their families and support their communities, and, yes, they do hold racist views as do many other groups. For outsiders to contend otherwise is what causes such communities to retrench and, in many ways, embrace their difference even further.
So, it also not surprising this tie of community and the support they received in that
community – no matter how others viewed it from the outside – bind them together and reinforce their political posture. Black provides an articulate response to why it does little good to simply criticize these people and such
communities: they interpret their community as
being supportive to them and, in many respects, members see themselves as having a
responsibility to what they ‘inherited’ as well as to ‘those who came before them,’ people who
built their legacy on the traditional values of individualism, friendship, hard work, and faith. Moreover, people need to understand their community, like so many others, is built on relationships – relationships that are fundamentally formed and forged through the love of one another, which makes it not just supportive but hard to disagree with or leave.21
Given his experience, this insight of Black’s should not be taken lightly. It is a position that also resonates with the recommendations of Bruni and Brooks – namely, that we need to build communities that allow us to “see” each other. As Brooks argues, we do not see each other well:
We do not see the heart and soul of each person, only a bunch of bad labels. To me, this is the core problem that our democratic character is faced with. Many of our society’s great problems flow from people not feeling seen and known: Blacks feeling that their daily experience is not understood by whites. Rural
people not feeling seen by coastal elites. Depressed young people not feeling understood by anyone. People across the political divides getting angry with one another and feeling
incomprehension. Employees feeling invisible at work. Husbands and wives living in broken marriages, realizing that the person who should know them best actually has no clue.
Brooks believes that, if we take the time to see
others, to transcend our sense of self, most of the problems with democracy will be removed: “There is one skill at the center of any healthy family, company, classroom, community,
university, or nation: the ability to see someone else deeply, to know another person profoundly, to make them feel heard and understood.” It is an emotional skill, one which involves love, for as Augustine taught knowledge is a form of love: “Love is a focus of attention. Love is a motivational state to learn more about another. Love is a drive to move in harmony with another.” Using this focus, argues Brooks, people weave together their notion of community: “Community is a bunch of people looking after each other, seeing each other deeply, taking the time to really enter into a relationship.”22 Finally seeing and understanding the other, each other, is itself the first step in starting conversations that will lead to healing among such divergent groups.
This approach is not to be seen as a “kumbaya” moment or approach. Bruni, Brooks, and Black all acknowledge it involves hard work. First among these acts is acknowledging that not all is relative, that there is a right and wrong. A person needs to acknowledge truth is
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Only by calling out such falsehoods and misunderstandings through honest and open conversations can true communities arise.