Hello! 👋🏽
I hope everybody is staying cool on this humid Wednesday evening. This is another issue of Long Way Home🏡, where I discuss topics of creativity and emotional intelligence.
Today’s topic is about connecting with people who may have different political or social views than us. It may seem disconnected from my previous themes, but I think the impossible task of maintaining resolve amidst offensive conversation and holding empathy and compassion for those who may see us as subhuman because of our religion, ethnicity, race, or class takes incredible emotional intelligence.
I hope that the principles I discuss here help readers approach their next charged conversation with grace and composure.
In this week's LWH🏡:
💫 - How to Respond to Bigotry by Vandan Jhaveri
Let’s get into this week’s essay.
How to Respond to Bigotry
What did you just say?
We all have been out with friends or around the dining table at home when somebody off-handedly throws out a comment or opinion we perceive as prejudiced or bigoted. We clench up, raise our eyebrows, and suit up for an argument, armed with facts we have passively absorbed from the news, school, and, of course, Twitter.
Maybe somebody we know said there are no differences in how men and women are treated in the workplace, or they stereotype somebody based on their race, or they make sweeping generalizations about new Canadians. Our initial reaction can be aggressive and emotional and we can easily misrepresent ourselves, our point getting lost in our crude delivery.
A man who has been in thousands of such situations, and has come out on top, has a lot to say about how we should navigate these blood-boiling conversations and still be successful.
The Great Debater
Daryl Davis, a black blues musician, spent 30 years befriending Klu Klux Klan members, many of whom have since denounced the organization and given up their membership. His journey began with the desire to get an answer for a question he had from the age of 10, “ Why do you hate me when you don’t even know me?”
Davis went as far as befriending Roger Kelly, the Imperial Wizard of the KKK, eventually resulting in Kelly's departure from the organization. Kelly even entrusted Davis to walk his bride-to-be down the aisle at his wedding, despite plenty of KKK members in attendance.
This begs the question: how was a black man able to convince numerous white supremacists of his humanity despite years of contrary brainwashing and conditioning?
In 2020, Davis gave an hour-long talk at Google about his experience with the KKK, its members, and his methods for connecting with people who couldn't see the world more differently than he did.
It’s All About Communication
Even when across the table from somebody who believed that black people have smaller brains, are inherently lazier, and are sucking the country dry of all its social support funds, Davis commits to keeping his cool. "Why should I be offended at someone else telling a lie?" he asks the audience during his Google talk.
And that principle is revolutionary.
Davis recognizes that at the heart of people's malice towards him for being a black man is an ignorance born from a lack of education. Although folks with these attitudes can be deeply offensive, he has the power to decide whether to be offended or not, and he sees no point to being offended when somebody who doesn’t know any better tells a lie about him he knows is false.
Davis introduces a framework to help us understand how we find ourselves at a flashpoint, where there's an outpouring of anger, violence, and civil unrest like the atrocity of the Tulsa race massacre from 1921, or the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
There's a lack of knowledge, which breeds ignorance; we aren't aware of the things we don't know.
Ignorance breeds fear; we are afraid of things we don't understand.
Fear breeds hatred; we hate the things we're afraid of.
Hatred breeds destruction; we want to destroy the things we hate.
Attempting to stop hateful people from being destructive is futile. Trying to tell people to stop being afraid is pointless. The only antidote to this gruesome escalation is by addressing the root of the problem and educating folks on the facts through respectful communication that keeps all parties' dignities intact.
Davis stresses the importance of letting people get their whole point of view out before interjecting with our own opinion. The best way to get heard is to listen first. Once the offender feels like they’ve fully aired their grievances, they are now open to hear what you have to say, and simultaneously, we are aware of their misunderstandings of the facts, so we are better prepared to address the gaps.
Space to Breathe
We also cannot expect minds to change mid-conversation. Our responsibility in arguments is not to keep arguing until the person agrees with us, it's to provide the information so that on their own time, our adversary sees our point and realizes they were wrong all along. To expect that level of awareness and submission in person is futile—our pride gets in the way. When we are feeling defensive and attacked, the last thing we are likely to do is admit fault, even when it is painfully obvious.
As a young South Asian speaking to immigrant parents about race, class, gender, and privilege, it’s easy for me to see the direct utility of these frameworks. I can use them to help them see some of their ignorance and initiate the arduous process of reframing their biases. Once we realize a lack of education is at the core of prejudice, we can find opportunities to deliver facts in a compassionate and dignifying way where respect isn’t compromised.
Unfortunately, there were members of the KKK at all levels of society, in all professions. We know a Supreme Court Justice (Hugo Black), Senators, Governors, and even potentially former US President Warren G. Harding were all members of the KKK. People who hold deep prejudices are certainly not stupid. We must begin to trust them to rationalize and come to new conclusions once they are given the facts.
As Daryl Davis says, when you give the facts to somebody in an irrefutable way, they need to decide whether they were ignorant or if they're stupid, and nobody wants to be stupid.
In these socially and politically divided times, where it seems like extremism in all forms are on the rise, our ability to connect and discuss with people who believe differently than us becomes an incomparably valuable skill.
Dismissing people who don’t see the world in the ways we do based on their own upbringing, influences, and affiliations passes on the opportunity to inform and de-radicalize them in small or big ways. We miss the opportunity to connect with the humanity in others and the glorious relationship that follows two individuals who begin agreeing on a charged issue.
And that’s just plain stupid.
Armed,
Vandan🏡
@vandan_jhaveri
🎥 - Boogie Woogie
After I dove into Daryl Davis's work, I decided to check out his musical repertoire to witness him demonstrating his talents as a musician. Boy, am I glad I did.
Rock and roll, and all the associated sub-genres, is a realm in which I have absolutely no awareness, so watching Davis smack away at the keyboard was mesmerizing. The intricacy of the rhythms and the level of practice needed to do all that without glancing down at the keys floored me.