Genuine Gwyn

It’s no surprise that our country is divided. You don’t have to go very far on social media or on any news outlet to find people who are unable to locate common ground, find humanity in the other party, or even agree about music. Politics, religion, gender ideology, and racial issues are rarely discussed in civil and polite ways. As our different ideas about how the world works become more and more secluded to online echo chambers, we lose sense of the real danger-division itself. 

Politics in the United States has long been an anticipated (or dreaded) topic of conversation at the dinner table or over a coffee. With your conversation partner across the table from you, you were able to interpret their tone, body language, and possible sarcasm. Now with easy access to the internet, you no longer have to interact with a person right in front of you. Instead, you are given the ability to no longer see the person on the other side of the screen as a human. 

In a case study conducted by James Fishkin and Larry Diamond, a group of 526 registered voters from around the US met at a convention in Texas to discuss their political views. During that study, “Many participants described their surprise at finding common ground with one another.”¹ I believe that common ground was found when people were able to see how the policies they were discussing impacted other humans, not someone behind a screen. They also took a poll before and after the conference and found that “Voters at the event on both the left and the right appeared to edge toward the center.”¹ When people find common ground, they connect.

There is a growing divide between religion and the mainstream culture as well. During a survey, the Pew Research Center discovered that “Four-in-ten U.S. adults say there is at least some conflict between their own religious beliefs and mainstream American culture, including 13% who say there is “a great deal” of conflict and 29% who see “some” conflict between their values and the prevailing culture.”² Belief versus culture is a divide that people have been dealing with since the beginning of time. Belief versus belief is also a divide.

 In both of these divisions, however, it is not impossible to work together for the greater good. While not agreeing belief-wise about everything, Project Hospitality based in Staten Island, New York, is a great example of an interfaith establishment.³ Uniting against hunger, disease, and homelessness, Jews, Christians, and Muslims take care of their community, volunteering service hours, food, and money for the cause. Seeing these people from different backgrounds and faiths work together for a common goal proves that when we are focused on taking care of our communities, our religious disputes can fade into the background.

In the culture today, one of the highest tension topics is gender ideology. Many people are divided over being inclusive, without encouraging it; giving complete validation; or complete rejection. The individuals who are most affected by the tension in indecision are, unfortunately, kids. While kids may not be naturally drawn to the same interests as their peers of the same gender, some kids are now seeing this as a bad thing. Something that they should change their gender to accommodate. I believe that instead of perpetuating the ideas that gender is meaningless, or that you must fit into a specific archetype to be a certain gender, we should be teaching our kids that there isn’t a wrong way to be a girl or boy. When those boxes aren’t rigid, there is less need to rebel against them.

 Many people begin to have an issue with the transgender movement when they feel that it is negatively influencing their children, or that spaces are being taken away from biological genders. A survey completed by the Pew Research Center finds, “that a majority of U.S. adults (64%) say they would favor laws that would protect transgender individuals from discrimination in jobs, housing and public spaces such as restaurants and stores. But there is also a fair amount of support for specific proposals that would limit how trans people can participate in certain activities and navigate their day-to-day lives.” A balanced view of this issue is that everyone should be kept safe, but not at the expense of a different group. For this issue in particular there has been the suggestion of a third option for people who do not identify with their biological sex. While that has not been fully accepted or implemented yet, there is much more we need to know about this complex issue before making extreme judgments.

Especially in the media, cultural and racial tensions have grown exponentially in the past several years. In his video What are We Doing to White People? Charlie Cheon states, “[I]n the early 2000s, the mainstream American culture preached about respecting each other’s differences, and not seeing color. Nowadays we say that not seeing color IS racism, that you MUST see color…I’m convinced that this is wrong.” There is much fear, especially online, of offending someone by pointing out differences in lifestyle or culture. This has resulted in the extreme fear of perpetuating cultural appropriation. On the opposite end, people gather their groups around themselves so closely that they block out any connections with others who live differently from them. This makes it harder for them to connect with different viewpoints and cultures, which continues the cycle of misunderstanding the cultures around them.

All of this leads me to believe that our media is teaching us to “other” the humans on the opposite side of any of these issues, and causing us to discredit their humanity. Disagreements can no longer be civil. Debates are no longer rational. Division rules. If we only focus on division, however, the divide will keep growing. It is good to be aware, but our next steps should be to bridge the gap between the divides, instead of just discussing the divides. Your neighbor, who is on the opposite side of the political aisle; the woman wearing a hijab in the grocery store; the trans activist with bright pink hair. They are all humans. We need to give them respect, whether or not they return it. Whether or not they give it first. Our country can not survive on division. It is up to us to pick up the pieces of a shattered nation.

Sources: