Most People are Smart and Good
I grew up apolitical. Although my family lived in Portland and my parents had once been hippies, I didn’t know their politics or that they even had politics until I was in my twenties.
Then the Iraq War broke out in 2003. I was in the Peace Corps, and when I came home from Tanzania, I was surprised at my mother’s behavior: she was going to war protests and door-knocking with the Democratic Party! Suddenly, our family conversations were filled with current events.
By then I knew that I, too, was progressive. I fit right in with our folksy, crunchy Portland community. But despite my progressive values, I was unnerved by the hostility I witnessed among many of my fellow progressives towards George W. Bush and his followers. Although I disagreed with almost everything “Dubya” did, my travels had taught me that most people are intelligent and good—even Republicans.
Across the Urban-Rural Divide
That conviction strengthened in graduate school in Wisconsin, where I studied soil and water conservation with a focus on rural landscapes. As part of my master’s research, I interviewed fifty farmers about their farming practices. I had never spoken to a farmer before, and the experience was eye-opening: although we were culturally and politically different, I saw that these rural Wisconsinites had a lot of wisdom to teach me. They knew far more than me about land stewardship, business management, and life away from urban services.
Back at the university, when ecology classmates griped about “ignorant” farmers and their impacts on the land, I found myself vouching for the farmers. And when farmers griped to me about “naive” urbanites making unfair rules, I vouched for the urbanites as well.
Dinners With Conservatives
After graduate school, I worked at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for several years. During that time, in 2010, Republican Scott Walker was elected Governor and immediately became the most divisive Wisconsin politician in decades. After the election, I had a bewildered conversation with Ron, my boyfriend (now my husband). He and I weren’t friends with a single person who had voted for Walker. How had the man gotten elected?
On a whim, I reached out to the local GOP via email and asked: was there anyone interested in having dinner with us? We don’t expect to convert or be converted, I wrote. We just wanted to understand why the other side voted so differently.
The Republicans’ response was enthusiastic. They soon linked us with Scott and Carol, a GOP couple who met with us several times over dinner. The four of us forged our new friendship at the same time that the state was erupting in protests and counter-protests over Scott Walker’s union-busting legislation.
Reach Out Wisconsin
Our dinner conversations were often heated and challenging, but they were enlightening as well. We found them so valuable that we decided to “go public,” creating a dialogue organization called Reach Out Wisconsin.
Reach Out was an instant success. We held monthly forums on hot political topics—our first forum was about open carry of firearms; our second was on abortion. Attendees got to meet people from the other side for civil discussion of each issue. The media loved what we were doing. We were unusual—bordering on freakish!—in a state still rocked with protests and recall efforts. Reach Out was featured on various radio and news programs.
In 2012, family health issues forced me to step down from leadership of Reach Out, and in 2014 Ron and I moved back to Portland. To our great pride, though, Reach Out has continued to hold public forums and foster respectful discourse in Wisconsin.
A Cheerleader for Dialogue
And I have continued working to bridge divides through writing and speaking. Here in Portland, I’ve participated in forums with a local dialogue group called Crossing Party Lines, spoken with journalists, professors, and students, and taken conflict transformation workshops with Compassionate Listening. In recent years, my writing has been featured in publications such as AllSides and Progressively Speaking.
Since the 2016 election, the Trump administration has spurred a new movement for respectful discourse. Many Americans see that polarization is one of the greatest threats to the country, and there are many exciting new organizations and leaders working tirelessly to bridge divides. I am a cheerleader and recruiter for this movement.
I passionately believe civil discourse is the balm we need to heal our democracy and bring about the Beloved Community envisioned by Martin Luther King, Jr. And I hope you’ll join the movement! Check out my list of resources here and my latest blog posts here, and subscribe to my blog here.