Moving from hate to understanding
most fervent opponents.
Phelps-Roper didn’t necessarily change the opinions of her Twitter adversaries, she admits, but talking to them in a new way certainly changed her, as she realized she could no longer justify her actions with Westboro Baptist. She and her sister Grace departed from the church, severed their family ties and penned a public apology. ‘RESPECTFUL ENGAGEMENT’
For the past 18 months, I’ve been conducting a similar experiment in what I’ll call “respectful engagement.” Instead of ignoring the emails and tweets that eviscerate or ridicule, I’ve taken to writing “Dear Mary” or “Dear Larry” responses. Addressing my critics by name, I write back and ask in a friendly manner whether they could communicate with me in the same way, keeping to the issues and avoiding personal attacks.
I tell them more about me than all they think they know — that I’m a journalist, aka #enemyofthepeople. I’m also a son, a brother, an uncle and a husband. Kindness and respect beget more of the same,
■ Don’t assume ill intent. Get past that first wave of anger or judgment and remember that the other person is “a human being with a lifetime of experience that shaped their mind.”
■ Ask questions. Accusations lead nowhere. Honest questions tell someone that you’re interested, and even more important, that they’re being heard.
■ Stay calm. We know when we’re not. Raised voices. Interruptions. Fingers pointed. ALL CAPS. Dial down the volume, tell a joke, smile.
■ Make your case. If you want to change someone’s mind, you have to educate them, and that takes work. and then open up the possibility for metamorphosis.
Coincidentally, it was a Washington Post column I wrote about the death of Phelps in 2014 that had this transformative effect on me. A few days after the column was published, I received an email from Lt. Michael Wish, a Marine who could not possibly be more different from me. Wish is straight, pro-gun and a red-state libertarian.
“If I were not deployed at the moment,” he wrote from Afghanistan, “I would love to be at (Phelps’) funeral, in my dress uniform, holding a sign that says, ‘It was my honor to defend your 1st Amendment rights.’ I would hope that an act like that, maybe with other loving messages from the LGBT community, might convince the remainder of Phelps’ flock of the error of their ways.”
In the years since then, Wish’s thoughtful and provocative emails have greatly affected my thinking on many issues — from guns to national security — and demonstrated how each of us has the capacity to listen, process and learn.
Take for instance my view of what it means to be a Marine. After having long dismissed “jarheads” as unthinking, just-following-orders brutes, I came to realize that I was just as biased as those who made incorrect assumptions about me or LGBT folks. I’m grateful to Wish for making the effort to reveal himself, and in the process help me become a better person. Steven Petrow, the author of “Steven Petrow’s Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners,” addresses questions about LGBT and straight etiquette in his column, Civilities.