom pulling up articles of everything “wrong” Biden had ever done while holding any kind of office, and telling me every piece of bad news about him immediately after she’d heard it on TV.

One particular evening after a stressful day of classes, I walked into our kitchen to hear her ranting about the election, and I simply had enough. I walked to the doorway leading to the living room, turned around, and shouted at her for the first time in my life. I told her that I was tired of the bickering and that my mental health was suffering severely between the tension with her and all my responsibilities with college. She went silent and I left quietly to lock myself in my room for some peace.

After everything was said and done and Biden became president, the two of us had to agree to basically never bring up politics at all in the future because the act was detrimental to our relationship. But politics weaseled its way in anyway. Because we’re all human, right?

So, my mom and I had to adjust a little. If politics was going to come up regardless, we made the mutual decision to make those conversations as calm as possible. We did not, and still do not, allow ourselves to get angry and take things personally. It felt to me like we were succeeding in that goal (fingers crossed).

Then one day, my mom said she wanted to talk. She told me she wasn’t comfortable with the political conversations we were having, even though—at least from my point of view—we were managing to stay calm. So once again, she asked if we could stop talking about politics altogether.

Of course, I agreed with her again. I wouldn’t bring anything up if she wouldn’t.

But politics still came up! As it turned out, it was unavoidable despite our best efforts.

In the end, I realized that constantly arguing with each other was not worth damaging our relationship. Was my mom less satisfied with how things were going because she needed that second discussion about avoiding politics?

Despite my not knowing what she was feeling beyond what she was telling me, I can tell from my end that our communication has already greatly improved, and that’s all a daughter can hope for.

Even though I am confident that we are improving every day, sometimes, when I get home from errands or visiting a friend, I’m still a little nervous to walk in and face what my mom has to say that day about the political climate. After everything we’ve been through, that’s still an obstacle I’m having trouble overcoming, but I choose to remain optimistic based on the progress in communication we’ve made.

This is what draws me to Braver Angels. Ordinary people need to learn how to have difficult conversations, and Braver Angels is trying to teach us the skills to do it everyday.

Thank you for reading.

Shania Turner

The post Are you a part of the 32 percent? appeared first on Braver Angels.

I grew up knowing how to tell a big bomb far away from a small bomb nearby. In bed at night, I often heard the rattle of small-arms fire. Once, I was evicted from a city bus that was then set on fire. The blaze melted a vast strip of tarmac down to gravel. 

That was life growing up in Belfast, Northern Ireland – one of the most polarized places on the planet back in the 1970s and well into the 1980s. 

Thankfully, no more. This month, “Belfast” is far more likely to make headlines for the eponymous movie’s multiple Oscar nominations than it is for the current anxieties over a post-Brexit border between Northern Ireland and “the South”, as the Republic of Ireland is known in the still-British province. 

My point is this: things change – sometimes for the better. They can and they do. Today, it’s hard not to see hope in Northern Ireland. And therein lies a lesson for anyone who believes that America is preordained to come apart at the seams. 

Just as a bleakness has blanketed America – a looming sense that perhaps the American Experiment has run its course – so it was 30 and 40 years ago in poor, benighted Northern Ireland. Back then, it was hard for anyone to see hope amid “The Troubles,” the euphemistic label for the violence that so poisoned and paralyzed the province. Not UK politicians “across the water” in Westminster; not pastors or priests; not Americans, bemused by what those wee Irish folks could be warring about; and certainly not the citizens of the province, Green for Republican, Orange for Loyalist, or anyone of any color in between. 

But in fact, hope never really went away. People dug in, became inured to the inconveniences and outrages, the shootings and the bombings, the checkpoint searches and the sadness. They went to the pub. They played soccer. They played Gaelic football. Those who could afford it went on vacation – to Majorca, to Torremolinos, and increasingly, to New York and Orlando. They saw how other people lived, and knew that one day, they could live like that too. 

But peace also required intent. Hope had to be mobilized by intent. Amid the apathy and acceptance, there were plenty in the province who never stopped proactively pushing for peace. Not just politicians, with their dubious agendas, but citizens and activists and business leaders, all working their channels to push for something better than armed struggle and endless alienation. 

It also took intervention. Over many years, US statesmen and women and Irish leaders played pivotal roles in pushing for more than temporary cease-fires. They laid the groundwork for what would eventually become a permanent solution that all parties valued: the Good Friday Accord of 1998. 

Arguably and more ominously, though, peace came because of something much bigger – a much darker, broader shadow than the tiny province could possibly cast. When the Twin Towers fell in New York in 2001, and the savagery and fanatism of global terrorism chilled hearts worldwide, the sectarian squabbles in Ulster began to seem petty indeed. 

So, in a perverse way, perhaps Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forms that sky-spanning shadow that can put America’s own sectarianism and division in perspective – that can remind all Americans of what they enjoy and what Ukrainians are now losing. And the horrifying specter of nuclear war – now so raw and real again – may be the jolting intervention necessary to remind us of all that we share and hold dear. 

We already have the other ingredients that have helped stabilize and soothe Northern Ireland. We have the hope; we Americans are an optimistic people. We also have the intent, as seen abundantly in what Braver Angels and like-minded organizations are pushing so hard for. 

So we must never let go of hope. And we must never stop pressing forward with intent. Northern Ireland – indeed, the entire island of Ireland – has demonstrated the power of coming to together to talk rather than continuing to demonize the other side. And just as the lessons of Northern Ireland’s peace process have resonance across the Irish Sea, so can the benefits of civilized, structured discussion extend far beyond America’s own shores.

The post Looking Back in Belfast, So We Can Look Forward in Baltimore and Boise appeared first on Braver Angels.

Week before last we released a podcast with Professor John Sybley Butler of 1776 Unites (to which I contribute) and the University of Texas. Professor Butler is a leading historian of black business in America, and argues that our understanding of black history and the road to progress is incomplete without a celebration of the long history of black entrepreneurship, self-sufficient communities, and triumphs over racism.

Next week we will be releasing an interview I conducted with Joy Donnell (a previous guest of the podcast) co-founder of the Center for Intersectional Media and Entertainment, who led us through an exploration of the historic racism of Hollywood, the dynamics of colorism, and the ways in which, in her view, the legacy of racism in the entertainment industry continue to shape the culture of the motion picture industry to this very day.

This week we released an interview with Lorenzo Murphy, once righthand man to one of the most powerful drug dealers in America during the crack cocaine era: Freeway Rick Ross. The crack era gave rise to the phenomenon of mass incarceration, the decline of inner-city life and a new age of distrust between African-American communities and police. Our current controversies over race cannot be understood without an understanding of what happened to America—and black America—during this particular period of time.

Butler, Donnell and Murphy, not to mention myself, all occupy different places on the spectrum of black experience in America. Our lives and studies tell different tales.

Professor Butler is a man from the south who, upon attending college in the 60’s was not the first or second but in fact the fourth generation of his family to do so. Poverty and marginalization scarcely touched his black experience…even in the days of Jim Crow. This leads him to reject narratives of victimhood and patronization.

Joy Donnell is the daughter of accomplished, socially ascendant parents from the south. She found success in Los Angeles and the 21st century world of media and public relations, but has endured the frustrations of lack of representation and subtle prejudice in the often largely white spaces she has integrated. This has spurred her passion for equity.

Lorenzo is from poverty in Los Angeles, grew up witnessing bitter violence from neighbors and police alike, and like disproportionately many in black America has a life in part defined by experience in the criminal justice system. This has set the stage for a story of both regret and redemption; a desire to criticize a country he feels took from him while giving back to communities he knows he took from.

There are those on the right and left who will seek to simplify the black experience to terms suitable to making all black life a didactic lesson in the callousness of conservatism or the reprobation of liberalism. But the black experience is complicated enough to merit understanding in all its dimensions. Black lives matter enough to view black life through prisms more concerned with truth than with the political interests of professional Democrats and Republicans.

This holds true for all groups of Americans. But having done only a little to explore black history during black history month, we nevertheless embrace the greater need to explore the dynamics of black life and history in America throughout the year and as a part of our greater body of discourse here at Braver Angels.

Why is this? The question of the black experience in America is vital to the larger conversation over America and race. The future of our understanding of the question of race is key to the future of America, just as it has always been.

At Braver Angels, let us have this conversation in a way that sets an example for America. Let us challenge each other towards truth with trust…and towards understanding with goodwill.

More on this in the weeks to come.

-John Wood Jr., National Ambassador

The post The crack cocaine era and the spectrum of black experience appeared first on Braver Angels.

On the morning of Election Day 2020, I was driving east from Seattle to my parents’ house in Redmond, Washington, wondering if I should turn around.

About a week earlier, I’d asked my parents if I could watch the results of the presidential election from their house. Mom blinked over her plate of carnitas tacos from the food truck down the way. She looked at Dad, then back at me.

“Claro, Moni,” she said in Spanish. Of course, Moni. Then her eyes held mine a moment, asking what I was silently asking myself: But are you sure you want to?

After all, I’m a liberal who voted for Joe Biden, and Mom and Dad are conservatives who voted enthusiastically—and twice, now—for Donald Trump.

I drove their way in silence, my hands gripping the steering wheel of the sturdy 2004 black Nissan Altima they sold me for a dollar when my Civic felt too clunky for our kids, a mere four months before Trump’s 2016 victory shook the world.

I preferred the too-loud rumble of the Altima’s wheels on the road to any music that could make the day feel too normal. Would my parents end the day happy and relieved, or would I? Who would feel at home in our country tomorrow?

***

That is how I begin my new book: I Never Thought of It That Way: How To Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.

The book, which is inspired deeply by the work we do together at Braver Angels, comes out March 8 — this Tuesday — which still (AH!) feels unreal. It shares the stories, tools, and techniques I’ve gathered over the past few years scouting our political divide and agitating over one question:

What keeps us from really seeing each other, and how do we get it out of our way?

I’m telling you this because you’re at the heart of this book. Every one of you who knows that this toxicity isn’t acceptable, who still has hope, even if you don’t know what will come of it. If you’re here, you and I have something profound in common. We reject the brokenness surrounding us. We hear that coming together is impossible and we’re coming together anyway.

Why? So we can keep the relationships that mean something to us. So we can see people instead of monsters, possibilities instead of disasters. And so we can approach true disagreement in our society as an invitation, not a tragedy. While others put their divergent opinions into battle, we’ll put them into conversation.

Even heated, tricky, messy conversation? When we’re up for it — absolutely.

It is so much easier to talk about people who disagree with us than with them. But there’s no other way when we’re this polarized, I’ve realized, to let our real perspectives check, challenge, and enrich one another. Nor is there any other way to look past our perspectives to the experiences and values that shaped them — the paths different people walk to their views.

To see people where they are, we have to see where they’re coming from. It gives us our chance to choose where we’re going.

Can we solve that mystery from a distance? No. That’s why I spent election night with my parents, drowning out Fox News and CNN with loud debates on law enforcement and immigration between sips of Mom’s sangrias. Why I brought urban liberals and rural conservatives to an unlikely, game-changing gathering in the wheat fields of Oregon. Why I focused my journalism and two professional fellowships on how you build understanding when many talk but few listen. And that’s why I felt drawn to Braver Angels as soon as I heard about it and joined national leadership two years later, meeting and learning from as many of you as I could.

And I am so grateful to hit the road this month, with book events and get-togethers with Braver Angels alliances and members leading this work all across the country.

I’ve filled this book’s pages with stories, insights, and simple, practical ways to have more conversations that make you go, “I never thought of it that way,” and stay curious even when it’s hard.

That’s how we’ll build a country we can all feel at home in.

This conversation is just beginning.

Want to join in? Check out the virtual book events listed below and RSVP if you can make it!

In Seattle, Washington D.C., or San Francisco? Check out the in-person events in those cities here, and I’ll see you there.

Want to support the book? You already do just by being braver angels! But if you’d like you can request copies at your local library or bookstore, or if you want your own copy ASAP, you can pre-order one here.

Stay curious, everyone.

— Mónica Guzmán, Director of Digital & Storytelling, Braver Angels

The post “I never thought of it that way” appeared first on Braver Angels.

I received a message recently from a friend of mine at a prominent university. The campus was in uproar over incidents of anti-Asian hate speech by a member of the student body. It was interesting to note, however, a subtle divide—between Asian student activists assertively demanding change from the administration alongside traditional activist groups, and traditional Asian student organizations who eschewed demonstration in favor of quiet talks with college officials as a means of addressing the problem.

That did not surprise me. It points to the delicate relationship that exists between Asian-American identity, black culture, the culture of black activism, and black cultural activism’s power to adjust mainstream American social norms as effectively as popular black culture has otherwise inspired them.

Joe Rogan is no stranger to controversy. But after already having diplomatically avoided explicit contrition in response to charges of spreading misinformation with respect to the COVID-19 vaccine, the world’s most popular podcaster then offered a fulsome apology for his history of using the N-word. A highlight reel of Rogan liberally employing the term was compiled and published in light of the other controversies surrounding him. Of the video, Rogan said “it looks f***ing horrible, even to me. I know that to most people there is no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word…I agree with that now.”

I imagine Mr. Rogan is perfectly sincere in his apology. Given that it seems he never used the term maliciously, some are arguing such repentance should not be necessary. Whether necessary or not however, Rogan’s apology demonstrates the immense social pressure that comes down upon Americans for racist behavior generally and perhaps for anti-black racism in particular. This has to do with the fact that the modern antiracist movement, while intersectional, is largely a product of a fierce tradition of activism in Black America that has come to inform the larger culture of social justice for all marginalized groups in the present day. This leads to sensitive cultural conflicts that most Americans never consider, including between African-Americans and Asian-Americans.

Another celebrity who has recently had to navigate very different charges of anti-blackness is the popular actress Nora Lum, popularly known as “Awkwafina” (Crazy Rich Asians, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.) After she called out the longtime Hollywood practice of casting Asian actors to fit clumsy stereotypes using stereotypical accents, Awkwafina came under fire by activists, including many African-Americans, for hypocrisy. She herself is widely understood to employ a “blaccent”— simply put, many people thinks she talks Black. It is a part of the personality that has gained her success in the entertainment business. And many now feel this success is exploitative.

It’s true that Nora Lum speaks in a dialect that could easily be called black, but it might be more appropriate to call it a dialect inspired by Hip-Hop culture. Hip-Hop is so closely related to urban black culture, in the modern American mind, that there is a degree to which all this may sound redundant.

Yet as Awkwafina pleaded the purity of her intentions, as Rogan did in his response, she made reference to her “immigrant background,” “the movies and TV shows I watched,” and “the children I went to public school with” as allowing her “to carve out an American identity.”

She went on to say: “…as a group, Asian-Americans are still trying to figure out what that journey means for them—what is correct and where they don’t belong.”

In her Twitter response Awkwafina went out of her way to express deep empathy for the black experience and what she feels to be the reality of systemic racism, without ever actually apologizing for her way of speaking. That left many dissatisfied. But Awkwafina grew up in Queens in the 90’s and early 2000’s. She was surrounded by black and brown kids listening to Hip-Hop, melting into the culture that enveloped her and finding a home in it. On some level, is she now being asked to apologize for her very identity? Is her very identity on some level exploitative appropriation of the culture of others?

On the group level the relationship between Black Americans and Asian-Americans is more complicated than many people realize. As a young black boy in a multicultural suburb, it just so happened to be the case that most of my closest friends were Asian. I was surrounded by Korean kids who excelled on the basketball court and by Filipino kids who rapped and dressed in baggy pants. For that matter, I also knew white kids who had “n-word passes”—white kids who wielded an “urban” dialect and used the n-word freely within their circle of black friends (and for Joe Rogan, a person who established himself as a young comic in the close company of black comedians like Dave Chappelle, I can imagine how his comfort with the term might have evolved).

All of this was incredibly normal to me, given where I grew up. As I grew older, and moved into a predominantly black neighborhood, the tensions between Korean (and Indian and Pakistani) shop owners and black people in the community became visible to me.

“Can’t stand these Asians!” I recall a middle-aged black man in front of a liquor store shouting following an argument with the attendant or store owner. “They wanna hide behind us in prison, but treat us like sh*t on the outside!”

He was referring to a phenomenon where, in prison life, because tribal associations are so often necessary for survival, outnumbered Asians will sometimes ally themselves with black prisoners against other groups. (Similarly, whites who have no history of white supremacist prejudice or affiliation have been known to join ranks with white supremacist groups in prison as a matter of survival.) The fact that Asians own far more businesses per capita in inner-city black communities sets the stage for the friction “on the outside” that the man referred to.

But outside of poorer communities, these tense dynamics between blacks and Asians often persist, and along similar lines. Like other groups who advocate for equity and justice within the broader rubric of antiracism, and like other groups who have been historically marginalized in American history, Asian activists have pledged themselves in a common cause with African-Americans in intersectional coalitions aiming at social justice. Yet immigrant Asian communities have embraced assimilation into mainstream academic and institutional culture traditionally, an approach that, in spite of racism, has represented a path forward for Asians in the United States. Meantime many black Americans feel (for many historical reasons) that this approach has been unavailable to most people of our hue. As such, the idea of Asians as the “model minority” points to a deeper comfort or investment in the norms and structures of white society that make Asians unreliable or even opportunistic allies in the larger fight for racial justice. Some Asian-American student activists have even said this about their own communities.

Yet who is to judge? There are no villains in this story. It is true that African-American culture—through food, song, dance and so much more—has authentically inspired non-black Americans and enriched American and even global society, even as many African-Americans have felt that their very culture has been commodified, diminished and exploited by powers that neither truly understand nor respect it. It is true that Asian-Americans have an American experience that has been marked by the bitter sting of racial oppression in ways that are reminiscent of the struggles of African-Americans, while also having a unique (and, within the catchall category of “Asian,” incredibly diverse) American experience unto themselves that differentiates the Asian community’s relationship to black and white America from black and white Americans’ relationship to each other. And it is true that Asian-Americans, white Americans, and all Americans are grappling with shifting norms over race and language that present no easy answers as to how we reconcile cultural sensitivity with our right to free expression when we feel our hearts are in the right place.        

This is why, as important as it may be for us to reflect on or challenge the behavior of others, we must also we abide by the moral wisdom of Martin Luther King Jr., who wrote “…the important thing about a man is not his specificity but his fundamentum, not the texture of his skin but the quality of his soul.” That may sound like just another King quote. But think about its implications; that the quality of one’s soul bespeaks the purity of one’s intentions. It does not mean that one does not make mistakes. But we all make mistakes; a changing world ensures that we will continue to make them, and that they will not be easy to see in the moments when they are made. This is true for black, white, Asian, Latino and all of us alike. We all must hold the balance. When we believe we are right we must advocate, or defend ourselves, with the courage of our convictions. When we see that we are wrong, we must have the humility to apologize. But most of all, when others acknowledge their mistakes, we must have the decency to forgive. In an ever more diverse and complicated society such as ours, it is only through the balm of understanding and forgiveness that we may nurture our way towards liberty and justice for all.

The post Awkwafina and the Conflicts of Assimilation appeared first on Braver Angels.

I recently wrote about my rewarding encounter with Chloe, a pit-boxer mix who lives with my Braver Angels colleague and his wife in North Carolina. In that piece I mentioned in a parenthetical aside that “I acknowledge the debate over the potential dangers of owning pit bulls and pit mixes, and my own feelings are complex and evolving.”

So I was not surprised when one reader wrote in objecting to my “anthropomorphizing an animal,” a type of dog that has been “bred to fight, to the death, giving very little warning of their intent.” She pointed me towards dogsbite.org, a website that tracks dog bite statistics and advocates for breed-specific bans. It reinforces a fact of which I was already aware: pit bulls—or dogs identified as such—account for the overwhelming majority of dog bite deaths in the U.S. In the 16-year period ending in 2020, they contributed to two-thirds of those deaths, and 72% in 2020, according to the site.

Numbers like these make a compelling case for banning certain breeds of dog, and indeed hundreds of cities, towns and counties have done so across the country, along with the U.S. Army, Air Force and Marine Corps, according to the site. Several other countries also have similar laws on the books. 

I also have personal experience with the phenomenon; I carry a scar on my left leg from the tooth of a pit-Border Collie mix, which bit me on her way to charging my own—recently departed—dog, Ferry, a shepherd mix. The owners said she had run out of the house and was sitting in front when bad timing brought Ferry and me around the corner at just the wrong moment. 

Both experience and stats were on my mind when I recently began giving more thought to these laws. The debate over pit bulls has been at times intense, with advocates of bans squaring off against owners who say their beloved pets are simply misunderstood, and that the carelessness of a small number of irresponsible—or even malicious—owners shouldn’t deprive many families of their highly affectionate pit bull companions. 

In some ways the debate has come to resemble the discussion of guns in this country. Pit bull defenders emphasize the role of owners, arguing that the dogs themselves are not the problem. They advocate for restricting “reckless owners” from keeping dogs, similar to the “red flag laws” that keep guns from people with mental health or domestic violence issues. And they cite the difficulty in identifying specific dog breeds for enforcement, just as many gun advocates have lamented the simplistic ways in which they believe anti-gun advocates have railed against the convoluted category of “assault weapons.” 

And indeed, my feelings about the two issues are fairly similar. Given the numbers, I feel that both pit bulls and guns should be subject to fairly aggressive restrictions. But my certainty over these issues is weakened by my understanding of the good-faith concerns and beliefs of those on the other side. And another experience I had with dogs is illustrative, I think, for both breed restrictions and gun regulations.

A few years ago I took a trip up to the Bay Area to visit my brother, who was living in Oakland at the time. He and his then-girlfriend—since married—didn’t have room for me and Ferry, so I found an Airbnb that accepted dogs. I kept up my habit of running with Ferry each day, and as we strode around the modest Oakland neighborhood, it seemed like pretty much every house had a pit bull chained inside its fenced yard, barking furiously as we passed. 

Reflecting back on that experience, I have to recognize how different my cloistered Irvine neighborhood is. I could confidently leave my door unlocked as I took Ferry for walks around the winding sidewalk paths that cut through my grassy park of a development. Were I to live in that Oakland house, I would feel much less secure, and I can imagine that the owners there believe that their dogs make it much less likely their homes will be targeted for break-ins. I can also imagine a thief bypassing a yard with a pit bull, and then ignoring a friendly Labrador on his way through its owner’s front door. 

Gun owners cite similar motivations of self-protection. According to Pew, over 60 percent of them name personal safety as their main reason to have a gun. And gun ownership has spiked over the past few years, following a similar trend in murder rates and violence within cities. 

I still feel strongly that we should be doing as much as possible to rein in the exploding number of guns in our country, just as I think it’s an utter tragedy the number of pit bulls languishing in our nation’s shelters, many of whom will be euthanized. (Ferry—née Black Jack—was surrounded by dozens of barking pits when I picked him up from a rescue in Central California.) At the very least I think we should ban their breeding and require spaying and neutering. 

But I must think twice about my beliefs about who should have a right to own either a gun or a pit bull, since I don’t know what it’s like to live in a place where I’ve felt my safety depends on it.

The post The Right to Bear… Dogs? appeared first on Braver Angels.

• Human ingenuity: Are we not using the tools we already have to combat climate change or do we need a “silver bullet” idea?
• What alternative forms of energy could we use in the place of fossil fuels?
  • Nuclear
  • Renewable energy technology
• Would a carbon fee + dividend allow for better consumption regulation?
• Is our consumption mindset to blame for climate change?

Talking about climate change has proven extremely difficult in our current political reality. Often, participants get so caught up in traditional talking points about what it is or the degree of risk it poses to our society that it’s hard to turn the conversation to what might fix things. 

In a unique way, the debate’s central resolution — Human Ingenuity will Overcome Climate Change — inspired participants to consider concrete, actionable solutions even without full agreement on the scope of the problem. From putting a price on carbon to rethinking the tools we already have, participants considered a range of options. 

“There are a number of books showing that we have the technology to deal effectively with global warming now using current technology,” said speaker David Froba. While he usually finds himself on the “yes” side of debates such as this one, he spoke against this resolution because he feels that as a society, we already have the tools we need to combat climate change, but we aren’t using them to their full potential.

“The problem is we’re not using the technology; we’re just diddling around the things like bike lanes, biofuels, and recycling our cans and bottles, things that make us feel good and do very little to solve the problem,” he said.

Other speakers shared Froba’s skepticism of some of the small-bore interventions, but didn’t agree with him that technology was likely to prove a silver bullet. Speakers in the negative of the resolution focused on cutting back our use of energy and making big changes to our way of life, rather than finding a new way to keep living as we have.

But Dr. Beth Malow saw more hope in scientific advances. In her speech in the affirmative on the central resolution, she reflected on scientists who have closely impacted her life: her father, who worked on the Manhattan Project in the 1940’s, and her son, a chemical engineering student who set up a carbon-capturing unit in his room over the summer. This experience led Beth to believe in the power of human ingenuity.

Other participants made strong arguments for economic changes that could thwart the climate crisis. Two speakers proposed a carbon fee and dividend, including Ray English, who spoke in favor of a group that promotes a carbon fee and dividend plan. This plan includes three key steps: a steady increase in fees on fossil fuels, dividends back to households, and import fees on products developed in countries without carbon fees to discourage businesses from exporting labor to places where they can pollute more. “It is bipartisan, it is market-based, and it will promote international cooperation,” Ray said.

A more hotly contested idea discussed in the debate was the use of nuclear energy as a replacement for fossil fuels. Participants early in the debate had favorable opinions of nuclear energy, upholding it as a necessary technology that has come a long way. In contrast, speaker Shel Horowitz was not a fan. 

When participants asked why, Shel detailed past horrors of nuclear power plants, from giants like Chernobyl to lesser-known accidents.

“It’s not safe, it’s highly polluting, it’s radioactivity,” Shel said. “We all know that that’s not really good for the soul, or the body.”

Nuclear was not the only type of power discussed. Speaker Kay Halpern leaned on her experience working in international affairs on U.S. exports of renewable energy technology in explaining other options. 

“Since then, those technologies have dramatically improved and the cost … [has] come way down and innovation continues in terms of power generation,” Kay said.

In a similar spirit of creative thinking, speakers offered many different options for change. These ideas included: 

• Recalibrating our food supply system and land use
• Carbon sequestration
• Switching to electric cars
• Heating and cooling homes with electric instead of gas or coal
• Trying meat alternatives and dairy alternatives
• Selling investments in fossil fuels 
• Investing in green energy

While others focused on developing new methods to support our current way of life, speaker Yael Finer argued in favor of changing our consumption habits themselves, emphasizing the disconnect between everyday people and nature, as well as our alienation from the products we consume every day.

“The mindset that gets us to this place is that we need more, that what we have is not enough, that what we are is not good enough,” Yael said. 

Speaker Catherine Furlani echoed this point, upholding a need to shift from a “process-oriented” society, to a “people-oriented” one. In this change, Catherine explained a need for sacrifice.

“As individuals, as communities, as a nation, we have to be willing to face the fact that the change that we need to make is going to require sacrifice. And that to me in a lot of ways, is the very nature of life, I mean what do we have if we’re not willing to sacrifice for one another,” said Catherine.

At some debates, there is wide disagreement about whether an issue requires action. Here, all speakers were united in the need for at least some action. In a succinct example of our current situation, Clif Swiggett imagined an ocean liner headed for a dangerous reef that would mean certain death for all of the passengers. In this example, he said it was time for our society to “take the wheel” and change our course.

“We need to take purposeful action individually and at every level of society to prioritize and address this climate crisis and, like steering that ocean liner, we need to act now, before it’s too late,” Clif said.

The post Can our ingenuity save us in the fight against climate change? Hear answers in our debate appeared first on Braver Angels.

There’ve been some such dates in our very recent past, none quite December 7th 1941, but each a terrifying moment when time stood still, when the decadent pettiness of our age sharpened into shock, when no one knew how many people were about to die. The middle days of March 2020; the last days of May 2020; the long day January 6th, 2021; and in its own exhausted way, August 15th 2021, the definitive end of the Post-Cold-War world and the dawn of something new.

At each moment, millions of us held our breath, and millions more of us raged in righteous fury, or stood in trembling fear. The stakes of our times shone clear, the twists and turns of American life on bright, terrible display. Each a moment of fury and dread that, still unresolved, lives on. Each a moment, we raged and feared, that would end America as we know it.

And yet here we are, here we still are, as Americans still were after April 1861, December 1941, September 2001, and every other apocalypse we muddled along through. Here we still are, as afraid and as hopeful, as vindictive and as forgiving, as we’ve ever been. The spirits of our past and the dreams of our future course as mightily through our generation of Americans as any, and all before us have risen to their occasions, and found no final victories, yet lived on in this great in-between, the curse and blessing of American freedom. The republic has survived; democracy has not died. So long as we rise to the occasion and act worthy of ourselves, it may yet go on.

We have a long way to go, and our times are as dangerous as any, in their own ways. But where are our heroes—our Lincolns and our Roosevelts, leaders of great vision and skill, for the ongoing and oncoming American ordeals?

If we cannot find them to lead us, let us act as we ourselves would act, if we were them—let we, the American people, bear up and act with all the grit, forbearance, confidence, prudence, humility, and grace we say we demand of our leaders. Let us act as we would act if we were them. A democracy cannot find its heroes any other way.

-LNP, 12/7/21

The post Days of Infamy, Heroes of Democracy appeared first on Braver Angels.

• Statements on why those who haven’t gotten the vaccine should not be demonized
• Arguments on both sides of the safety vs. freedom dilemma in the case of vaccine mandates
• Attendees asking questions of medical professionals and hearing their responses

Beth Malow, a physician from Tennessee, took the mic in last week’s Braver Angels’ debate covering one of the most controversial medical topics in recent history: vaccine mandates.  She began her statement with a story of a friend’s father-in-law, who was unable to find a hospital opening to treat his brain bleed, as all beds were filled with COVID-19 patients. She cited this as a wake-up call, prompting her to accept the necessity of a vaccine mandate. However, this opinion was tempered with a need to approach those on the other side with an open mind.

“Now, I also believe we must not demonize those who have not yet chosen to get the vaccine. I do not call them ignorant, I do not label them anti-vaxxers. Most are ordinary Americans who are trying to make sense of the messy science,” Beth said. “I’m curious what their concerns and questions are.”

For many, the core of the issue pivoted on a debate of safety vs. freedom. They worried that by signing away the right to decide whether or not to get the vaccine, they would ultimately sign away bigger rights down the road.

“Our health care choices, our choice of doctors, our choice of medical or health modalities, our choice of medicines, and choice of substances that we allow into our bodies, are part of this sacred expression of our individuality and should be subject to no governmental coercion or lawmaking whatsoever,” said speaker Robert Karp.

This line of questioning sparked further compelling points, as participants grappled with how our society should value personal autonomy and public safety. When asked what the cost of giving up personal freedoms was, one participant answered by comparing the vaccine mandate with rules of the road.

“What is the cost of you driving? Should we as a society allow you to drive in whatever manner you want, without any concern for the laws that are there to protect the rest of us? If that simple thing is not an imposition, then why is this an imposition? How is this a reduction and a detriment to society when the other is not?” said speaker Mekai Kamara.

Beth was not the only doctor who participated in this debate. Physician Tibor, who did not give his last name, was asked about the concept of using frequent antibody tests instead of mandating the vaccine. In response, he weighed the pros and cons.

“I think we can shoot towards the goal you’re bringing up in the future with greater public health and research to be able to more finely tune vaccination, but right now in this day in 2021, I think vaccination, whether you have a prior infection or not, is what’s going to, on aggregate, the majority of a group of people, provide the best benefit,” Tibor said.

Other speakers noted their concerns with vaccine mandates and vaccine cards, worrying that they may exacerbate division within the United States. Speaker Risa Evans shared her concern about the possibility of a “medical apartheid,” as the minority of people who do not get vaccines are barred from participating in society in the way that those who are vaccinated can.

“You find yourself increasingly barred from your own life, as the efforts to obtain your compliance lead to exclusion from the key aspects of civil society, such as jobs, schools, public transportation, houses of worship, restaurants, entertainment venues, gyms, and the like,” Risa said.

While opinions on vaccine mandates ran the gamut, exploring grey areas and points of confusion, one core belief rang true through most of the audience: a need to return to common humanity in the face of vaccine vitriol. 

“The shaming and the blaming … becomes less about actually helping others and their families, but about being right,” said speaker Tina Lu Ma. “The majority of people who are vaccine-hesitant are not anti-vaxxers, they are just people who need more hope and more answers and less fear and shame in order to make an informed decision.”

The post To mandate or not to mandate? Hear participants discuss the current most pressing vaccine question appeared first on Braver Angels.

Thanksgiving 2017. My house buzzed with chattering voices. Two dining-room tables butted together to accommodate five sons and wives. A half-sized table awaited six small grandchildren.

We lit candles. Mountains of food graced the buffet/serving table, aromas intoxicating. We shared a prayer of praise and thanksgiving for our many blessings. Thus began what I expected to be another Thanksgiving filled with joy and laughter. Our tradition.

It was not to be. Toward the end of the meal, conversation turned to politics. I tensed.

We homeschooled our sons. Our educational philosophy rested on strong critical thinking skills, superior literacy skills, adherence to Biblical principles, and commitment to our nation’s foundational doctrines of liberty and freedom. However, two of our son’s political leanings veered left, two remained conservative/libertarian, one somewhere in the middle. Their diverging political views fueled volatile clashes. My husband and I saw it coming, yet were powerless to divert the storm that nearly wrenched our close-knit family apart.

First, an offhand comment, said under the breath, with a furtive glance. The remark demanded a jabbing retort. Suddenly, one son pushed his chair back, standing to his feet, glaring and yelling. A daughter returned the glare as potent as her barrage of words holding the opposite position. Before we knew it, cordial Thanksgiving conversation devolved into a cacophony of voices—some yelling, others begging for calm.

One son stormed out followed by another, then all the boys were gone, leaving their wives in shock, grappling with what happened, what to do. One pregnant wife burst into tears, ran outside, searching for her husband. She collapsed, sobbing, onto a low brick wall in the front yard. Their 2-year-old daughter stood protectively beside her, patting her hand, repeating, “It’s going to be okay, Mommie. It’s going to be okay.”  

Eventually, my sons returned, avoiding eye contact with anyone. Soberly, matter-of-factly, each hugged his wife and children and said sadly, “Let’s go home.”

And, they did—packing up diaper bags, Pack-N-Plays, empty dishes, and leftovers. One by one they pulled away. No parting man-hugs, see-ya-laters, or honking horns.

Thanksgiving 2017 was over. The house eerily quiet. I straightened up, discovering forgotten stuffed animals, teeny-tiny socks, a well-loved blanket surely to be missed by bedtime. I clutched the blanket, running my fingers along its trim, feeling small rips and tears. Was my close-knit family beginning to fray as well? Would the cavernous political differences that erupted with such vitriol irreparably wrench apart our deep bonds of love and shared life experiences?

I cried, and put it aside as much as I could.

Several weeks later, scrolling aimlessly through Facebook, a headline caught my eye. “What was your Thanksgiving like?” it asked.

I chortled. I must not be the only one.

It was a Better Angels ad (Braver Angels’ original name) about how to depolarize our country’s—and families’—increasingly injurious political divide.

I signed up for emails. Soon I received Nashvillian Lynn Heady’s email about other Tennesseans who showed interest in BA. I loved the organization’s vision, hope, and proactive initiatives. I loved seeing We the People, regardless of race, culture, or politics, sitting and standing, shoulder to shoulder, seeking a better way to reunite this country.

I paid my dues! In February 2020 before COVID-19, I experienced my first in-person BA event—a Red/Blue Workshop in Knoxville. I shy away from political conversations to avoid inevitable conflict, yet I found myself less intimidated than I thought with the Braver Angels format and methodology. The one-on-one breakout on Second-Amendment/gun rights surprised me. My Blue-leaning partner held stronger Second-Amendment/Gun Rights stances than I did.

Since then, I have attended and participated in online events, workshops, debates; joined my local East Tennessee Alliance and the Rural/Small-town Dweller’s Alliance, developed a friendship with a Blue from Massachusetts, read newsletters from Braver Angels leaders, and so much more.

I apply my Braver Angels skills in family gatherings—not perfectly—often with baby steps. Sometimes I regress to old behaviors. (I kick myself afterwards!) Yet, I see a difference.

The 2018 and 2019 Thanksgivings were convivial. Intentionally so. Memories of 2017 maintained their hold on everyone; an undercurrent of tension kept topics from wandering into the political arena. Not so at other gatherings. Tempers have flared, doors slammed, and one or two disappeared into the night.

I still have hope. I believe that one Thanksgiving, the rapidly growing Murphy clan will gather around the table, laden with mouth-watering foods, politics no longer a taboo topic. From lessons learned from Braver Angels, we will know how to exchange our differing ideas and perspectives on the world we live in without anger, discord, or division.

Brenda is a wife and mother to 5 sons, 5 daughters-in-law, and 10 grandchildren; a founding member of the East Tennessee Braver Angels Alliance; an educational psychologist; and a devotee to holidays that bring families together—despite what’s tearing them apart…

The post My family’s Thanksgiving disaster appeared first on Braver Angels.

• Speeches on either side of the debate by former service members
• Reflections on what to say to the families of those who have served
• Discussion of what nation-building makes possible 
• Questions around the ethics of nation-building, and who is responsible for it

Call our recent debate on America’s interventions abroad “civil,” and it would be an understatement. While all Braver Angels debates encourage respect, at this event participants seemed particularly excited to speak and hear from one another.

This debate was enriched by the presence of former and current U.S. military officials. One of them, Charlotte Clymer, is a writer, communications consultant, and activist who served as a junior enlisted soldier in the U.S. Army from 2005 to 2012. Her experience grounded the discussion in the harsh reality of U.S. military efforts abroad—and led to a question that became central to the debate. 

Charlotte recounted a story of a brother-in-arms, Corporal Joseph M. Hernandez, who she described as “the type of young man who would welcome new soldiers and make them feel part of the unit.” When he was killed by an IED in 2009, Hernandez became one of the almost 7,000 American service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

This story led Charlotte to pose a penetrating question: “What I would ask all of you tonight, after you listen to my fellow distinguished panelists, is to wonder how you would talk to the family of the almost 7,000 troops who have died and the hundreds of thousands of civilians and justify what we’ve done over the past 20 years with the military, because I don’t think we can justify it.”

Giselle Donnelly, a fellow veteran and a senior fellow in defense and national security at the American Enterprise Institute, structured her own statement in response to Charlotte’s question.

“One thing I would say to the families of the fallen is that actually the accomplishments of Iraq and Afghanistan were greater than we now appreciate,” she said. “The fact that the Taliban’s Afghanistan … was not, for 20 years after 9/11, the basis or the base of terrorist attacks against the United States is a not insignificant accomplishment.”

Other panelists wrestled with the question of how best to approach nation-building abroad, so that we do not waste the sacrifices of our troops. Matthew King, a former Joseph Rago Memorial Fellow at the Wall Street Journal, got strategic, giving two criteria to judge whether nation-building is in America’s national interest.

“First, to raise costs for our adversaries by supporting nationalist movements within their borders or in countries under their influence,” he said. “And second, to shore up allies and partners that are struggling with national cohesion.”

Others focused on the costs of nation-building. John Allen Gay, executive director of the John Quincy Adams Society, reflected on the moral compromises.

“State-building tends to involve a lot of ugly activity,” said John. “Ask the native populations of the United States, Canada, Australia. In the case of things the United States has done directly, more recently, nation-building and support for regimes abroad involved support for dictators in places like Korea and Taiwan.”

The ethical question had another dimension. Shay Khatiri, a foreign policy columnist who grew up in Iran and is currently seeking political asylum in the U.S., noted that taking control of a country in chaos, only to abandon it without building anything, is immoral. Instead, he offered another solution to the question of nation-building.

“A lot of our state-building projects failed because the military does not know how to do the job of the civilian,” Shay said. “We definitely should invest more in our civilian corps of national security experts.”

Other attendees offered similarly pessimistic assessments of the U.S. military’s capacities. Tyson Chatagnier, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Houston, believes that international organizations could be better agents for nation-building because they “have longer time horizons,” “are responsive to different audiences,” and “have different kinds of training.” These components together make these organizations more able to foster democracy over a long period of time, he said.

While many different opinions were offered, the striking element of this debate was that no opinions stood wildly in opposition. Participants differed, yet their opinions had a great deal of crossover.

“What I was reminded of was how closely-run these questions are. I argued the position I believe in about 50.1%,” Giselle said. “The thing that I enjoyed the most was just the civility and camaraderie amongst the panel. People argued their case with great verve and vigor, but always with civility and respect.”

The post The pros and cons of nation-building: A debate on American intervention appeared first on Braver Angels.

Editor’s Note: Braver Angels Media is proud to publish thoughtful essays, arguments, reporting, and reflection by folks in and around our community. We are honored to publish this excellent guest piece by migration researcher Andrew Wainer for its relevance and insight on themes of interest to all of our work in Braver Angels. -LNP

Florida has a long history as a refuge – from African slaves fleeing British America in the 17^th century for the relative freedom of Spanish Florida, to the Seminole that assembled in the Panhandle in 1818 seeking sanctuary from Col. Andrew Jackson. Little Havana and Little Haiti owe their existence to Florida’s generous – and continuing – history of providing refuge.

Today Florida is seen as a tourist and retiree playground, but in spite of its balmy image, the Sunshine State’s history is shot-through with exile, expulsion, refuge, and homecoming. And as mutual rejection and demonization escalates in America, Florida now hosts another cohort recently exiled from power: Trump supporters.

Florida is one of only a handful of states Trump won in 2020 with a larger percentage of the two-party vote than in 2016. In 2020 a small but solid majority – 51% – of Sunshine State voters chose President Trump over Vice President Joe Biden.

And while the former president sought refuge at Mar-a-Lago on the Atlantic coast after losing the election, nowhere in the state offered him as much support – that continues steadfastly today – as the Panhandle’s Holmes County.

In 2016 Trump won 88% of the county vote. In 2020 Holmes County asked for more, giving him 89%. Half a year later, in political (and probably personal) terms, Holmes County (still) adores Donald Trump.

Jones

Bob Jones, a native West Virginian, veteran of the U.S. army reserve, and current Chairman of the Holmes County Republican Party, has lived in the panhandle for almost a half century. He said the passion of the 2020 Trump campaign was sui generis.

“We would have people coming off the street and ask for campaign materials [from the campaign office]…I just never had seen that, that level of enthusiasm before…That contributed to the turnout and the support that the president got,” he said.

He said that given the almost complete support that Trump received in the county, it included not only almost all Holmes County Republicans, but a strong share of independents and Democrats who crossed party lines to vote for him. Given that only 65% of the county’s 11,468 voters are Republicans, that’s probably correct.

With Trump in office, Holmes County residents felt like part of mainstream America and previously politically apathetic voters were thrilled to support him. Jones, 78, said local Republicans organized a 70 mile “Trump Parade” around the county in late October 2020 involving more than 150 vehicles. “People lined the country roads like they were attending a Memorial Day parade,” Jones said. “It’s just not normal.”

He said that residents’ enthusiasm stemmed from their view of Trump as someone who put the common man first. “I think people saw President Trump as someone who said what he believed and did what he said,” he said. “I think because Trump is a strong support of 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms and I think the people of Holmes County are very, very strong in that belief…People in Holmes County are proud to be Americans and President Trump showed that he was [proud] and thought that we should be and he wanted to make the country stronger.” They also liked his support for veterans and strict immigration laws, he said. 

Like Trump supporters everywhere, Holmes County citizens not only loved what he supported and said, but how he said it. “People really like the fact that he really spoke to issues rather than platitudes and that he didn’t appear beholden to any special interest groups,” Jones said. “Even though he was quite vocal in his way of communicating, they appreciate the fact that he had a position on things and backed it up with what he did. And that’s – in most people’s mind – an unusual thing for politicians to do. [Politicians] are typically full of promises, full of platitudes and usually not productive on the results.”

In 2021, with their champion ejected from the White House, the mood is dark in Holmes County. There is little sense of moving on. Feelings remain hard. “As a general rule, people here do not feel the election went totally fairly,” Jones said. “I think there were way too many examples of irregularities that really bothered people.”

He said the local feeling is still – while peaceful – pessimistic and that, “People are not feeling good about what they perceive is going to happen.” Suffice to say, President Biden still isn’t popular here (he won 10% of the vote in 2020).

On January 6^th, 2021 some Holmes County residents – including prominent citizens and business owners – joined thousands of others in Washington to protest what they believe was a fraudulent presidential election and result. Jones condemns the violence at the Capitol, but – like most Republicans – does not hold former President Trump responsible. “A few, very, very, very small minority of people attacked, bad actors if you want to call them that,” Jones said.

Jones said Democrats and a biased mainstream media continue to use the January 6^th Capitol riots in Washington to make President Trump and his supporters look idiotic, as they often do as part of a sustained effort to delegitimize their political views. “They are trying to paint the President with a tar brush and everyone who supports him. They want to take retaliatory action against us because of what we believe.”

Half a year later, Jones sees little hope for reducing the divisiveness that plagued the Trump years, blaming it on the Democratic Party now in power in Washington. Essentially, he sees the Democrats as bad-faith actors bent on destroying their enemies – which includes almost everyone living in Holmes County. “I don’t think the Democrats want to bring people together frankly,” he said. “If they had, they wouldn’t have pulled this impeachment thing at the last minute, the last week of the president’s term. They wouldn’t have vocally tried to promote the invocation of the 25th amendment which is just absurd…They’ve been violently fighting the president for four years, and so to turn around now and say let’s all work together – they don’t want that.”

Jones, like many supports of President Trump, harbors particular vitriol for the mainstream media, blaming it for driving hatred of the former president. “People feel like the media is biased, it’s pretty obvious…So much of the press tries to act like they are objective and they are not,” he said. “Their hatred of the president is just unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it in my lifetime. I’ve never seen an American so hated by so many people for no reason at all…It’s a terrible situation.” Continuing bans of President Trump from social media maintain the view among his supporters of a conspiracy aimed at silencing him and his supporters.

Jones said that although Holmes County’s support for the former president is adamant, he emphasizes that it is peaceful and he doesn’t expect more violence. While he rails against how the Capitol riot has been used as a propaganda tool by Democrats, he said he firmly opposed the rioters’ violent actions that day.

At the same time, he expects no decrease in the state’s vigorous political combat. He sees the state trending toward Republicans. “Florida is going to continue to be a battleground because it’s a changing state, an evolving state,” he said.

On the national front, Jones has low expectations for political and national reconciliation. “Some people think the Democratic Party and its position is hypocritical, everything they do is hypocritical and I don’t see that changing.”

Shaheed

Born as Ronald Newkirk in 1949, Ronald Shaheed, 71, grew up in the strictly segregated Holmes County seat of Bonifay. Now living in North Carolina, Shaheed exiled himself from Holmes County when he could decades ago and has chosen not to return.

Shaheed attended African American schools until integration reached the Panhandle – then solidly part of Dixie – in 1965. “Segregation was just a fact of life,” Shaheed said. “Up until integrating the schools, [the Civil Rights Movement] wasn’t as real for us…We saw things in the rest of the county, but…as young people it only became a reality when we were thrust into this whole thing.”

Integrating into a white school at age 15 turned out to be a mixed-bag for Shaheed. On the positive side, he found encouragement and support from white teachers and school staff. “Some…saw what they thought was potential in me and tried to encourage me,” he said. “One of the teachers…tried to encourage me to consider being a lawyer and she wanted to help me get into Harvard.”

At 6’4” he also caught the eye of the white basketball coach and was recruited to the team as a starter and one of the first African American players in the local league. It was here where his experience with some of his white peers became traumatic.

American high school is a Darwinian experience for anyone, but when combined with racial bigotry, it was particularly toxic for Shaheed and his African American peers who pioneered integration in the Panhandle. “I remember our first away basketball game – my coach, he probably was a religious person, but I never saw him that way – but we had to kneel in prayer before we did warm-ups,” Shaheed said. “That kinda told me it was going to be a difficult time. I do remember this one guy running around the arena every time there was a time out with a huge Confederate flag.”

Shaheed said racial slurs from white students were “commonplace.” He learned to block it out, saying he “learned how to turn off the crowd.” Still, he hints at the deep lacerations of racial hostility inflicted on African American children at the dawn of integration. “The kind of treatment we got from the students – not all the students – it was enough to make it a traumatic experience for many of us,” he said. “A lot had to do with our tenacity to hold on and not let these incidents discourage us.” Shaheed also said his coach helped him cope with the hostility.

In spite of the encouragement of his teachers, at that point, Harvard existed in a different world – one beyond Shaheed’s horizons as an African American in the segregated Florida Panhandle. “No one in my family had ever gone to college. And so I couldn’t see it,” he said. “I think back on it and I think [my teacher and her husband] were considering sponsoring me to go to Harvard. But I couldn’t see that. I think my limited view of the world was cultivated by being in segregation and not knowing about all the different things that could be offered in the world. I didn’t come to that kind of thinking until I went away to college and began to do some self-study and reading…We didn’t even have a library that was available to us. Books were a rarity for us…It’s not one of those areas we were encouraged to use.”

But as a youth Shaheed was a voracious reader – initially of comic books and the newspaper – and he was able to advance academically. “Environmental circumstances have a lot to do with how one develops,” Shaheed said. “It doesn’t have everything to do with how you develop. I think segregation harmed me less than it harmed my peers…I think I got privileges that my peers didn’t get.”

“What you aspire to has a lot to do with what you do,” Shaheed said. “If you don’t aspire to something bigger and better, chances are you’ll miss those opportunities if they come. I think part of the tragedy of segregation for African Americans is that it presents an environmental problem for your thinking, for your aspirations.”

In 1967 he left Holmes County for junior college then went to Berea College in Kentucky to get his bachelor’s degree in sociology. He came back to Florida to the historically African American Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in Tallahassee where he received a master’s degree in education, guidance, and counseling.

At the same time, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, as Shaheed’s geographic world expanded, his spiritual and political world grew through the Black Power movement. Perhaps not coincidentally, he transitioned from the dominant white supremacist culture his youth in Holmes County to militant Black separatism when he joined the Nation of Islam in 1973. “I thought at that time that joining the Nation of Islam was the way to go for doing something for ourselves,” he said. “Of course it had the rhetoric that was very separatist and it was demonizing white people as the cause of all our problems. I didn’t fully buy the rhetoric, but the rhetoric was there.”

His reticence in fully accepting the Nation of Islam’s rigid worldview prompted Shaheed to keep searching.

In 1975 Warith Deen Mohammed – son of Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad – assumed leadership of the movement when his father died. Deen Mohammed promptly discarded its separatist ideology and aligned it with mainstream Sunni Islam, among other major reforms. Shaheed warmly embraced the shift. “I was one of the first one’s who said ‘Yeah!’ because my spirit had never really been converted to [the Nation of Islam’s] ideology.”

Eventually, the new movement led by Deen Mohammed was renamed the American Society of Muslims. Shaheed thrived within the new agenda that remained grounded in Islam, focused on African American community uplift, but also now dedicated to interracial and interreligious understanding. 

He became an imam, hosted radio and TV shows on Islam, helped Deen Mohammed publish books, opened Muslim schools, became a Muslim chaplain in Florida prisons, and was Director of Multicultural Student Services at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

His immersion in Islam took him far from Bonifay. Often at the side of Deen Mohammed, he visited Mecca, Jerusalem, and Rome on spiritual pilgrimages and as part of delegations fostering interreligious dialogue.

Now settled near Charlotte, North Carolina, Shaheed hasn’t been back to Holmes County in a long time. He says that’s mostly for economic reasons. “If a young person was blessed to go to college, chances are that they didn’t come back because there would be no way to be employed,” he said. Holmes County remains largely rural and agricultural, so there are few opportunities for professionals with graduate degrees.

Shaheed doesn’t express bitterness about his youth in Holmes County. But he does hint at the pain that keeps him away even from high school reunions. “I haven’t done it,” he said. “I believe that I would be treated fairly and people would be happy to see me return to a class reunion, but I had some terrible experiences.”

Reflection

Reconciliation is difficult when one or both sides are certain of the absolute righteous of their cause and the irredeemable vileness of the other side. This stance transmutes disagreement into war. This stance means that reducing political polarization in the United States is likely to be very, very slow.

Bob Jones’ assessment seems to support this. “I don’t think the opinions of the people of Holmes County are going to change,” he said. “I think they still support the president. I personally am appalled that we had civil disturbances throughout [2020] and we’ve seen very little efforts on the behalf of Democrats to suppress them or condemn then.”

Not opposed to compromise in principle, Jones asserted that, “Republicans have always been people who always tend to compromise” and that the Democrats are bent on conquest rather than comity. “If you look back at legislative history, the [Republican] party were usually the compromisers, they tried to work together…I don’t believe that’s what the Democratic Party wants to do today.”

Like almost all Americans, he laments the country’s polarization, but blames it on Democrats. “This divisiveness, it’s been driven by them for four years. They stood by all year long while police were demonized and rioting and really never attempted to stop it – in fact in many cases gave tacit support to it.”

But in a crucial shift identifying a potential building block for civil, productive discourse, Jones said that in Holmes County itself, residents’ interactions – outside the realm of politics – are harmonious. “People get along pretty good together, we don’t have any…divisiveness,“ he said. “Holmes County folks are good folks.”

Ronald Shaheed wholeheartedly agrees. “[They] are good, decent people,” he said, adding that Holmes County residents are “salt of the earth type people and they want what everybody else wants.”

Now in peaceful self-imposed exile in North Carolina, Shaheed sees part of the problem of polarization arising from isolation. “It has a lot to do isolation and not having a choice about how you’re going to see the world.”

But echoing Jones assessment that on a day-to-day basis people tend to get along – including in his community in North Carolina that includes plenty of Trump supporters – Shaheed said that the country’s polarization is one-dimensional, but it’s a dimension that sadly seems to increasingly overshadow other parts of our lives.

“I do think it’s political more than anything,” Shaheed said. “I think when it comes to human beings living with each other, I haven’t seen the polarization there. I think people know that we have to live together.”

One action we can take is to widen the aperture of our lives. “I think the biggest problem…is that we have got to stop judging people on one aspect of [lives]. You may support Donald Trump, that doesn’t mean I can’t support you as a human being, as an American,” Shaheed said.  

“We have to be fair, human beings are works in progress,” he added. “It’s going to take all of us reflecting on ourselves. That doesn’t mean that we still don’t have a problem for people that are different in this country.”

Even in the days following the January 6 insurrection Shaheed continued to hope for – but not expect – transformation.  “I do understand that people grow and they change,” he said. “And we don’t always function so well as human beings, but we weren’t born that way. Since we weren’t born that way there’s always hope.”

Andrew Wainer is a researcher and writer based in Washington, DC. Feel free to reach him at awainer35@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @AndrewWainer 

The post Exiles appeared first on Braver Angels.

I’m not sure I’m ready to unify with everyone right now. There are just some things I cannot reckon with. 

A call to unite naturally shines light on division. As the divide grows, certain stories seem to be treated as more equal than others. We, human beings, are made of stories. This strike at the healing balm of storytelling is tearing our country apart, family by family, school by school, and beyond. 

Through all this, I’m discovering the need to set boundaries so that I can give many of my relationships a chance. My intention is to express what I need to unify right now with the hope of inspiring you, dear reader, to express your needs for real unity.

To speak about unity, it is necessary to speak about division, as to speak about freedom it is necessary to speak about oppression. To speak about liberty, it might help to explore how uplifting the individual’s liberties can uplift the collective from the grassroots.

Unity, in my view, is only possible through radical acceptance of these paradoxes. By embracing the paradox of the United States of America, we can begin to embrace each other. 

This is easier said than done. I accept that unity from left to right might not be possible for a while. But we can choose to talk about it. We can start by finding healing and unity within ourselves. Only then can unity be extended outward. Before we can listen to each other, let’s start by listening to our fullest selves, without shame, learning to communicate our boundaries around some very sensitive issues that challenge every individual’s limits and sovereignty in different ways.

Sovereignty stems from self-love. It comes from speaking one’s truth freely, beyond the shackles of the establishment. This is seen by some as so radical or perhaps “extreme.” But really, I think the call to release this external framework and to look within for guidance is quite reasonable. The resurgence of Common Sense can come from righteous truth within each of us.

And the Truth is: Unity grows from mutual respect and common values. I want to unify with unifiers, not bullies, and I don’t want to unify with a conversation or a person that brings out the bully in me. I want to learn to be my own advocate and gather with people who appreciate my values. 

The Road to Real Unity is Rocky and Rooted in Denial

Unity requires something to be unified around–whether it is big or small. Politically and ideologically, I think the key to creating unity is raising awareness about where the power structures are in our country (big tech, big government, big pharma, big corporations, and corporate media) and creating a mutual understanding of that so we can “fight the power” as a unified front and harness our sovereign powers as individuals, together, for good.

This brings to mind wisdom attributed to Shera Starr:

“If you catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants, and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen. However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other. The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar. This is exactly what’s happening in society today. Liberal vs. Conservative. Black vs. White. Pro Mask vs. Anti-Mask. Vax vs. Anti-vax. Rich vs. poor. Man vs. woman. Cop vs. citizen. The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who’s shaking the jar… and why?”

Since leaving the left for liberty in 2020, I’ve reflected a lot on what many of my loved ones would call “The Bernie Days.” Back then, we agreed that corrupt power needed to be kept in check for the greater good of all Americans. Now, I’m wondering where all the hippies have gone. While a top-down approach to dispelling corruption no longer resonates with me, I think for unity to be possible, it would help for all of us to embrace the hippie or the renegade within, and to realize that the institutional powers seem centralized on the political left, plagued by agendas that do not serve any of us in the long-run. Any blindness to this reality is leaving many who are politically homeless, in the middle, or on the right feeling like there is injustice and imbalance in our relationships. That power imbalance needs to be addressed, for there to be real unity.

Personally and interpersonally, we are being presented with the challenge of uniting around this common reality. Building and rebuilding trust is key in determining truth. When we advocate for each individual’s opportunity to embark on an independent investigation of truth, that sets an example of how the individual can take their power back from the establishment. Taking the reins of your life and your mind can create a ripple effect, giving way for the nation to also be more free. Feeling confident in who you are and being able to communicate your values is what I call “unity within.” It is the unity of the individual. 

As individuals in a diverse, tossed salad rather than groups drowning in a melting pot of ruthless fire and forced uniformity, I would hope each of us has some unique combination of red, white, and blue. That’s another way we can define ourselves, as individuals, to avoid tribalism. 

This tension between individualism and collectivism, our external reality, is a reflection of what’s happening more intimately among We The People. There is a lot of anger in between. So, with malice toward none, I’m here today to remind myself and any who are listening: “When hate is loud, love must be louder.”

Still, I struggle to always speak with love when faced with mockery and estrangement, and with the erasure of truth by a ruthless mob. Truth cannot be accepted when it’s being erased. That’s why I’m so concerned about the non-consensual centralization of power on the left, and in turn, cancel culture and censorship. This is not a “talking point,” this is a grave concern that concerns all Americans. A culture of hate is being created from a place of great pain. Perhaps cancel culture is yet another symptom of yet another illness — division.

Yes, we are dangerously divided. But I try to be careful not to lose humanity while fighting for humanity itself.

While there is a slashing of questions and a cry of biased exclamations, the truth is made of all of us. The story of humanity is complicated, and we have a choice to lean into the beauty of it or demonize anyone who doesn’t fit the mold. The fights we are having in our families, schools, workplaces, and other spaces are bringing to light a difficult truth: It seems hardly any place is free from discourse. 

On the search for truth through light and shadow, I have heard that the truth has already been revealed in the natural world if we open our eyes to behold it. And it cannot be seen if it’s being purposefully, recklessly erased. Call it canceling, call it out as censorship or de-platforming. However you define it, something just doesn’t add up.

My truth is this: We need love. It’s quite simple really. We all just want to belong, to be loved, to fly freely. Love is wide. Love is tough. Love is flowing.

As pressing issues find their way into so many facets of our lives, we’re being told too often that love is not enough, that compassion is somehow dangerous if it’s steered in what’s deemed as the wrong direction. I agree that ungrounded love is dangerous. True love is not all light. Love can be soft with liberty, love can be hardened by necessary boundaries, and love can even be dimmed at times. Such balance starts with self love and self compassion.

Along these lines, wise voices in the bridging community like John Wood Jr. remind me that such massive change starts with self-transformation. He acknowledges the thorny road we are on in his piece “The Painful Path to Unity.” He knows it’s not an easy path to take. I’m not saying it’s easy either.

Maybe that’s why unity is so controversial. Unity is not the easy way out. Unity calls each of us to do the work of unifying within—a process that is perhaps new for many of us. 

This has been a hard year. We need healing. We need justice. And contrary to the loudest voices that seek to silence, we need freedom.

Navigating the Tension Between Freedom and Justice

Without justice, unity is tyranny. Without dialogue, unity is based in falsehood. So how can we reckon with a fractured nation? Is unity, even among friends, possible in my lifetime? 

Motivated by “How America Fractured Into Four Parts” by George Packer, who was featured on America’s Public Forum, I’m pondering the notion of Four Americas: Free America (advocates for individual liberties), Smart America (academics and their students), Real America (working class nationalists), and Just America (social justice activists and allies). There is so much tension between the two paradigms of Free America (the one I most identify with) and Just America (the one I’m trying to leave behind.)

Since I left “the left” for liberty, I find myself navigating this tension a lot. I think it would be wise for those in Just America to define what “freedom” and “liberalism” means for them, and for Free America to define what “justice” and “equality” mean for us. “Freedom” has become such a dirty word on the left. Yet Just America seems to appreciate storytelling, and while this can be done to a point of denying objective truth, maybe we can build an ideological bridge that embraces the free and open exchange of ideas and the beauty of storytelling. 

Now that I find my views more regularly embraced by the political right and the politically homeless, I feel called to redefine what justice and equality mean for me. Essentially, it is wanting to be treated with dignity and with good faith. Without mutual acknowledgment of where the institutional powers currently lie, there is a rising sentiment that anyone with heterodox views is somehow “deplorable” or “misguided.” 

Unless we wish to live in such stark separation, let us courageously liberate ourselves from the shackles that seek to strip our individual rights. Do not let them divide us. Do not consent to tyranny. Let us, instead, reckon with our history and our present and move forward into a better, braver future. 

As we come back together and revisit any uniting values, we can start by agreeing that every person has a right to privacy, consent, and safety. If you don’t want your child to be exposed to something, you should be free to say so. If you have certain concerns about a curriculum, you should be free to say so. If you have questions, you should be free to ask them without receiving unwarranted threats or being stripped of your livelihood. When women are being assaulted in the streets while peacefully protesting for their right to privacy and girls are being mocked for not wanting to change clothes in a locker room with a boy, I would hope that everyone would feel called to work for balance—for divine justice. 

Think of the children, the seeds of the future. Navigating the tension between freedom and justice is urgent, or else, we might lose the ground we stand on. If we succumb to coercing top-down approaches, we might lose our country and forfeit our children’s future.

Our still somewhat free society is at stake. Our lives are at stake. My heart is so broken after a year of having my curiosity and my shifting views mocked, deleted, and deemed wrong or dangerous by family and friends who I used to trust. I feel lonely and betrayed. Now people could be coming to our doors. Where does it end? 

While making posts on social media about bridging the gap, sharing countless Braver Angels events, co-creating a film about “real unity,” and writing articles with the intention of adding perspective and tenderness to a treacherous landscape for over a year, I have been met with immense support and for that I am grateful. And I have also been told from within my own family that my “ideology” is “repugnant.” For that, and all the other times when my boundaries have been crossed, I am disappointed, but mostly in myself for not voicing them sooner. 

God knows I have tried, and I imagine God knows, too, that the road to real unity is rocky. 

But it is still worth walking while striving for balance, discourse, and dignity. That’s all we can do as perfectly imperfect beings—try. Doing so is advocating for something much greater and I’m hopeful it will be worth it for our country and our world in the future. It is up to us, no matter how we identify, to walk this road with as much dignity as humanly possible. Our courage is being tested more than ever because, in the new world, all you have to do is be brave. 

On the journey to this new chapter of our country, and to the new world, let’s co-create spaces where we do not mock our fellow human for having a different perspective, where we also honor the individual’s agency to walk away with grace from what does not serve them. 

Navigating the tension between justice and freedom is rooted in the fabric of this country.  I’m seeking to escape or perhaps embrace such a tangle. How can trust be rebuilt and respect strengthened? How might we create a framework that welcomes our common humanity from the grassroots?

The post What I Need to Unify Right Now appeared first on Braver Angels.

When the initial case came to light, I’m pretty sure I felt a strong pull toward my progressive values, which told me it was wrong of this baker to discriminate against a certain set of people, especially based on his religious convictions. I viewed this as a classic example of a distorted ideology causing grave harm, that should be remedied through the force of law, and that if the Court ruled in his favor, the law should be made more explicit to prevent this form of discrimination.

Now, as the controversy is reintroduced into public consciousness, I feel very differently. I have come around towards the opinion that, although I still align very much with their values, my fellow progressives sometimes lose their sense of balance around those values, and place an outsized emphasis on that of preventing harm, versus others like personal autonomy. That latter value underpins the liberalism that formed not only the basis of the modern Democratic Party, but also the “classical liberal” traditions that created the foundation of the modern democratic republic.

Let me be clear, I still have a deep faith in the role of government to enforce the policies we all agree upon that help us create together a well-functioning society, with rules of the road in both a literal and figurative sense. This includes public health mandates that keep us safe collectively, which certainly puts me at odds with many of my conservative friends during the Covid pandemic.

But I do believe there are limits to this principle, and the baker’s case is a good illustration. I wonder how many of my fellow progressives would advocate for the Supreme Court to compel a conservative artist to accept a commission for a Pride mural. Not only do I doubt they would take that step, but the situation likely wouldn’t even arise, since who would want someone to create a piece of art that doesn’t reflect their beliefs? It would probably be crappy art.

If you assume that the people who have tried to commission the baker for their cakes were doing so because they value the quality of his work, then it seems clear they’re seeing him as an artist—one who is unfairly exclusionary with his talents. But we don’t—historically at least—sanction people with unpopular beliefs by making them hire out their artistry to anyone who will pay. And I don’t think it would be consistent with the Constitution to enforce that sort of thing.

It’s common for progressives to talk about our focus on impact versus intent, and while I believe both matter for our human interactions, there’s no denying the importance of the former. So if we examine what the ultimate result is of trying to enforce this sort of opprobrium with law, it seems fairly obvious that it leads to the sort of backlash that ends up injuring the cause of equity.

Contrary to the understanding of some progressive activists, it was popular culture, and its increasing embrace of LGBTQ communities, that brought about the mass acceptance of gay marriage, with the Court reading the changing mood of society to codify it officially, not the other way around. More and more Americans have come to understand that there are queer people in their lives whom they love, and this manifestation of “intergroup contact theory” shows us that the free exposure of one group to another tends to increase the understanding of each other’s humanity and worth.

It can be frustrating to see progress moving too slowly, as it always does, leading us to lean on our governments to enforce protections for those populations that we see being harmed by current attitudes. And at times this is truly necessary, as in the forced integration of public schools that had featured an inherently—horrifically—unequal learning environment for black children.

But that use of government force must be balanced against its other consequences, and in the case of the baker, it seems very clear that those consequences—for gay and trans people especially—shift the balance towards negative.

A recent Wall Street Journal column made arguments that were aligned with this view, but then brought the debate into a classic us-versus-them realm that tried to show that “their side is worse than our side on this issue.”

“It also points to a fundamental difference between the religious and secular fundamentalists these days. Take the most fire-breathing preacher in backwoods Mississippi. He may rail at what he takes to be the sinful ways of sexually liberated San Francisco. But he’ll largely settle for keeping pornography and Drag Queen Story Hour out of a local library.

“By contrast, the progressive in San Francisco is not content with the sexual license his home-town affords. He doesn’t seem to be able to sleep at night unless he knows the local library in some rural Mississippi town has its own Drag Queen Story Hour.”

From my (again, progressive) perspective, this is about what level of society should be able to impose its standards on us. The Mississippi preacher, in my experience, wants to save the souls of his whole town at the very least, so he makes sure Drag Queen Story Hour is excluded from his community, thereby perpetuating the message that it is not a town welcoming of queer folks. That can certainly be deeply harmful to those LGBTQ people living there, especially the kids who are discovering the chasm between their true selves and what is acceptable to their community.

By contrast, the activist in San Francisco wants to ensure that this harm doesn’t happen to anyone else—especially if they’re among the many queer folks who made their way to California from somewhere less “tolerant” after having experienced this harm.

But I believe strongly that both are sincere in their motivations—an assumption that I view as essential to our work at Braver Angels—and both want to use societal mechanisms to impose their values on others. We judge them differently based on which values we share with them.

There’s an inherent tension between this desire to enforce common values that we believe are important for creating a free and prosperous society and allowing individual communities within that society to choose their own values, to the exclusion of some chosen by others. So who gets to decide where this line is drawn?

I think the answer to this is actually more straightforward than it might seem at first blush. It often has been—and largely should be for good reason—a function of the ease with which someone can actually choose the community to which they belong. If there are barriers to that choice, we should generally default to inclusivity and protection from harm for those who fall outside of the majority. Those black public school kids couldn’t easily uproot and move to a state that was more accepting of them, so it was necessary to create this acceptance by force.

But one of the strengths of American society, enabling the cultural pluralism that has made us the world’s engine of innovation that we’ve been for the past century, is what Alexis de Tocqueville observed as our freedom of association and tendency to form values-based communities to advance our goals together.

More conservative communities, like many churches, have a very difference balance of values than I would choose, but I support their right to maintain this balance, as long as those outliers born into that community can easily choose another that would support them more fully.

Okay, so while I did call the question straightforward, I’ll concede that this facility of choosing one’s community can often be in doubt. But returning to the case of the baker, it seems clear that anyone seeking a cake to celebrate their progressive values can go to any number of other bakers without trying to impose them on this man.

If he wants to lose out of the increasing business from LGBTQ customers, that’s his right. But I think that over time—compelled not just by commercial interests (indeed, Phillips claimed after the first case that his decision to leave the wedding cake game altogether cost him 40 percent of his business), but by his interaction with those folks and a sense of decency—we’ll see him move towards embracing them, much more quickly than if he were forced. So while the intent of standing up for our values is important, that impact is what truly matters.

The post Imposing Our Values: Piece of Cake! appeared first on Braver Angels.