What Donald Trump Has Taught Me About Communities
I’m not going to lie. This past week has been hard. Not just for me, but for millions of Americans and individuals around the world who watched the unsatisfactory and — for lack of a better word — upsetting results of the 2016 US Presidential Election. I sat with four of my closest female friends in my apartment in Harlem as we planned to celebrate our first female President-elect in United States history; instead, we sat stunned and silent as we realized our nation had chosen someone else. It was (and still is) heartbreaking.
However, understanding how Donald Trump won the election is not what is keeping me up at night. What bothers me is that so many of us never even saw it coming.
For the past 11 months I have spent most of my Sunday afternoons bringing seniors adults and young professionals together through technology. These are two generations that typically don’t spend much time together, and not necessarily due to choice but rather because society separates the two. This is the same society that also separates individuals from rural, mostly white communities from those in larger, more diverse communities.
But this is not new information — as a matter of fact, it is ingrained in evolution. It’s what has kept tribes of early peoples safe as they banded together with their own tribe. We naturally gravitate towards individuals who look like us or think like us. It’s comforting, and it’s human nature. However, that mindset can only sustain itself for so long — once you make the decision to stay within your tribe or within your own community, you are limiting yourself to the endless possibilities that exist just outside of your comfort zone.
I’ve been watching senior adults and young professionals extending themselves and discovering new possibilities over the past year in my work with Wire the Wise, a program that provides intergenerational technology meet-ups. I have always been proud of our work, but have further come to realize that these types of connections may not exist unless we create spaces for them.
When I tell people that I spend my time pairing young people with seniors for one-on-one technology lessons, they look at me and say, “Wow. Why hasn’t anyone thought of that already?” And I honestly feel that way, too. We often think that we can only directly benefit from the people and the communities that surround us. But I know this isn’t true. By creating a safe space to bring people of all different walks of life together, we are not only providing opportunities for individuals to share their differences, but we are also exposing their similarities as well.
I am not saying that Wire the Wise is the solution to the myriad of problems our country faces, but I have been incredibly inspired by our work because I know that it has opened the hearts and minds of those within our community. Because we simply gave seniors and young professionals a space to meet, we’ve made seniors more tech-savvy and young professionals a little more wise all while sparking meaningful conversations in the process.
I know that there is so much work to be done, and I also know that bringing people together with vast differences can be a challenge. But if we want our country to move forward, we have to open ourselves up to furthering our knowledge and perspective. We need to find ways to provide resources to communities where diversity and understanding are lacking and create those spaces for one another.
I challenge each of you to create your own version of Wire the Wise in whatever ways you find are needed or lacking in your own communities. To follow us on our journey, click here.
