Calls for unity can sound naive.
Joe Biden’s call for unity is music to my ears. But it also raises the question of what unity really means, and how we can put it into practice in a nation so deeply divided.
When many of us hear the call, it’s followed soon afterwards by a protest in our minds: “Yes, but…”
Yes, but we’ll never see eye to eye.
Yes, but millions of people believe conspiracy theories instead of truth and facts.
Yes, but we have to focus on systemic racism, not getting along.
Yes, but the other side is playing dirty, and if we compromise, we’ll lose ground.
All these concerns are valid, and they’re all obstacles to unity. And there’s another obstacle too, a deeper one: the fact that we react in this way to the call.
When we dare to hope for unity, even for just a moment, our hope is quickly tainted by anxiety and cynicism. Our hearts have been battered, especially over the last several years. It’s hard to imagine unity as anything more than a dream.
I’m committed to unity.
I have these same reactions and hesitations. And yet, I’m all in when it comes to Biden’s call. As Biden said Wednesday in his inaugural address, quoting Lincoln, “my whole soul is in it.”
My whole soul is in it.
Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this:
Bringing America together.
Uniting our people.
And uniting our nation.
I ask every American to join me in this cause.
Uniting to fight the common foes we face:
Anger, resentment, hatred.
Extremism, lawlessness, violence.
Disease, joblessness, hopelessness.
With unity we can do great things.
I watched his and Harris’s inauguration with rapt attention. I sobbed when Harris was sworn in, overcome by seeing a woman—and a woman of color—rise to this high office. And I sat breathless at the power of Biden’s speech and Amanda Gorman’s phenomenal poem.
My whole soul is in it. I am all in. I believe in these leaders, I trust them, and I’m committed to doing my part in bringing unity to our country.
Unity means existing in tension.
In a democracy, unity does not mean agreement, uniformity, or lack of tension. It means contradiction, diversity, and conflict. It means embracing the messy mix of voices that make up the whole.
Unity is what underlies that messy mix. It’s the foundation beneath them all: the understanding that despite our differences, we share the bond of a common country whose laws and norms we honor. It’s the agreement that our conflicts will take place within that country, which we’re all working to preserve.
Unity also means accountability. “There will be no unity without accountability,” says professor Brené Brown. As a country, we have sins to atone for and wounds to heal, especially the legacies of slavery and harm to Native American societies and the ongoing harm of systemic racism. This healing is a project for all of us—North and South, Republicans and Democrats, white people and people of color.
And unity is essential for this healing to occur. Unity doesn’t mean having a finished product, a country with no more problems to fix or systems to reform. Instead, it’s the framework within which we must do that reforming and healing.
Because we haven’t yet healed these wounds, we must stay together, keep working together, in order to heal them. That’s the best way to hold each other and ourselves accountable and move forward into a better future.
Like a family, we are stuck with each other. This is our shared burden. As my friend the Reverend Leah Ongiri has written:
On the Eve of Inauguration
We will wake to a new era
but the same usGreat blessing
and curse
Unity comes down to our choices.
How do we take up our burdens together? How do we bring out the blessing in “us” and overcome the curse? How do we carry on with our struggles while also seeking unity?
“We all have a role to play,” says director Ben Rekhi, whose film “The Reunited States” chronicles the journeys of several people working to bridge our divides. “At every moment, we’re either uniting or dividing.”
Unity is technically a noun, but it’s also like a verb—it’s a practice we can undertake daily. It comes down to our choices, and often the subtlest choices make all the difference.
Choosing unity can be as simple as cutting a vindictive sentence out of a Facebook comment, or reconsidering sharing a mean-spirited post. It can be as quiet as a thoughtful look, rather than a skeptical look, when someone speaks. It can be as small as refusing to dehumanize the other side—saying “President Trump” instead of “45.”
Even more subtly and profoundly, it means examining our own thoughts and feelings. “Polarization isn’t just in Washington,” says Mark Gerzon, author of the book The Reunited States of America. “It’s in our hearts.”
We live divided lives. We want unity, but we have trouble believing it can occur. We long for humanity and kindness, but we reserve kindness for our kinfolk and present a more hardened facade to those we don’t know well. We believe in compassion, but we poison our own compassion with malice towards the other side.
Inner vitriol hurts us more than the people it’s aimed at. Choosing unity isn’t only about our outward actions, but about examining our feelings and healing these inner divisions. Where does our anger come from? What pain lies beneath it? How do we get past the outrage and access our heartache and grief, and thus find our way back to compassion?
We can answer the call.
This is hard work. It takes attention and discipline. The discipline can be elusive at first, but with practice, it grows stronger, like a muscle. For me, in moments when I’m struggling to find it, it helps to remember my faith in the basic goodness of human beings, my deep yearning for my heart to stay open, and my belief in the importance of our democracy.
And it also greatly helps to connect with the bridge-building movement. This work is best done in community. Thousands of people nationwide are helping Americans connect with each other. They’re teaching people to have better, more productive conversations about racism and racial justice, helping families heal their political divides, and offering camaraderie along the way. To join in, check out the groups listed on my Resources page and consider signing up for a workshop.
Will everyone choose unity? Will the vitriol and conspiracy theories and injustice end? No. These will always be present. There will always be battles to fight.
But we can diminish these negative forces’ power. More of us can answer the call more often; we can rise up, reach out, and look within.
Choosing unity is an act of faith, hope, patriotism, and humanity. Each time we make this choice, we are moving toward healing our country and ourselves.
Katie wrote: “In a democracy, unity does not mean agreement, uniformity, or lack of tension.”
This reminds me of hearing Parker Palmer speak at Edgewood College in Madison in the midst of the Act 10 protests in Wisconsin. He said we need to stop demonizing the opposing side, and that our democracy was built to hold the tension between opposing viewpoints.
I haven’t read Palmer’s 2011 book, nor investigated the Healing Democracy Action Circles Guide, but intend to.
https://www.couragerenewal.org/wpccr/wp-content/uploads/CCRHealingDemocracyActionGuide.pdf
http://www.couragerenewal.org/parker/
Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit
(Jossey-Bass, 2011, paperback 2014) by Parker J. Palmer
At a critical time in American life, Palmer looks with realism and hope at how to deal with our political tensions for the sake of the common good—without the shouting, blaming, or defaming so common in our civic organizations and faith communities today.
Use the new Discussion Guide & Videos in your community. Explore our Healing Democracy Action Circles for taking action in your own community. Read more about this book…
* A Starred Review from Publishers Weekly* Palmer’s…newest was six years in the making. He bravely takes on the current political climate, with its atrophy of citizen participation, the ascendance of an oligarchy that shapes politics, and the substitution of vituperation for thoughtful public discussion. It’s a tall order that became even taller because Palmer had to climb out of a pit of depression — his constitutional proclivity — to do so. But wrestling with essential questions of public life became therapeutic, and this book provides therapy for the American body politic. Palmer’s use of acute 19th-century observers of American life and character — Tocqueville, Lincoln — as well as his use of anecdotes and lessons from his own long career provide context and tonic. His insights are heart-deep: America gains by living with tension and differences; we can help reclaim public life by actions as simple as walking down the street instead of driving. Hope’s hardly cheap, but history is made up of what Palmer calls “a million invisible acts of courage and the incremental gains that came with them.” This beautifully written book deserves a wide audience that will benefit from discussing it. — August 8, 2011
Jonathan, thank you so much for this comment and reference! I, too, had the great good fortune to hear Parker Palmer speak back then—it’s quite possible you and I were at the same Edgewood forum. His book Healing the Heart of Democracy is a wonderful inspiration to me, as is so much of his writing and thinking. I also love A Hidden Wholeness, which talks about making space for vulnerable, authentic, soul-level conversations. His wisdom is such a gift to the world!