Make friends with your opposite
What if? What if, in this era when great divisions are ripping our society apart, we each pledged to get to know one “opposite” person before the end of 2018?
Not to convert each other but, rather, to help our understanding. And maybe to try to build a human bridge across today’s terrible civic divides.
Maybe your opposite is someone of another race or religion, a starkly different political persuasion, or another generation (What ARE those kids doing these days?).
Or maybe, if you’re a black rhythm-andblues musician, it’s the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Just ask Daryl Davis, the aforementioned musician, whose hobby for two decades has been making friends of enemies in the KKK.
“We spend way too much time in this country talking about each other or past each other,” said Davis, who was in Orlando to speak at the Valencia University Peace and Justice Institute’s Global Film Festival and Sept. 24-27 Global Peace Week. “I prefer talking WITH each other.” Davis began exploring the KKK because he was trying to resolve a personal question that grew out of his traumatic racist experiences: “How can you hate me when you don’t know me?” The quest took him into personal encounters with KKK leaders.
First, Davis started by listening, then by quiet, respectful discussions. Racism, he decided, is fed by fear that grows out of ignorance. As both talk, they often begin to learn that they have something in common. “Then we can nurture those commonalities and create a friendship. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, the negative things diminish and the common seeds blossom,” he said.
He now owns KKK robes from some of leaders who renounced the Klan after they got to know Davis and rethought their racist beliefs. He and his story have become nationally known through his book, film, media interviews, and personal appearances. Davis’s experiences demonstrate “the healing power of dialogue,” said Sue Foreman, a board member of Valencia’s Peace and Justice Institute. As people talk together, without judgment and with respect, both can grow in self-understanding even as they learn to understand each other. “It can be transformational,” Foreman said. “This is how we create a culture of peace.”
Working one relationship at a time may seem a slow way to heal a divided society, but Davis said the benefits of even one positive relationship can multiply exponentially. “The payoff is, when one person changes, it can change a generation,” he said. “The Imperial Wizard had 200 KKK followers. When he left the Klan, that entire chapter dissolved.”
No question it takes courage to leave our comfort zones. It’s so safe to hang around with like-minded people, whose support and reinforcement we crave in this turbulent time.
But here in print, I am making a personal vow — and I commend it to you, too: I’m going to make a point to spend time with some people who don’t see life from my own perspective. I’ll try to make my first goal to learn and understand.
Thank you, Daryl Davis and Sue Foreman, for reminding me that our society will be better served to stretch across the divides and strike up a respectful dialogue with our opposites, with an open mind, a listening ear and an outstretched hand.