A Conversation about Hate
by Ron Gross, Socratic Conversations; Co-chair,
Columbia University Seminar on Innovation; columnist, ABOUT.com
In this new column, Ron Gross will share ideas, techniques, and experiences, including topics for sessions, facilitation strategies, and promotional tips. Ron conducts his Socratic Conversations at Columbia University and throughout New York City, writes a column on lifelong learning for About.com, and is the author of SOCRATES' WAY (www.SocratesWay.com ) and 20 other books. While the form of Socratic conversations is somewhat different from Conversation Cafés, the principles and intentions are very much the same. His (and Socrates') wisdom can help us all have livelier, richer, deeper conversations. - Vicki Robin
You're an African-American, and you come to work one morning to find a noose hanging on the knob of your office door.
It happened to Madonna Constantine at Teachers College, Columbia University, a couple of months ago.
The immediate response to this shocking act was just what one would hope for. The entire College community rallied to denounce the incident. Students gathered in the street outside Constantine's office shouting “We've got your back.” There was a Town Meeting where everyone could express their reactions. There were special meetings of departments, administrative units, and other work-groups to address the issues. Changes were initiated in policies and practices.
So I was surprised when I received a call asking if I would conduct a Socratic Conversation as an additional response. (I facilitate such sessions twice a month on the campus.) What might such a conversation add, that was not already being achieved by the outpouring of support, sympathy, and commitment?
To encourage a different kind of discussion, I titled the session “Nooses”, because it seemed important to define the scope more broadly than the specific incident at TC. (Already, over 20 “copy-cat” nooses had appeared throughout the Greater New York region, as well as some swastikas targeted at Jewish people and institutions).
At 4 p.m. on a Monday afternoon, about 30 people turned out, and they were diverse in every respect: young students and doctoral candidates; Hispanic, African-American, Asian, Native-American; gender-balanced.
Among them was the president of the College, Susan Furhman – but on this occasion, instead of sitting upfront as she properly had at the many prior meetings, she simply filled out a tent-card with “SUSAN,” and took a place in the circle.
As always, our group met in a “salon” area of the Gottesman Libraries, to avoid the formality of a classroom or even a meeting room. We sit in a circle in armchairs; attendance is entirely voluntary and unregulated, without any organizational pressures.
In welcoming the participants, I dedicated our session to Prof. Constantine's courageous affirmation: “I will not be silenced.” I noted that using threats to intimidate, goes back to the beginning of the Western tradition, when Socrates, in whose name we convene, was given the hemlock. Down the centuries, “Nooses” of different kinds have been a perennial form of hate-crime, even in communities which seemed enlightened: Periclean Athens, Senecan Rome, Paris in the Terror, Weimar Germany. “Nooses” – whether they are hemlock, pyres, guillotines, swastikas, or references to homicidal American racism – are intended to silence and frighten.
From the start of the session, the participants expressed their passion, commitment, and righteous anger. “The way I see it, that noose wasn't hung on the door of a Black person,” declared one white participant. “It was hung on the door of an American. We are all in this together. Such behavior can't be tolerated.”
But accompanying this outrage, there were three significant ways in which this meeting was different from the other gatherings I'd attended.
First of all, people interacted in some new ways. The small size of the group, its diversity, and the circular seating, encouraged eye-to-eye communication. This was very different from standing up in a large meeting to say your piece, or sitting with co-workers with whom you have other “baggage.”
These characteristics of the conversation were exemplified right at the start, when the first person to speak, a middle-aged African-American TC alumni, said: “If it had happened to me, I would have thrown that noose into a trash can and forgotten about it.” It seemed clear that no one in the group had heard anything like that said at any of the prior meetings! In the next few minutes, this provocative viewpoint was both supported and challenged by others in the circle, including:
“I agree – this is just the work of a mentally-disturbed person who needs to be stopped, then needs help.”
“But the next time, couldn't it turn out to be an explosive?!”
“Yes! -- most of the nooses have appeared in places where there's much more threat of real violence, like firehouses, schools, and police stations.”
“That's right – I read about a fireman who was targeted, and told reporters: ‘Whoever did this could be standing behind me in a burning building tomorrow.'”
“It's like the ‘broken window' theory – you've got to have zero-tolerance or those things go further.”
“But in this case, the press coverage seems to have prompted ‘copy-cat' nooses – so giving it attention can make it worse.”
At which point the person who started this sequence said: “I really hadn't realized those points about the explosive, and the broken windows. Ignoring it would not be the right thing to do.”
Second, the conversation was notably wide-ranging, both experientially and intellectually. Here, there was enough time for participants to share experiences with hate-crimes which they or members of “their” group had experienced.
Intellectually, participants reflected on the “nooses” from perspectives they had been studying or teaching or learning about on their own, including citations from Freire, the Feminist Ethics of Care, Social Psychology, Ethnography, Literature, Political Science, and Religion.
Third, this Conversation was productive on the individual rather than on the organizational level. Each participant was invited to compose a brief statement at the end; these were collated and made available afterwards. None of the other the meetings I'd attended, had invited this expression of what participants had learned as a result of the process.
Here are excerpts from the “Evals”, in answer to the question: “What, if anything, did you get from this session that was different from other meetings you have attended on this situation”:
“insights which I never would have had myself,”
“different viewpoints than any I had heard elsewhere,”
“new questions I had not thought of asking,”
“personal experiences that were very moving,”
“critical ways of thinking this through,”
“fellowship which embraced different viewpoints.”
“I felt free to speak frankly, but I also felt challenged to express my views clearly.”
“The talk here was mostly free of the need for political correctness or posturing.”
“I valued the fact that people responded to what others said, built on it, or qualified it – rather than just waiting for their chance to talk.”
I don't know how lasting these effects may turn out to be – each of us has much work to do on ourselves, to adequately address this barbarism in our culture. And if conversation is part of an adequate response, it has got to be on-going, pervasive, and cumulative – not just a one-shot. (In recognition of this, we will conduct at least one session each semester on a relevant issue, following the recommendation in 10 Ways to Fight Hate on Campus, published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which cites such conversations as a successful intervention based on experience at Indiana University, Bloomington).
But I do believe that we took a first step in the right direction, simply by gathering in a circle to honor the courage of a colleague, and to talk together as honestly and intelligently as we could.