Listen: We Can Heal the Country

Happy Birthday, America. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a party or fireworks this year. Instead, I picked some plums in my backyard and thought about all the problems and turmoil you’re suffering through. It makes me very sad, but I also have hope. I want to tell you about it.

Early July in California is the season of Santa Rosa plums. If you’ve never had a fully ripe Santa Rosa straight off the tree, you’re missing something. Taut and fragile, warm from the sun, the plum is like a purple water balloon full of syrup. Bite into it and you taste tartness from the skin, then sweetness from the juice, then more tartness from the yellow-red flesh at the center. Sticky juice runs down your chin and arm to the elbow, and you really want to wash your hands, but first just one more plum…

I wish I could stand in the yard with you, sharing plums and discussing the things I’ve learned lately. My employer makes a system for collecting feedback from random people -- video interviews in which they answer questions. We designed it to get fast feedback on things like websites and ads, but lately I’ve been using it to ask average Americans how they feel about the country’s situation: the pandemic, the killings, the protests, the economy, all of it.

I’ve listened to almost a hundred of those interviews in the last month, and the results are moving. Most Americans are far more compassionate, reasonable, and willing to compromise than the voices you hear in social media and the press.

There’s also a lot of suffering: people who’ve lost work or are afraid for their jobs, people with weak immune systems or fragile loved ones who are terrified of the virus, people who are slowly going stir-crazy because they’re trapped at home and can’t do the things that give them joy and relief. Each of us is experiencing the crisis differently, but we’re all suffering in some way.

In some of us that suffering has fed suspicion and anger, and in the video interviews we sometimes hear the shrill voices from the right and left that are so familiar online and in the news. But they’re quite rare in real life. For every angry and polarized person, there are ten people who don’t post to Twitter, don’t view those who disagree with them as traitors, and who want very badly to come together and help each other through the crisis.

I’ve been especially impressed by people’s comments about the police killings and the Black Lives Matter movement. Most Americans of all races agree that the killings were appalling, and most Americans say it’s right to protest. The voices of Black Americans are especially poignant. As a middle-aged white guy I’m not the right person to interpret the Black experience in America. But I can repeat what they told us:

• “We’ve talked and talked and talked, and there seems to be this lack of understanding.”
• “I don’t feel safe. I shouldn’t be frightened to go to the store to get milk.”
• “Black people in America are only asking for the same rights that have been awarded to people all along. We shouldn’t have to prove ourselves. We shouldn’t have to start three steps behind.”
• “You didn’t know that it was like this?”
• “It’s not just saying that black lives matter. All lives do matter, but we just want to make sure that people don’t forget that our lives matter.”
• “I don’t want pity, I don’t want sorrow, I don’t want people to go out of their way to help me. I just want all races to look at each other as human beings and that we should care for each other in a loving manner. Just love and respect each other.”
• “It makes me angry because there are people trying to divert the narrative, people that are spray painting and looting and trying to incite, and they are trying to take the narrative away.”
• “We’re only exercising our right to freedom of speech, to petition, to do all those things that it says in the Constitution.”

That doesn’t sound like a radical left-wing agenda to me. Sure, you can find people on both extremes who want all sorts of crazy things, but I don’t believe that’s the mainstream. This is a social movement, not a top-down conspiracy. The protesters themselves are in charge, and I think their message is entirely reasonable. For what it’s worth, I am glad you’re protesting, I think you’re right, and you have my support.

But this isn’t just about Black Lives Matter. The underlying issue we all have to face is how we run the country as a whole. Do we allow the angriest people online, in the media, and in politics to continue to dominate the agenda, or does the reasonable majority of our country come together to talk with each other compassionately? I’m not saying we’ll all agree on everything; there are plenty of very hard decisions and debates that we need to have. But if we share our concerns and problems respectfully, if we listen to each other as human beings, I think we can find a way through these crises together.

It all starts with listening, and I’m hopeful that the reasonable people in this country are starting to do that. Together, I think we can build a country that’s more free, more prosperous, and more worthy of the ideals in the Constitution. I still miss the fireworks show, but what better way could you truly celebrate the Fourth of July than fixing the country? Here, have another plum and let’s keep talking.

This article represents my personal opinion and does not necessarily represent the views of my employer.