By Rodney Ferguson
I am opinionated. But in most gatherings I keep my radical (even for the Bay Area) thoughts to myself. At least I thought I did. On most Saturdays, when I play basketball with a bunch of mostly over-the-hill ballers (including Joan Blades) -- she asked me out of the blue if I would be interested in taking part in a Living Room Conversation. Somehow she reconnoitered the fact that I was rather liberal in my leanings, so I would be paired with another one of her liberal friends to talk with two conservatives (which I usually call "regressives"). Unfortunately, she told me that there would be hosts and guidelines to keep things civil.
"Where's the fun in that?" I thought.
She claimed that I could be courteous and still get my points across. I was doubtful, but out of politeness and the prospect of getting to meet a flesh and blood member of the Tea Party, I decided to agree. We were all to meet at Joan's house in Berkeley, and lo and behold this guy shows up wearing a non-ironic cowboy hat. The other "conservative" folks looked a little like holy rollers from the Midwest. Joan, my long time b-ball friend was wearing something other than basketball gear, and I wasn't pimped out in 'fro and dashiki, but I was certainly "ready to rumble." My liberal partner, a young Latina, looked like someone who could hold her own.
The guidelines for Living Room Conversations are aimed at getting to know "the enemy" -- first in an attempt to humanize each other.
"So, let me get this straight. You're a Jewish rancher who was one of the co-founders of the Tea Party?!"
Okay, I thought, this should be interesting. Much like the Mayweather Pacquiao fight, I anticipated we would dance around each other for the first few rounds. So one of us -- I won't mention names, but your hero -- asked an intentionally provocative question. (I'm thinking, let's get this show started!) Things did get a little more, shall I say, "honest." Race came into play, immigration certainly came into play, and I think one of us progressives said out loud, "Oh, no you didn't...!"
For me, polite conversation gets real when you dance on people's issues. But in this conversation, I was called out (correctly and politely) for being insensitive to the life experiences of my conservative interlocutors. The guidelines did keep folks from throwing things at each other.
Although there wasn't much common ground politically, there was some surprising rapprochement personally. I felt a real connection with the Marlboro Man. We found that we both like to hear ourselves talk and we're both always right, but occasionally, we can both be somewhat reasonable. But bromance aside, the honesty of real people grappling with intractable issues and deeply held beliefs takes political discussion to an emotionally profound level. The intensity of the Living Room Conversation format combines a year's worth of late-night dorm discussions into concentrated and heady elixir.
Since that first LRC, I've been invited to a few more. Each time, Joan finds these notable (okay, notorious) conservatives to get involved in these conversations, and each time we end up sharing stories, jokes, opinions and fellowship.
Seldom do all of our issues get resolved. I mean, conservatives are still conservative; but after about a couple of hours, usually a workable solution to some huge problem pops out of someone's mouth and EVERYONE nods their heads in agreement. Okay, so that's not always quite how it goes. After some rather pointed discussion, we unconsciously start to search for common ground. Once we discover it, smiles appear on faces and ideas start coming out of everyone. We usually notice the entire atmosphere change. Being a liberal, I wanted to break out in "Kumbaya My Lord", but being a godless heathen, I don't know the words.
In my first conversation, our collective eureka moment came when we discovered that we all agreed on the fact that the criminal justice system was broken. Team liberal was upset about how unfair sentencing, mandatory sentencing, prison overcrowding, etc. The conservatives were mostly upset about the costs of keeping folks locked up, but also about the effect of long prison terms on families. Who knew? It is fun now to see that one of the only areas of agreement currently in Washington, on both sides of the aisle, is prison reform.
It's after the conversation ends that you really begin to see the whole point of doing something that crazy. Months later, when you're watching TV and some idiot on Fox says something so f@$king preposterous that you want to strangle him with your TV cable, you remember that maybe if you talk to this person for two hours, over brownies and good cheer, he might say something that halfway makes sense, or better, you might actually say something that doesn't sound like some liberal, unrealistic, short-term, expensive, do-good dreaming.
Formerly with the U.S. Department of Education, Rodney Ferguson works for Literacy for Every Adult Project at the Richmond (California) public library. He recently published a book, Being and Happiness and enjoys blogging and teaching GED students on his Youtube channel.