William Walker writes a monthly column, “Take a Breath”, for the Whidbey News-Times.
Moments after my first News-Times column appeared on March 2, Sandi Peterson sent me a message. Perhaps we could have a conversation, she said.
Peterson is president of Civility First, a bipartisan Whidbey organization (yes, there’s such a thing) whose mission includes “civility as a necessary and foundational practice in meaningful public discourse.”
Why does this matter? In 2019, Civility First found 68% of surveyed Whidbey Islanders avoided family members because of political and social polarization. Think about that – two-thirds of us. Polarization leads to alienation. And we give up on relationships with the ones we hold most dear. That’s why it matters.
They Said It
Too often, Peterson sees her organization’s work overshadowed by our intrinsic need to take sides, divide and polarize.
“We are contrarians by nature,” she says. “We like our silos. People are tribal.”
“People have to be willing to look for common ground,” Peterson says, acknowledging that common ground looks weak to some people.
Peterson contends that our normal “listening” mode is in preparation to react; we only hear enough to jump in and interrupt with our own argument. But that isn’t real listening, she says. We need to be curious. We need to ask questions. And we need to be strong enough to learn something from the answers we hear.
“I grew up in a family of politically active Democrats,” she tells me. “I learned politics every day growing up, because we talked about it at home.”
And what happened next? “I became a Republican,” she says with a laugh.
I asked Sandi how she would define an ideal leader in this effort. “A good listener,” she replied quickly. Then, going deeper, “they would let each person get their feelings out and encourage each of us to play to our strengths. They would remind us of our humanity and bring us together through what we all have in common. They would convince us that it’s possible to disagree and to talk about it without fighting. And they would motivate us all, by example, to make that happen.”
[Disclosure: The Voter Interests Project has partnered with Civility First on events.]
