Is It Possible To Have An Honest Conversation On The Politics Of Race In America? Part 2: Anatomy Of A Failed Dialogue

For the past few years, I’ve made several pleas to have an honest dialogue with someone – ANYONE – from an opposing viewpoint, be it with respect to politics or race relations in America. Though my pleas have generally fallen on deaf ears, I’m still hopeful it can and will happen.

If that dialogue ever does take place, I hope it goes better than this hot mess.

A honest conversation is one where someone presents an opinion, but can also back it up with a set of facts or beliefs. That’s what will lead to a better understanding between participants. It’s a whole heckuva lot easier to understand and empathize with someone when you know ‘why’ they feel the way they do. That didn’t happen in this video.

This was merely a loosely-facilitated clickbait opportunity by Jubilee to see if Democrats and republicans can see eye to eye, or whatever that’s supposed to mean. A facilitator is present, but at no time do they step in to help clarify any of the statements made or opinions that are offered up as facts; a huge missed opportunity if the goal was a better understanding between the two groups.

There were six participants of varying ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities. Charity, Josh, and Alan are the Democrats. Michael, Hope, and Christy are the republicans. They were presented with the following statements (and a final question):

1. I have the same political beliefs as my parents.
2. My party is misrepresented by the media.
3. I want to make America great again.
4. We should help the underprivileged.
5. The other side’s agenda has caused my life harm.
6. This country is becoming too socialist.
7. Is this nation too divided?

For each statement, the subjects were asked to come forward and discuss if they felt that it applied to them.

[Disclaimer: Much of the following commentary is fairly uncomplimentary of the republican subjects. Some of you likely viewed the commentary as harshly judgmental. It may even offend some of you. That’s okay. These are my opinions. If you’d like to challenge me on these opinions, let’s have our own conversation.]

The presentation began innocuously enough with the first statement, but quickly began to irritate with two of the republican answers to the second statement. When it was read, all six came forward. An expected result. But as soon as they opened their mouths to explain why they believed that to be the case, the republicans immediately started in with their standard victimhood talking points against “the media”.

Michael spouts the well-worn line of how the media supports the agenda of the left, which is patently untrue. Data backs it up, but that never matters to people like him. Christy goes for the “Melania didn’t have any magazine covers like Michelle Obama” narrative, which tells me more about her than it does any perceived media bias.

Though I tried to watch this video with an open mind, I’ll just state for the record that I found very little that was likeable about either of them. I’ll concede that this final edited product might not show them in the best light…but it also might have shown them in a much better light as well.

The segment containing the third statement, and the responses to it, was the trigger that categorically led me to label this sit-down as a failure. You can’t simply toss in a polarizing term like ‘make America great again’, without some form of moderation for focus, and expect it to lead to any form of constructive dialogue.

True to form, Charity and Christy have an intense moment of disagreement that gets ugly, and Michael does what many republicans do when forced to contend with the racism of the statement i.e. he denies any semblance of racism while mentioning “numbers and economic growth”.

I watched the remainder of the session, but I was pretty much ‘done’ with it. Honestly, if I’d been a participant I would have walked out. While I understand that there will always be a lot. of passion in these types of discussion, there has to be some mechanism to work through the passion and help foster understanding. If you throw out grenades as discussion points for ratings/clicks/views, that is all you will get. And none of that will help anyone see ‘eye to eye’. (For the record, this is pretty much the Jubilee ‘model’ for online content.)

This piece is not meant to be a video review. You should watch it, and make your own judgements on its merit, or lack thereof. My goal is simply lay out the reasons why it failed – and failed badly – for me. Lack of moderation, lack of focus, unlikable subjects presented badly, and no sense of anything remotely resembling a positive or transformative outcome from the experience.

When Charity says that republicans are often concerned about what benefits themselves individually versus society as a whole, she speaks for many of us. Sadly, there’s nothing presented in this video or in its republican participants that makes me think otherwise about them, or their lack of empathy toward anyone who is not like them.

If I ever have the type of conversation that I’ve been asking for in my blog, I hope to come out with a better understanding of someone else’s humanity. I would hope that the other person would come away with the same regarding my humanity. This is the only way we will ever have a chance to heal this fractured nation.

Let’s make it happen in 2022.