And so begins the season of holiday parties & family gatherings. As we head into what can sometimes be challenging conversational waters at gatherings with friends and family, we’re brushing up on our “difficult conversations” skills by revisiting episode one of our podcast “Thanks for Listening: The Holiday Table.” Image by Tim Sackton CC BY-SA […]
The Season of Difficult Conversations? Read More »
When we launched the “Thanks for Listening” podcast in the fall of 2018, our goal was to explore what seemed like deep and growing political polarization in the U.S., and to find out what was being done about it. We wanted to be able to tell a hopeful story about people and organizations who are working to “bridge the partisan divide in America,” as we said in the opening of each episode. And for both of the authors, hope was something we needed; the political and social dynamics at play at the time seemed to be posing dire stress tests to some of the basic premises of our work.
Reflecting on the Journey of “Thanks for Listening” Read More »
Welcome to the tenth episode of our podcast, Thanks for Listening! What’s the most partisan group in the U.S. today? If you answered the United States Congress, you’ve got company. Recent polling puts Congress’s disapproval rating among Americans at 71%, with 60% ranking partisan bickering, gridlock, and caring about politics more than the country as their top complaints about Congress. Our guest is working
Our guest, Liz Joyner of The Village Square, has been wrestling with questions around bridging the divide around racial justice and the very nature of dialogue. She shares her experience and perspective borne of fifteen years helping people engage across their differences, not by helping people agree, but by helping them to disagree, and keep talking anyway. She describes ongoing and upcoming initiatives from The Village Square to convene difficult conversations about race—and how even well-intentioned conversations all too often devolve into a toxic “us vs. them” dynamic, what she calls “the woodchipper of partisanship.”
Welcome to the eighth episode of our podcast, Thanks for Listening! Our guest, Pearce Godwin, founded and now leads the Listen First Project, and has been steadily building the Listen First Coalition—some 300+ member organizations all working to bridge divides and bring people in this country back together again. Pearce shares his insight about the challenges of coalition–building, the
Thanks for Listening Ep8: Strength in Numbers Read More »
Welcome to the seventh episode of our podcast, Thanks for Listening! This episode explores the challenges inherent in online political engagement. While some of us may have had positive experiences connecting with others around political issues online, we also have seen online spaces become unhelpful, potentially harmful echo chambers for what we already believe, rather than
Welcome to the sixth episode of our podcast, Thanks for Listening! What can communities do to bridge divides and address simmering tensions before they boil over? Our guests on this episode, Becky Monroe and Bill Froelich, ask this question each day in their work at the Divided Community Project, based at the Moritz College of Law
Thanks for Listening Ep 6: Listening for the Divide Read More »
Last time on Thanks for Listening we examined divides – real and imagined – in Kentucky coal country. In this episode, we explore a project that connected folks from Letcher County, Kentucky, with residents of Leverett, Massachusetts. After the 2016 election, when Leverett voted 86 percent for Clinton and Letcher County went 80 percent for
Thanks for Listening Ep5: “It’s Trump Time” Read More »
In this episode, journey with us to Letcher County, Kentucky—the heart of Appalachian coal country. We’ll examine the reality of divides that exist, even in unexpected places, and the inherent fallacy of divides we create by accepting stereotypes about others—and about ourselves.
On July 6, 2016, Philando Castile was shot and killed by a police officer during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. In the weeks and months that followed, systemic issues that had been present below the surface in Falcon Heights and surrounding cities erupted into the open. The atmosphere was one of rage, pain,
