It’s not too late

We recently launched an advertising campaign on Facebook encouraging people to subscribe to this very newsletter, and our ad copy boldly claimed, “We’re reviving civil conversation in America.” Some of you may have responded to those ads. Several people commented on Facebook: some were encouraging and others quite hostile. Of all the comments posted, one in the very early days of our campaign has haunted me. It just said: “Too late.”

Skepticism about civil conversation

In the past seven days, headlines and news reports have been filled with issues of justice, racial inequality, free speech, the limits of authority, the use of force, and many other complicated issues. We’ve dedicated our “5 more links” (see below) this week to a roundup of some of those headlines.

Regardless of the story, will we continue to pick teams, hunker down, and throw talking points at the other side from the safety of our like-minded camps?

Is it really “too late” for civil conversation? Judging from a brief review of these headlines, one might be inclined to agree with our Facebook commenter’s sentiment.

Finding agreement despite our differences

Calls for civil discourse are often framed in terms of bringing two sides together: left and right, red and blue, urban and rural, us and them. Looking at the events of the last week and the unrest that continues today, the failure of those divisions to capture the complicated nature of our society has never been more evident.

It isn’t hard to see where we differ. The difficult question we now face is whether, in fact, we share any similarities. Can we agree that racial inequality is a serious challenge that we must address together? Can we hold our leaders and law enforcement to shared values in the ways they administer justice? Are we unified in believing that citizens have the right to protest and that private property should be protected?

The freer a society, the more that is required of its citizens to act justly towards each other and to seek the good of the community, so that it can remain peaceful and free. We have a responsibility not just to tend to our own homes, but to ensure that our neighbors receive equal treatment before the law. We all must work to protect justice because each of us depends upon it to protect ourselves.

There is no magic solution, and no one is coming to save us. If the past three months of global pandemic haven’t convinced you of that, perhaps the events of the past week will. Government has some role to play in modern society and we can certainly disagree about the extent of that role (and how well various government entities perform it), but no elected official has the power to force us to care about preserving our freedom and the responsibilities that accompany that freedom.

The hard work of freedom falls to each of us

Each one of us has power. We have the power to begin tough discussions about these difficult headlines. We have the power to give others the respect we desire and to listen to their concerns. We have the power to find shared principles and build from them, doing the difficult work of figuring out how to put those principles into action. The building of a free society requires constant renovation: in some cases, tearing down old habits and norms, and, in others, expanding our notion of freedom.

We’ve gotten pretty good at disagreeing in this country, and we’re very comfortable pointing out what is wrong with the “other side.”

But it is not “too late” for us to actually see the humanity in one another, listen with compassion, empathize with others’ feelings and opinions, and determine how to work together to ensure that we all benefit from the freedom each of us wants.

5 headlines from the past week

1. Monday, May 25th, New York City, Central Park (8:30 am EDT) – Christian Cooper, a black man, asked a white woman, Amy Cooper (no relation), to leash her dog. He filmed the exchange, including her call to 911 to report an “African American man threatening” her and her dog. Mr. Cooper’s sister posted the video on Twitter (where it has now been viewed over 44 million times), and, within 24 hours, Ms. Cooper had lost her job and was receiving death threats.
2. Monday, May 25th, Minneapolis (8:30 pm CDT) – George Floyd was arrested by police after a 911 call reporting that he had used a counterfeit $20 bill. During the course of that arrest, police officer Derek Chauvin “placed his left knee in the area of Mr. Floyd’s head and neck” (according to the complaint filed by the Hennepin County Attorney’s office) for almost nine minutes. Mr. Floyd was later pronounced dead, and video of the arrest filmed by bystanders and security camera footage have been shared widely on the internet. Four Minneapolis police officers were fired, and Derek Chauvin has been charged with third degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
3. Tuesday, May 26th, Minneapolis – Protests over Mr. Floyd’s death begin in Minneapolis, and by the end of the week, demonstrations had spread to cities across the country and around the world. Many of these protests were peaceful and many were not. In response to violence connected to the protests, many cities issued curfews and National Guard troops were activated.
4. Friday, May 29th – In response to a Tweet that included the words “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” Twitter added warning labels to the President’ statements. Facebook did not flag the President’s posts, prompting criticism from some of its employees.
5. Monday, June 1st, Washington, DC – Amid continuing violence, President Trump encouraged governors to “dominate the streets.” During a press conference, he announced that he was “mobilizing all available federal resources, civilian and military” to restore peace.

p.s. If you’ve got a political, ideological, or philosophical issue you’ve been considering, email me at jennifer@civilsquared.org and I’ll work with my team to put together a list of articles, issues, and interesting points of view to share with you and others.