Using Empathy To Bridge the Divide Between the Polarized
What can and should journalists do to bridge differences and facilitate civil discussions?
In a high school classroom, mitigating arguments is fairly commonplace — some may say it’s a part of the job requirement. High schoolers are people, and people are bound to disagree with one another. Add some hormones and teenage angst into that mix, and you’ve got yourself an all-out verbal war.
Getting the students to stop arguing is not too hard — you are, after all, a teacher, who holds the power to control the conversation in the room, to steer it back on track when it becomes problematic. And eventually, I learned how to conduct discussions in a way that didn’t lead to fights, and made sure to instill, in my curriculum, lessons about how to debate civilly over a topic while maintaining respect for one another. Yet still, these disagreements would happen, and nasty words would fly.
After a debate is over, there’s always the question of Did these two people (students or not) really hear each other? Or did they simply prepare their next talking point while the other was speaking? I don’t think I ever quite figured out how to get other students to listen to each other when talking about really difficult issues — I mean the issues that arise from a student’s personal life and world views, not ones that are manufactured from an in-class assignment.
One of my most difficult days as a teacher — and I promise we’ll get back to journalism soon — happened one morning before the day even began around 6:50 in the morning. It involved two students who got into a physical altercation over the use of the N-word. Both students — whose names I will withhold for privacy — were in my eleventh grade regular English class. The young man was black, and the young woman was white. Apparently, the young woman had used the N-word whilst talking to her friend before class. I was in the room, but had not heard it. The young man, upon hearing this word, then turned to the young lady and said “if you say that word again, I’m gonna flip your desk.” Flipping a desk is exactly what it sounds like: lifting up a desk and flipping it on its side while another student is sitting in it to inflict harm. The young lady did not heed this threat, and used the N-word again. The young male student then followed through with his threat, and flipped her desk, knocking her to the ground, shocking everyone in the classroom, including me who had been too focused on preparing the lesson to notice.
The aftermath of this incident was somewhat of a mess. I had to protect both of my students, even though I knew one of them — the one who had gotten physically hurt — was wrong in her viewpoint that using the N-word as a white person is acceptable. A few days later, after things calmed down a bit, I asked another teacher to come sub-in for my class for a few minutes first period, so I could sit down with both students and try to facilitate some meaningful discussion. I had done my research on how to talk to students about the N-word, and was almost excited (I know, cringe) to turn a tragic event into a “teachable moment about the power of words” (this is what all education professors will tell you when you ask them what to do in this situation).
But, both of my students were really adamant about their opinions. I jumped in to help the young man defend his views. (note: I did not endorse his violent actions. We discussed the implications of acting out of anger and made it clear that his decision to physically act out was wrong). The three of us stood outside by the picnic tables on a hot Florida day, discussing race and oppression and equality, for a while. I let them speak, but chimed in every once in a while, to add a point, or give my opinion. As an educator, I felt okay explaining to my white student why she was wrong, and not remaining neutral on the subject. I ask myself now, as a journalist, would I have felt empowered to do the same thing?
Despite all of this, the two did not come to an agreement. They were civil with one another as they spoke, but it was clear that we weren’t getting anywhere. Slightly defeated, I sent them back to class, and things started to go back to normal.
In the following weeks, I started to notice that my student — the one who had flipped the desk — was slowly declining in his class participation, and soon withdrew from any class interaction all together. He would come to class, act up in some way, interrupt me, avoid doing any work at all, try to leave class, disrupt others, and sometimes just act down right rude. I was really frustrated with him. Mainly, because he was so smart, but was sabotaging himself by failing out of school. I tried to understand him by going to guidance counselors, researching his home history (turns out, it was not great), showing interest in his hobbies — art, and talking with him one on one. I tried everything possible to break through to this kid. But we still bumped heads, and his performance in my class never really improved.
So how does this relate to journalism?
Helping people understand the world around them by giving them the facts they need is a journalist’s most important job. Since people are a part of this world, getting people to understand one another is in our job description.
Spaceship Media is a company, founded by journalists, that strives to do just that: get people to converse and understand one another: “dialogue journalism.” Two of their journalists, Kristine Villanueva, and Alyxaundria Sanford came to talk to our class last week about one of Spaceship Media’s most successful projects, The Many. The Many facilitates discussions between traditionally polarized groups on Facebook. After reading into an article about one of these discussions between a liberal and conservative woman, I came across this:
The Many has yielded some lessons about a path forward: People need a lot of help to learn from people they disagree with. Even with intense moderation, things can go off the rails — and facts don’t change anyone’s mind. -Molly Bloom
The last part stuck with me. How are we supposed to change someone’s mind if they are not moved by the facts? With my students, I used facts to try to change someone’s opinion, and had failed.
The article goes on to talk about how there’s evidence in the groups that reveal that facts don’t change anyone’s original viewpoint. Walker Pettigrew, a member of The Many and earlier Spaceship groups, painted the scene:
Those conversations go like this:
“What! How can you people think this way?”
“What! How can you people think this way?”
“Then somebody posts an article that says here’s a fact about my point of view that makes me right. Then somebody else posts an article that says these are the facts about my point of view that show your point of view is a bunch of hot garbage,” she said.
This may feel like a defeat, but Bloom’s article goes on to recount a story of a white woman who recalled having her “eyes opened” about race after reading another black woman’s story about the racism she experiences in her everyday life. There were a few other stories like this to provide evidence for the fact that personal stories resonate with people much more than facts do.
Adding the humanity back into the conversation seemed to be much more effective in these conversations than any fact or statistic when getting people to hear each other. It might be the closest we can get to getting people to empathize with one other and look at one another as humans instead of “the other side” or political parties. It seems like a really simple, and maybe obvious point, but it makes sense.
I used to use NPR’s StoryCorps stories as listening exercises in a small group tutoring class, which focused on drilling language-arts skills to prepare students for their state tests. The students were required to listen to the story two times before going to their questions, which they could only answer from memory. StoryCorps shorts were great for this because they were concise and interesting. One story stood out to me in particular; it was about a mother whose son Gabe, was assigned female at birth, but always knew he was supposed to be a boy. At eight years old, Gabe told his mother that he was transgender, and the story touches on their relationship as mother and son. I remember my students’ (who I remember were mostly male 9–10th graders) reaction to this: profound confusion, a lot of questions, some judgement. But they reacted with real interest and wanted to know more.
I realized that this was maybe the first time these students had really heard a genuine story about a transgender person told by a transgender person. Everything they knew about transgender people is derived from someone else — social media, the media, their friends who aren’t transgender etc. This story was so much more important for them than I could predict, because they actually listened to it, heard it, then were able to form an opinion based on someone’s real experience. At the very least, the story brought them that much closer to a community they were not apart of. The story built a bridge to a place they wouldn’t dare go on their own, due to fear of the unknown.
So what’s the point, teach?
This point is that bridging differences in journalism is probably just as hard as facilitating civil discussion in an eleventh-grade classroom. It can get just as messy. Engaging with people on a personal level, and focusing on putting empathy back into the equation, is important for bridging differences — especially ones that are delicate and personal.
I’ve also come to realize the possibility of failure, and understanding that I, a white female, was not the person my student needed to hear from. My experiences were not relevant in this situation, and my students really could have benefitted from hearing other voices. It is now my job to elevate a platform for these “other” voices, and hopefully find a way to bridge divides using empathy and personal stories as tools.
