Resist reactive devaluation. Don’t discount what someone has said just because you disagree with them. Be open to what they are saying and the way in which there might be some truth there. Be willing to question your own sources because everyone gets it wrong some of the time.

Stay grounded and don’t react if they call you or the groups you identify with, names. When you are mindful and reflective even in the face of personal attacks, you stay in the zone of your best thinking and stand a chance of still bridging the divide. If you react with name-calling the divide will widen.

Look for the underlying human need. What everyone shares is our humanity and our human need for survival. This includes our emotional as well as our physical needs.

Share the ways in which you share values. Instead of trying to sell your positions, concentrate on sharing how your views both emerge from a well-intentioned belief system. Share how you are after the same basic goals they are — peace, health, security, prosperity — but have different ways of getting there.

Finally, if you don’t know someone with opposite views from you, who is willing to have a conversation, join Braver Angels and attend their virtual events. There you will find a group of people who are engaging in a productive way in many different challenging conversations.

In a recently aired podcast, Brene Browne, who is a research professor at the University of Houston, Brene stated that we are all vulnerable to the slow and insidious practice of dehumanizing. We are all responsible for recognizing it and holding people accountable for their words and actions. Social media is now the primary platform for this behavior, with little or no accountability, and a great deal of anonymity.

Maya Angelou was an American poet, memoirist, civil rights activist and Pulitzer Price recipient. She spoke on the power of words: “Words are things, I’m convinced. You must be careful about the words that you use, or the words that you allow to be used in your house. In the Old Testament, we are told in the book of Genesis that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God. Words are things. We must be careful about calling about people out of their names, using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives, and all that ignorance. Don’t do that! Someday, we will be able to measure the power of words. I think that they are things. I think that they get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get into your rugs, and in your upholstery, and in your clothes. And finally, into you.”

Further links:

• The five steps of dehumanization, by Clara Riggio
• Language has the power to divide as well as unite, by Jon Margolis
• The power of language: How words shape people, culture, by Alex Shashkevich
• How the way we talk both unites and divides us, by Allison White

During this past year, many of our neighbors have friends and family who have died or been very sick from the covid virus. Mr. Rogers did not shy away from conversations about death and if we needed it, gave us permission through example to talk to children about this subject by telling a simple truth; that losing someone you loved is hard and it’s really okay to cry, feel sad and sorry, and sometimes angry. Here is the question he asked a child about a tough subject that also involves loss. Mr. Rogers: “tell me about your parents divorce.” Child responds, “Mom and Dad used to fight a lot.” Mr. Rogers, “That must have been difficult for you.”

Note there is no sermon here—just an acknowlegement of pain.

As we try to heal from all that we endured in 2020, let’s think of one person who will sit with us in silence as we give time to gather our thoughts and who loved us into being who we are today. Fred Rogers loved children, all children, those who struggled with disabilities, tall ones, short ones, grownup size, and even that 13 year old that so needs acceptance just the way she is, but yearning at the same time to be special.

The Seattle Peace Chorus often sings one of our favorite songs, “Unity,” and the first line says, “Where there is unity, there is strength.” To be an example of solving conflicts and to accept and respect our differences will take hard work. Going forward, I would much rather hear my grandson recognize that real strength has to do with being kind and asking, “Would you be mine, could you be mine, won’t you be my neighbor?”

Resources:

• 5 conflict resolution skills that will help your child in school
• Fred Rogers Productions

“Love and trust, in the space between what’s said and what’s heard in our life, can make all the difference in this world.” — Mister Rogers

“It’s important to make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.” — Barack Obama

“Not the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger.” — Chinese Proverb

For many years, I had reached a good agreement with my southern neighbor who raised eight children in the large modern house. We were very friendly and one time the father walked around the block with me and we both played our blues harmonicas as we strolled. There is no substitute for a blues harmonica bond and we could discuss any problem we had very civilly. When they sold the house, there was a gigantic rehab needed on the house and I went over and became pretty good friends with the lead contractor, Ray. Ray loved to show me his innovative panelling, and planter boxes that he was building with built in watering systems. At one point there was a real problem with one of his workers who was living at the place and we managed to work it out.

I was saddened to see my former neighbors go, and the next buyer took the house and divided it up in such a way that made it possible to run the place like a boarding house with seven different tenants, all with their own cars, and with people changing every few months. Right away, the narrow little pocket of street in front of my house was filled all the time and I had to park a block away.

I first tried a neighborly welcome wagon greeting and a polite request about the parking. Again, they had a full garage and large driveway and more off-street parking on the other side of the driveway. But every few months there was someone new living there. I wrote letters and implored with mixed success.

Then a dog started barking all day long in the back yard and a smoker sat every night in the same place with a six pack of beer and the breeze would carry the smoke right into my house. The fresh air that I so enjoyed by leaving my window slightly ajar now smelled like air from the bar down the street. I was truly vexed and under a lot of stress with the impact these neighbors had on my once peaceful neighborhood.

Of course this is not a big problem in the larger scheme of things, and I could count my many blessings of being well fed and having a roof over my head; yet I know that you can relate to this difficulty, and I bet there are thousands of challenging neighbor stories among you dear readers. The question is how to deal with them with peaceful communication and actually improve the situation.

Here is how I proceeded:

• I found the phone number of the contractor who had remodeled the house whom I had befriended. I asked him to ask the owner of the house (who was never seen) to ask the renters to try to park somewhere beside right in front of my house. I followed this up with a $50 gift certificate to the Snappy Dragon restaurant (remember those days of going to wonderful Chinese restaurants?)
• Then I wrote another letter in which I waxed on about the benefits of having a good neighbor. We often have power outages that split right along our property, where this neighbor may lose electricity and I still have my lights on. I told them about my harmonica neighbor who had previously lived there and how he could depend on me to throw him an extension cord from my house to his. I loved being able to help my neighbor in this way and he did not lose the food in his freezer and could run enough lights to read his kids a bedtime story.
• After, sending the gift certificate and writing this last letter, the parking space in front of my house cleared up, my friend at the Snappy Dragon told me the gift certificate had been used and so far we are at peace. I still have to park a block away at times with various deliveries but not every day.

I will save the stories of the barking dog and the smoke blowing through my window. Guess which was the hardest problem to solve?

Moral of the story: it is much more likely that one can solve neighborly disputes if there is friendship cultivated and help offered long before the conflict. As Bill Cote once told me, you must wage peace, not war.

I wish you all good health and serenity,
Fred West

Although none of us desire to expose ourselves to COVID-19 in large crowds, we did decide to purchase a rolling amplifier, so we could create “audio” versions of the same songs we’ve so often used to great effect. We reasoned that we could bring the amplifier to local events. For marches, we could play our audio creations from a street corner as participants pass, wearing our masks and keeping appropriate social distance. At rallies, we could simply ask for a space from which to do the same, being sure to obtain permission from organizers. We’ve already done this at a BLM march downtown on the day after the last election.

I’d like to emphasize that our purpose in all this, is not simply to express ourselves and our ideas through song. We have always felt, and especially now, that the presence of vocal music promoting peace can have a calming effect in situations that have the potential to shift toward anger and physical violence. To that end, we have also produced a new banner, to supplement the SPC banner we’ve so long carried. It reads, “Stand Against Violence/Protect Our Democracy.” This reinforces our primary message that peace is a necessary context for social justice. Many have criticized demonstrations taking place in our city, because of property damage that has too often ensued, even though the majority of protesters remain peaceful. So, we intend to proceed with our plan, exercising appropriate caution.

But, returning to the lines I began with, all of us need to think deeply about what communicating peacefully means at time when tensions are all around us, locally and nationally. We hear the word “unity” a lot. Many think if we all could just find a way to “reconcile” our differences, our path forward will be easier. But what does this mean, when what divides us stems from our deeply held beliefs, so closely tied to our emotional being and feelings of self-worth? What are our pre-conceived ideas about those with whom we disagree on political and social issues? How does our own “confirmation bias” lead us away from others? Can we challenge our own perceptions in order to engage in honest dialogues with them? How can we put ourselves in contact with these “others,” with whom we assume ourselves to be so keenly at odds? What might we gain from such “peaceful communication”?

In the end, such a dialogue may well have to be far more “internal” than we imagine. I can’t help but think of a moment I was involved in mid-2015, when the Republican nominee was clear. I was getting gas at a forward pump, when a nice-looking matronly woman pulled in at the spot behind me. As she got out of her car, our eyes met. She was also looking directly at the tailgate of my truck, festooned, as it was with various leftish exhortations. She said, smiling, something to the effect that we would clearly be having different ideas in the voting booth. Then, as she watched my face, and before I’d even responded, she remarked, “Well, I guess that’s the end of this conversation.” I immediately apologized and said something inane like, “I’m sure you’re a very nice person.” Talk about needing an “internal” discussion.

I’ve often remembered that “missed opportunity” with great embarrassment. I urge us all to look, and especially “listen,” for such opportunities as we pursue a shared future with all “others” around us.