Building Bridges… Even With Those Who Dehumanize?

When I was fresh from college and unsure what came next, I found myself in a career-counseling session that suggested I wasn’t very good at a great many things. Still, there was hope for me, given my instinct to connect. I was characterized as a “bridge-builder” and advised that a profession—like teaching—that featured plenty of human contact would suit me. It did, for twenty years. More recently, ready for whatever came after the thing that came after college, I leaned even more heavily into my bridge-building tendencies, writing a book called Learning to Depolarize and starting Middle Ground School Solutions to help prepare today’s students to ease tomorrow’s political polarization.

It is my job, then, to help educators reach across lines of divide and find the motivation and tools to help students to do so, because it is clear that political polarization is an enduring challenge that awaits those students. This work generally animates people, although questions arise, one of the most vexing of which speaks to a quote widely attributed to James Baldwin but which is in fact the product of author Robert Jones, Jr. His tweet (since deleted) resonated with many: “We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.” At nearly every presentation I deliver, I am confronted with this question. How, people ask, am I supposed to empathize with, or even tolerate, someone who does not recognize my humanity, or the humanity of those I care for? Is this not a bridge too far?

The question has a simple answer, which is that no one should, in the interest of political diversity or any other project, have to engage with, or humor, or embolden someone who does not recognize one’s basic humanity. And I believe that for many people, in many circumstances, this simple answer is the only one that should matter. Still, we must face the enormity of our country’s challenges, and we must realistically consider the depth of the divides that separate those who might otherwise collaborate to manage those challenges. Is it not in fact the case that some of the most essential bridges may be the ones that allow the most alienated and angry people to migrate away from their islands of certitude? Could there in fact be more than one answer to this central question of whether we engage with those who deny others’ humanity?

For a couple of years—at least—I have thought deeply about this question, and I have sought a wide array of people within and beyond the world of education to help me do so. This past winter I convened a series of conversations with school-based DEI practitioners to discuss the tension inherent in pursuing political tolerance in schools while simultaneously seeking to elevate historically marginalized voices. I turned also to Mylien Duong, Caroline Mehl, and Caroline Jany, whose Aspen Institute report considers a similar tension, and during the National Week of Conversation this spring, Jahmad Canley, Cliff Kayser, and Karith Foster delivered an insightful presentation called “DEI in the Crosswinds” that raised the question of engaging—or not—with those who do not recognize one’s humanity.

I also completed extensive research for my book, and I discovered, interestingly, that we’re pretty lousy at knowing what makes our political opposites tick. We often unfairly generalize, conjuring the most visible and detestable figure from politics or media and attaching our feelings about that person to the political “other”—the parent or student, perhaps—in our midst. Research from More in Common has shown that many Americans from both sides of the aisle have a distorted image of how their political opposites actually think, and other research has shown that our meta-perceptions are out of whack; that is, we tend to think that the political others hold us in lower esteem than is actually the case.

This includes the issue of dehumanization, which an organization called Beyond Conflict has studied closely. “Levels of dehumanization between Republicans and Democrats are concerning,” they write. “But what’s even more concerning are the levels of perceived dehumanization– the degree to which we feel dehumanized by members of an opposing group.” In fact, the researchers say, both Democrats and Republicans overestimate the extent to which the other side dehumanizes them (see the report for more on the methodology).

In short, then, it is true for many of us Americans that our political opposites are not as extreme as we imagine, they do not dislike us as much as we believe, and they do not diminish our humanity to the extent that we suspect they do.

This is not to suggest that dehumanization is a myth. Again, I have come to believe that for many people, in many circumstances, when faced with evidence that they or others are being dehumanized, it is reasonable—maybe even noble—to end the conversation before it begins. However, even as we acknowledge this eventuality, can we also see a crack in the door, a possible opening to pursue? Given the research into our misperceptions, could it sometimes be the case that the premise of our statement—that we will not engage with those who dehumanize others—is worth interrogating to check first that we have our facts straight? If so, an appropriate response may, in some cases, be inquiry: Who, exactly, am I referring to? What has happened that leads me to believe that person or those people do not recognize another’s humanity? We do not need to humor those who hate, but the research into misperceptions suggests that for some people, some of the time, we may be quite a bit off base; many people are not as monstrous as we imagine them to be.

I will even go out on a limb and question whether we should always categorically cut off dialogue with those who do display incontrovertible evidence of dehumanization, because inspiring models suggest there may be another option. These include Dylan Marron, author of the book, Conversations with People Who Hate Me, and host of a podcast by the same name, who engages in dialogue with people who have previously subjected him to dehumanizing online rhetoric. They include the anonymous former classmates of Derek Black, once an avid white supremacist who wrote in The New York Times that his exit from the world of white nationalism began with the outreach of “people who chose to invite me into their dorms and conversations rather than ostracize me.” Through the American Listening Project, Lisa Allen Ortiz tells the tale of the belligerent Nazi whose ire and energy softened in the fifteen minutes she devoted to listening attentively to him.

The potential to disarm hatred through engagement is perhaps most astonishingly epitomized by a documentary called Stranger at the Gate, which tells the story of a former US marine named Mac McKinney, who, bristling with the Islamophobia he accumulated during his military service abroad and returning home to to find his country infested, resolved to kill as many Muslims as possible. McKinney trained his sights on a local Islamic center, which he intended to bomb, and which he visited as a form of reconnaissance. Against all odds, he was welcomed by that community, to which he ultimately devoted himself. As Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai points out in a PBS interview about the film, violence is bred by dehumanization, which can, as it was in Muncie, Indiana, be disrupted through loving engagement.

Temperamentally, I am suited to the work of bridge-building; the career counselor had it right. I am also cloaked in layers of privilege—as a white, cisgender, heterosexual male—that make it less difficult for me to engage in this work than it is for some. If I have a “red line,” some sort of criteria to determine if I will or will not engage with the “other,” I have not yet found it. I recognize, though, that for many reasons, in many circumstances, another person may feel differently. If the question, then, is, “How do you expect me to engage with someone who does not recognize my humanity, or the humanity of people I care for?” my answer is, “I don’t.” But my answer could also, at times, be a gentle, “What makes you say this person does not recognize others’ humanity?”

I would also hope to be able to say this to those are receptive: “If you can stomach it, yes, please do engage, and know that in doing so you could be saving those whose humanity this person does not yet recognize.”