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Breaking bread

It’s no secret: Americans are divided.

This year, the “America at a Crossroads” team focused on communities where people are trying to bridge their differences. ([link removed])

For this holiday season, PBS News’ Judy Woodruff shares some tips she heard from folks across the country.

We hope these lessons help you through some tough family conversations in the coming weeks.

This newsletter was compiled by Joshua Barajas. ([link removed])
5 TIPS FOR NAVIGATING TENSE HOLIDAY CONVERSATIONS
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Judy Woodruff sits down with college professor and activist Loretta Ross. Photo by Sarah Clune Hartman
By Judy Woodruff
Senior Correspondent

I set out almost three years ago to travel the country and talk with as many ordinary Americans as possible to understand why we’re so deeply divided.

If a tough conversation emerges before dinner is even served, perhaps these are lessons you’ll want to try yourself.

Believe it or not, there are a lot of them. We boiled it down to five tips.

1. Act, don’t react

There’s plenty to be angry about. But David Lapp, the co-founder of the national bridging group Braver Angels, says we need to resist the temptation.

Speaking in his hometown of South Lebanon, Ohio, Lapp told me we need to have the courage to do what others will not. It starts with acting and not reacting.

“You got to look within, and you got to be willing to take some personal action instead of just lamenting you know the news or lamenting the other side,” he said.

You have to be curious and actually engage with people on the other side, he added.

Lapp brought together a group of citizens with opposing views on immigration and found far more agreement among them than anyone had imagined.

(The full story will air sometime next week. You can find the segment after it airs here. ([link removed]) )

2. Keep it local
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Watch the segment in the player above.
So much of the national news is filled with conflict and argument or politicians squaring off against each other.

Journalist Jim Fallows had advice for getting people to open up: Avoid national politics.

“It sort of immediately ends the conversation,” he said of national politics. “People are either in one camp or the other. If you ask them, ‘What's the story of this town? Are kids moving in or moving away? What's happening with the port? What's happening with the water supply?’ they are the experts and you can learn from them.”

Fallows and his wife, Deb, a writer, toured the country by single-engine plane several years ago, telling the stories of different communities. Last January, I met up with them in San Bernardino, California, near where Jim grew up. We found an exuberant boxing coach determined to offer after-school activities to teens ([link removed]) feeling isolated and without options.

3. ‘Tell me more’

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Watch the segment in the player above.

At the other end of the country, in Northampton, Massachusetts, college professor and activist Loretta Ross told me that after years of shouting at people she disagrees with, she’s come to understand that asking a few simple questions can accomplish much more.

“Tell me more.” These are the three most important words you can use in a conversation, she said.

“If you bring your honest sense of inquiry, you can have a conversation with anybody,” Ross said. “I swear, people love telling you about themselves if you give them an invitation. And you're having a conversation, instead of a fight, it's just that easy.”

Ross sat down with me in July to talk about her newest book, “Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You'd Rather Cancel.” She spells out the approach ([link removed]) she’s developed after a difficult childhood, followed by a lifetime of fierce advocacy over reproductive justice and feminist theory.

4. Don’t try to change minds. Open them

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Watch the segment in the player above.

That was advice from Wilk Wilkinson, a former truck driver and trucking company manager in rural Minnesota. He was outraged over lockdown rules and federal government mandates about masking and vaccines during the COVID pandemic. He argued that Washington had overstepped its role.

Through Braver Angels, Wilkinson met Dr. Francis Collins, the former head of the National Institutes of Health and a principal figure behind many of the mandates Wilkinson rebelled against. After many hours of hard conversations, they found common ground ([link removed]) on an approach to people we disagree with.

“You don't try to change minds. You just try to open them,” Wilkinson said. “We need to get out amongst the communities again. We need to talk to our neighbors. We need to engage our family members in uncomfortable conversations, but understand that you can approach a contentious topic in a non-contentious way.”

Collins said he and Wilkinson got to the point of “really spending time understanding each other's perspective, not that we completely agree on everything.”

“I think he's wrong about stuff, and I'm sure he thinks I am,” Collins added.

Collins and Wilkinson sat down with me around the dining table at Collins’ home outside Washington, D.C., last spring. You’d never know not so long ago they were on bitter opposite ends of the COVID divide. Today, they are good friends.

5. The loudest voices don’t represent the majority
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Watch the segment in the player above.
In Bowling Green, Kentucky, we visited a community that’s using artificial intelligence — of all things — to help people find common ground. ([link removed])

Jigsaw, an offshoot of Google, has an ambitious mission to “research and develop tools to confront the world’s greatest challenges.” The company pitched itself to local leaders who wanted to understand how citizens would want their community to change and grow, but were having a hard time finding out their views.

Jigsaw helped create an AI-driven survey that greatly increased civic engagement. CEO Yasmin Green told me what drove her and Jigsaw to offer help.

“When most of us don't participate, then the people who do are usually the ones that have the strongest opinions, may be the least well-informed, angriest, and then you start to have a caricatured idea of what the other side thinks and believes,” she said. “One of the most consequential things we could do with AI is to figure out how to help us stay in the conversation together.”
More stories from the Crossroads team:
* The rise of viral debate videos and how they affect our ability to disagree. ([link removed])
* In Kentucky’s coal country, this community is working to heal political divisions. ([link removed])
* Robert Putnam reflects on how America became so polarized and what can unify the nation. ([link removed])
* How this Wisconsin group drew more conservatives ([link removed]) into bridge-building efforts.

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