We Have Stopped Listening to Each Other

by Irene Daniel

On Monday morning, Tim Wolf, the President of the University of Missouri, resigned in response to student protests and the announcement by Black football players that they would refuse to take the field unless Wolf resigned. I have no particular comment on this latest evidence of the seemingly daily mounting racial divisions in our nation. There will be plenty of those; and most, I'm afraid, will be vicious and venomous, no matter whose side you're on; or from what vantage point the issue is perceived.

I applaud the man, however, for the gracious manner in which he delivered such a difficult message; proclaiming it as an act of love and encouraging all involved to engage in a more meaningful and productive dialogue. He said, "We've stopped listening to each other."

We all have a voice. We all have a point of view. And we all have grievances. And yet, like the story of the Six Blind Men and the Elephant, we all have our own blind-spots. My experience has been that the only way I become aware of my blind-spots is when they are pointed out to me by somebody else. Sometimes that somebody is a friend, and often that somebody is a foe. However the message gets communicated to me, I cannot receive it without actually listening to that somebody.

White privilege that stems from centuries of legalized white supremacy is a real problem in our nation today. It is not spin. It is not distortion. And we are all affected by a subliminally accepted form of discrimination that had been the prevailing attitude for most of our 240 years as a nation, and for generations prior to the Revolutionary War.

Acknowledging white privilege does not mean that ALL white people are racist, or even that most of them are. Most people I know, of any stripe, perceive themselves as fair-minded and unbiased. It does not mean that white people are inherently bad or inherently good. It just means that our society long ago adopted social mores that were unjust and unenlightened; and the long-lasting ripple effects of previous choices are still with us today.

Unless and until we can learn to examine our problems honestly and justly, those problems will remain unresolved. And we cannot engage in the self-examination and reflection necessary to resolve these issues if we cannot listen to one another with some sense of compassion, and an honest desire to create understanding among the many glorious tribes of our humanity.

How to create that effective dialogue for the 21st century?

Watch this space.

                                                                     Copyright 2015, Irene Daniel, all rights reserved.