I’m a communicator. I’m a writer and a professional facilitator, and I like to talk — to share stories, ideas, feelings, beliefs. I like to listen, and learn, and I like to understand. Much of the joy or healing or growth in my life comes through conversation.
And so this election season has been deeply frightening to me because so many of us have stopped talking to each other. We’ve divided into our issue groups and our party affiliations, raised our voices at each other in outrage, called each other names, demonized each other. And here we all are, hundreds of millions of us, looking at each other across enormous gaps of values and beliefs about what is good for us and for the United States of America.
The United States of America.
Nicola and I talk about how people can surprise each other sometimes. I think one of the things that has often surprised her is my absolute passion — my brand of patriotism — for the founding principles of the United States of America. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are brilliant as documents and as foundations of government.
I love these documents. I love what they mean and what they promise. They are living ideas for me, and they literally move me to tears. Through these tears, I ask that if you’ve never read them, please please do. Because they are the work of people who overcame deep differences, competing needs, and radically different beliefs to unite. To come together as a nation. To frame a better government than any they had known before. And because of who I am, I look at these documents and I see the United States of America as a great ongoing conversation.
It is in this conversation that we as a nation expose and then explore our differences, and ultimately take action. I believe that the worst parts of our history as a nation come straight from the refusal to listen; and the best parts come from the willingness of people to keep talking, even when it’s hard.
The bedrock of that conversation is our vote.
Please — even if you feel shouted down, marginalized beyond repair, oppressed, ignored, angry, aghast at the drift and discord and divisions that have arisen between us all, please do not leave the conversation. Because if enough of us do stop talking to each other, we will never, never understand. We cannot build bridges through silence. And refusing to vote is the first step to the ringing silence that breaks even the best of ideas and the best of nations.
Please vote. And regardless of the outcome, please, let’s all keep talking to each other.
The story below is long, but I offer it in the spirit of conversation. It’s from the book Bono: In Conversation with Mischka Assayas.
Bono: Harry Belafonte is one of my great heroes… He told me this story about Bobby Kennedy.
Harry remembered a meeting with Martin Luther King when the civil rights movement had hit a wall in the early sixties: [impersonating croaky voice of Belafonte] “I tell you, it was a depressing moment when Bobby Kennedy was made attorney general. It was a very bad day for the civil rights movement.”
And I said, “Why was that?”
Harry said: “Oh, you see, you forget. Bobby Kennedy was Irish. Those Irish were real racists, they didnât like the black man. They were just one step above the black man on the social ladder, and they made us feel it. They were all the police, they were the people who broke our balls on a daily basis. Bobby at that time was famously not interested in the Civil Rights Movementâ¦. We knew we were in deep trouble. We were crestfallen, in despair, talking to Martin, moaning and groaning about the turn of events when Dr. King slammed his hand down and ordered us to stop the bitchinâ: ‘Enough of this!’ he said. ‘Is there nobody here whoâs got something good to say about Bobby Kennedy?’
“We said, ‘Martin, thatâs what weâre telling ya! There is no one⦠There is nothing good to say about him. The guyâs an Irish Catholic conservative bad ass, heâs bad newsâ¦.’
“To which Martin replied: ‘Well, then, letâs call this meeting to a close. We will re-adjourn when somebody has found one redeeming thing to say about Bobby Kennedy, because that, my friends, is the door through which our movement will pass.'”
… that was a great lesson for me, because what Dr. King was saying was: Don’t respond to caricature — the Left, the Right, the Progressives, the Reactionary. Don’t take people on rumor. Find the light in them, because that will further your cause.
— from Bono: In Conversation with Mischka Assayas
I have been angry and I have been afraid. But today I am looking for the light, and I hope you will too.
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