Ellen Degeneres is friends with George W. Bush. Is that okay?
The political left has a dilemma in the Trump era. Given the onslaught of bigotry and oppression faced by so many groups, is it okay to befriend social conservatives?
This question gets debated often, most recently in response to a picture of Ellen DeGeneres sitting with George W. Bush at a football game last Sunday. Facing backlash from the left, Ellen made a statement on her show defending her decision to sit with him:
Here’s the thing: I’m friends with George Bush, in fact I’m friends with a lot of people who don’t share the same beliefs that I have. We are all different and I think we’ve forgotten that that’s OK that we’re all different…
Just because I don’t agree with someone on everything does not mean I’m not going to be friends with them. When I say be kind to one another, I don’t mean only the people that think the same as you do, I mean be kind to everyone.
Where should we draw the line about who to befriend?
As uplifting as it sounds, Ellen’s statement still received flak.
Yesterday it was shared on Facebook by the civility group Better Angels, and four hours later it had 730 likes, loves, or wows; 321 shares; and 56 comments. Most comments were supportive, but skeptics were there, too:
There’s being friends with people who have different values or beliefs… and then there’s being friends with a war criminal. George W. is a war criminal.
Would she stick to this fairy tale if someone photo shopped Hitler in the picture with her?
Personal friendship doesn’t undermine the systemic violence and death that some people have caused. It’s nice that for the privileged among us political disagreements are simply differences of opinion. For many others it is truly an issue of life or death.
Is befriending just an act of privilege?
That last point is at the heart of this debate. The thinking goes that only the privileged can afford to be friends with members of oppressive groups, while for the oppressed, such friendship is abhorrent because it signals acceptance of their own oppression. Furthermore, when privileged people choose these friendships, they’re tacitly condoning their friends’ actions—which means they’re not much better than oppressors themselves.
Two women responded to that last cynical commenter. You can still be kind, you can still listen, you can still learn from each other, wrote one. What do you agree on? Why do they believe that? Ask and listen.
But the commenter doubled down. mmmmm, he wrote. I’ll remember that the next time someone I “disagree” with is voting against my human rights, screaming “f@ggot” at me, yelling at me that I’m going to hell, or firing me because they very kindly “disagree with my lifestyle”. I would ask you to recognize the place of privilege you may be sitting in when you ask us to be kind to our oppressors.
Anyone can befriend an “oppressor…” but it is easier for the privileged.
I like to read the comments on Better Angels’s posts because I’ve been looking for an answer to this question about befriending. Even though I write a blog about respectful political discourse, this debate has been swirling in my own head as well. And reading the thread did help me gain clarity; my answer to the question is congealing.
I see holes in the argument that only the privileged can befriend “oppressors.” For one thing, privilege isn’t binary, something you either have or don’t have—most people experience both privilege and oppression in one way or another. I’m white, straight, and educated; I’m also a woman and a person with a chronic illness who could face harrowing choices if Obamacare was repealed.
The last commenter above assumed the two women commenters were straight. Because of this assumption, he dismissed them as “privileged”—but as a gay man, he’s both more and less privileged than them.
Also, some members of severely oppressed groups have decided to befriend their oppressors. Well-known examples include Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama, who sometimes refers to the Chinese as “my friend, the enemy.”
Whether to befriend is really a personal choice.
Still, while these friendships may be possible for anyone, there’s also truth to what skeptics say: they’re easier for those with more privilege. There are different degrees of privilege, and many straight white women often do have a lot of it. And people with the same race or gender, similar levels of income, etc. will often feel most comfortable with each other. That means, for example, that it’s often easier for a white person to befriend a racist white person than for a black person to strike up that same friendship.
Friendships can help “oppressors” to change their views.
But regardless of your level of privilege, why befriend an “oppressor” at all?
The answer is persuasion. Ellen might genuinely enjoy hanging out with George W. Bush, but she also might understand that their friendship has the potential to soften his problematic stances. Trust and respect make people more likely to change their minds than enmity. Stories abound of people who left KKK leadership, the Westboro Baptist Church, and neo-Naziism due to the patience and kindness of people who dared to befriend them.
David Blankenhorn, the founder of Better Angels, is a perfect example. Once outspokenly against gay marriage, he was befriended by a gay man named Jonathan Rauch. In an On Being interview with Krista Tippett, Blankenhorn describes how this friendship changed his mind:
There’s the intellectual — you think, you read, you sit in your study, and you try to think about the correct view. But the truth is that I probably wouldn’t have changed my mind without knowing Jonathan personally…
[Y]ou build up a kind of a barriers of belief in theory, and it keeps the other people out, and so you talk about them. You have theories about them. You can explain their lives to them, but you never really talk to them and see it from their point of view. So for me, as this guy from the South, older guy, hadn’t known many gay people, so it was a meaningful thing. And after being very aggressive and abusive, he responded with kindness and like, “Uh, well, maybe we could talk a little bit.“
As two Better Angels commenters put it yesterday:
Maybe [Bush has] changed since 1992, or 2001, or 2004, or maybe being friends with Ellen will help him to change. Maybe their friendship will do more to change minds than all the hate towards W ever will.
Not only is it possible to love someone you emphatically disagree with, but it is also critical that we learn to do so. No one ever changed their heart because they were shamed, ridiculed, isolated or shunned. But hearts are changed when we connect with others, treat them humanely, and seek to both understand and be understood.
What if privilege means responsibility to befriend “oppressors”?
For many who identify as privileged, adamance about avoiding these friendships comes from the desire to stand with the vulnerable. Befriending is easier for the privileged, and that ease can make it feel immoral or complicit. But what’s missing here is the possibility that privilege might obligate us to enter such friendships, because they’re easier for us.
An able-bodied, cisgender, straight, middle-aged, wealthy white man has opportunities to influence “oppressors” in ways that are less accessible to someone with less privilege. He can more easily befriend people with problematic views. That means he has more of an “in” for changing minds.
There are many ways to fight oppression, and one is listening to the other side—even if they’re racist, homophobic, transphobic, or otherwise bigoted.
Marginalized people disagree about whether befriending is okay. Some, like the gay man who posted above, see friendships with “oppressors” as complicity. But others see the potential of these friendships and feel that it’s irresponsible for the privileged to avoid them.
Recently, a friend of color expressed irritation with white people who refuse to reach out to those with opposing views. “I feel like most of the people refusing to talk to the other side are people who don’t directly experience the bigotry themselves,” he said. He noted that often, it’s “privileged” people who are most adamantly against collaborating and listening—but he thinks that stance is a privileged one to take.
Befriending “oppressors” is a personal choice.
In a way, there’s no middle ground on whether it’s okay to befriend an “oppressor.” Either you believe it’s at least sometimes okay, or you believe it’s never okay. Reading the Better Angels comments made me realize I feel it’s okay. I reject the idea that it’s immoral—on the contrary, I see befriending “oppressors” as a critical element in struggles for justice.
Whether to participate in such a friendship yourself is a very personal choice. It’s not my place to tell anyone else they should do this, and we all need to practice self-care. If you feel unsafe talking to someone you experience as an oppressor, then it’s reasonable to avoid the conversation until/unless you’re more ready for it.
But for me personally, I will keep reaching out. More and more, I’m becoming confident that this is not merely a privileged choice, but is also a moral one.
