Moving ahead as a nation means facing hard truths

Since that fateful election night in November 2016, there has been no shortage of political punditry and newspaper inches devoted to advice on how to move forward from this tumultuous time in our country’s history. As the actions of President Donald Trump have devolved into a chorus of children and parents pleading for mercy and crying in pain, we have read in the media that the solution to political dysfunction is to bring civility back to our dialogue.

That theory seems to assume that the act of disruption — of making noise or making a scene — is inherently unconstructive. And it may be to an elite member of government or society whose privilege affords him other methods of action.

People who are already in the room where it happens need not bang on the door to get in. But people of color, women, and other underrepresented groups have been locked out of the policy debates for a long time. No more. We deserve a say. And privileged members of society will have to excuse us for resorting to alternative methods of getting heard.

In truth, this nostalgia for civility during previous civil rights struggles harkens back to a time when homogeneous groups of legislators, largely insulated from the effects of our most painful social ills, were the only ones debating policy. The moral baseline guiding these discussions was created without input from marginalized communities. It is much easier to calmly discuss racism and give a measured response to hate when you’ve never been a member of the targeted class.

For people of color, our protests against the separation of migrant children and parents, our anger at the increasing influence of white supremacist ideology in our government, and our outrage at increasingly common attempts to weaponize police interactions with brown and black communities are deeply personal.

We don’t have the luxury of looking at these issues with detachment when hateful words and actions are directly targeting members of our families and communities simply because of our race or ethnicity, our citizenship status, or whom we choose to love. Asking us to endure these tragedies without emotion is asking us to deny our humanity. There will be outrage. There will be salty language and moral debates that turn personal — because there isn’t a part of this isn’t personal for us.

There is a way forward, but at this important moment in our history, we must focus less on the tone of dialogue, and more on the message. Still, there is a place for outrage and anger in productive conversations. Indeed, one can argue that any dialogue where honest emotions are suppressed, where euphemisms dull the discourse is counter-productive because it hides the truth.

We can’t move forward as a nation without facing our conflicts head-on. Some countries have had success using a “Truth and Reconciliation” model that recognizes the need to acknowledge and validate the deep and pervasive pain and damage caused by hate. They recognize that productive and inclusive progress can only be made by creating space for that pain, and a space for others to learn about it, listen to it, and to try and understand it.

That’s a model Americans can learn from as we struggle to process the anger and hurt of marginalized communities that have yet to be adequately acknowledged by the powerful in our society. If our leaders refuse to see us, or hear us, how can we ever feel fully present in this country? How can we ever see past the divisions to the strong and diverse country we hope to be?

The way forward for many people of color and members of marginalized communities won’t be guided by the words of elder white statesmen or experts opining on television. It will be guided by the lessons of our grandparents and great grandparents, shared through stories at the knee of an older generation who lived through episodes of open racism and hate that touched them personally every day. This group of elders not only survived routine indignities and humiliation, their protests — impolite, disruptive and rebellious as they were — gave us a roadmap we can follow on our path from darkness to hope. Their lessons — and their methods — must be part of our struggle to become equal participants in our democracy. As a person of color, I respect the right of the privileged in this country to take the smooth, polite route toward understanding. They should respect my right to take the rough roads available to me. We can only hope that someday, we’ll end up in the same place.