Dialogues

This is a conversation between you and your mom that refers to your kids Todd and Mimi.

Mom: The Democrats are trying to push through that climate change law. I’m telling you, it’s a hoax.

You: Do you mean that it’s not true that climate change exists or that you don’t think it’s dangerous or that there’s a problem with the law or something else?

Mom: It’s not real, they’re making it up or exaggerating it, I mean, big deal if it’s getting a little warmer.

You: Who is it that you believe is making a bigger deal out of climate change than it really is?

Mom: Democrats, liberals, scientists on the payroll of environmental groups, I don’t know.

You: Why do you think they’d want to make up something like that?

Mom: Those environmentalists and scientists get grants to produce biased studies about climate change–that’s where all the grant money goes —  for hyping climate change.

You:  When there is a need for real study about so many crucial issues, what makes you think they’d want money to study something that isn’t a real problem?

Mom: It’s about power and money, I guess. The Democrats are behind it, and liberal elites are giving out billions of dollars in grants to non-profits and scientists to make people afraid of global warming. When they produce their biased results, then the federal government will get huge regulatory power to control corporations. They’ll be able to demand all sorts of changes that aren’t needed and cost a fortune.

You: If, as you’re saying, it’s no more than a corrupt attempt to give the government control over corporations, then I still don’t understand. The government sees corporations as vital to the functioning of the economy, so why make it harder on them for no reason?

Mom: I don’t know, it’s just all about power. And if they have their way, everything will cost more, and I’m not about to watch my energy bills go through the roof and have the whole economy fall apart just because some liberal scientists are trying to scare us about something that won’t even happen for a hundred years, if ever.

You: How afraid are you about the financial impact for yourself?

Mom: Well, I’ve got my nest egg, but you never know what the future will bring.

You: I agree that there are people and organizations who only care about power and money and it’s always important to follow the money trail and see where it leads. When I do that, what I’m seeing is the opposite of what you’re seeing. There’s been a lot of reporting about how the fossil fuel industry has paid scientists to cast doubt on climate science and has caused the public to be more divided on the issue now than we were in the 1990s when there was more agreement.  I would love if you were willing to read some of that stuff and tell me your reaction. 

Mom: Well, maybe, I could take a look…

You: What concerns me is that it seems like you don’t trust any of the environmentalists or scientists at NASA or the Department of Defense who are reporting devastating climate change. Are you saying you think all scientists are in on the hoax or just some?

Mom:  I couldn’t really tell you, but a lot of them I’d guess, I mean, they’re not all bad people but I think everyone’s susceptible to groupthink and that’s what’s going on with climate change. If you say you have doubts about it, you get shown the door.

You: Do you feel the same way about scientific consensus on other issues, like smoking causing cancer, or just climate change?

Mom: Well, they did catch the tobacco companies trying to cover up evidence of that, right? And that’s just it, you never know who to trust and it seems like everyone’s biased these days. You keep saying, listen to the experts, listen to the experts, but they’re just humans, they have their biases and make mistakes just like anyone.

You: When I mentioned just now what the expert consensus is on this issue, does it make you feel like I’m discounting your opinion because you’re not an expert?

Mom: Yeah, actually I kind of do. I mean, just because I don’t have a Harvard degree doesn’t mean I don’t get a say. Scientists may be book-smart but they’re arrogant, they think they know it all.

You: I hear what you’re saying about how sometimes very educated people have a way of talking down to people and when they’re saying something I’m not sure I agree with, their arrogance puts me on the defensive—like when Kaiser is always pushing the flu vaccine on me and acting like I’d be crazy not to do it, that makes me want to just tune them out. I feel like our world is so complicated and there’s no way I can know about everything so I rely on people who have studied things that I haven’t. I also agree that all of us are biased in various ways. And at the same time, I think there are people in every field of research who have integrity and do research that is extremely valuable, even if they sometimes aren’t great at presenting it. I believe that if this were a hoax, there would be a huge backlash from a lot of scientific institutions.

Mom: I’ve been around the block a few times and what I see is the so-called experts keep changing their minds on things—like remember how butter was supposed to be bad and now they say it’s margarine that’s bad. I mean, I’ve just given up on listening to a word they say.

You: I know, it’s frustrating when they make new discoveries and then come out with new and different advice. Something I’ve been doing is looking at the track records of climate scientists and what I’ve seen is that their predictions going back to the early 1990s have been coming true and have been very accurate in terms of how much warmer it’s getting and what the impacts of the warming are as far as rising sea levels and droughts and hurricanes go. The only place where they’re off is that things are happening even faster than they predicted. I’m also seeing those same scientists having a very strong consensus—like 97% of them all around the world—predicting much more intense impacts as time goes by.  When that many scientists agree, that’s enough for me. And I’m thinking that if they’ve been right about everything so far that there’s a strong likelihood they’re right about what’s going to happen next and that really scares me. It’s like, if nine out of ten doctors told me I needed to get my appendix out, I’d go with the advice of the nine, not the one.

Mom: Well, you worry too much honey. Those scientists could be wrong.

You: How have you been reacting to what you see on the news about the weather?

Mom: Well, it does seem like there’s more extreme weather and storms, but that doesn’t mean that’s because of climate change. And even if it is, the planet always goes through climate cycles and maybe we’re just in a warmer cycle right now.

You: What I’ve been noticing is that there’s been been so many severe fires on the west coast that all the states there were filled with smoke— remember when Mimi’s soccer practice was cancelled for two weeks in a row because the smoke from the Santa Rosa fire was so bad? The forests are drier every year and whole towns are burning down. Hurricanes have been ravaging the east coast much more often and intensely than in the past. More than one in five Americans has had to evacuate because of a natural disaster. The US Geological Survey says rising seas have caused more than a football field worth of land to vanish in Louisiana every hundred minutes — they’ve already lost an area the size of Delaware, which they say is happening because of all the glaciers that are melting.

Mom: It sounds like you’re fixated on a bunch of scare stories from the mainstream media where there’s no solid proof that those fires or anything else is caused by climate change.  

You: How do you react to seeing story after story of the worst floods and fires in recorded history? Does it scare you at all?

Mom: Well, I don’t like it, of course it’s scary to watch, but there’s nothing we can do about it.

You: Does it feel out of control or overwhelming to you?

Mom: Yeah, but I mean, what are we going to do? I can’t live in Arizona without my air conditioning or stop driving my car. Factories have to run their machines. There’s just no way for modern America to keep running without oil and gas.

You: Are you worried that dealing with climate change will mean you’ll have a lower standard of living?

Mom: Well yeah, I mean, I want to live out my life a certain way and I feel like I deserve to. Maybe that sounds selfish to you but like I said, I’m not about to turn off the air conditioning or stop driving! It’s not like we’re all going to live in caves again just to try to stop global warming.

You: I know certain things would have to change, but I’m not assuming you can’t live in a cool house or drive your car.  For me, the economy and the environment go hand in hand. Right now, our economy is based on fossil fuels and I don’t see that being sustainable because they’re running out and, in the meantime, they cause a ton of pollution and environmental damage that really hurts the economy in terms of human health costs and the cost of cleaning up all the toxic messes.

Mom: Well, I don’t’ know. I don’t think we need to go overboard with too much change too fast. All this talk of the Green New Deal and carbon taxes, it sounds like overkill to me.

You: It’s interesting that you say that because it remind me of something I once read by a climate change reporter who said that, even though he reads up on climate science every day and the analytical part of his mind is telling him that this is a dire emergency, the other part of his mind, when he thinks about the future, imagines a world very much like the world we have now, because it’s hard for the human mind to comprehend and humans tends to have an optimism bias. And he talked about how he’s come to believe that it’s crucial to face the reality, even though it’s hard to imagine and scary.

Mom: He’s right about one thing, I prefer to err on the side of optimism, especially when there’s really nothing that can be done anyway except make you sure you pay you’re paid up on your house insurance.

You: It sounds like you’re feeling like nothing can really be done about global warming, sort of like just giving up. One thing I’ve noticed is that the people who are saying there’s nothing that can be done are in the same group of people who first said the planet’s not warming and then said it is warming, but not because of fossil fuels. And now they’re saying it will warm seven degrees by 2100 but nothing can be done about it. And I’m thinking, if they were wrong when they said the planet wasn’t warming, then I’m not willing to believe them when they say we can’t do anything about it. When I look at what our country did in World War II, when we totally overhauled our economy in a year to create all the war ships and planes, if we could do that in 1941, then I believe we can do it again now.

There’s so much we could be doing with agriculture and clean energy here in the U.S that would create jobs while also cleaning up the air. I see that happening in a lot of cities in red states, not just liberal cities. I mean, even the coal museum in Kentucky has solar panels on the roof to save them money on electricity. The military has named climate change as a national security risk, because they think it will lead to food and water shortages and lots of unrest and more refugees.

Mom: The military’s involved in this?

You: Yeah, they’ve taken a strong stand on climate change and are working to cut their carbon emissions because they’re very worried about the impact of climate change on military bases and see it as huge threat to national security. I don’t want to ignore what I see happening, and I don’t want to ignore findings that I see as very credible , like the  national climate assessment – that’s the report that’s done every four years by thirteen federal agencies, including Agriculture, Defense, NASA, EPA – and the report that came out in 2018 said that the cost of doing nothing would be so much higher than the cost of taking action now to prevent runaway climate change from damaging the economy and agriculture. I don’t get how the government can be ignoring its own report saying we have to act now to prevent catastrophe. To me, it’s like you said about needing house insurance, just in case your house burns down even though that’s very unlikely. I believe we as a country need to be prepared for what could happen with the climate and try to reduce the risk as much as possible — like the equivalent of clearing brush around the house or installing smoke detectors.

I believe that there will be some amount of sacrifice that’s necessary in order to make sure the climate is livable. I don’t think anyone knows exactly how much our lifestyles will have to change. I figure everyone, all the scientists and politicians, don’t want to get too draconian because it will affect their lifestyle too. I think we’ll also have to learn to consume less, but I think a lot of it is just switching from fossil fuels to wind and solar and having different agricultural techniques and planting trees, so it’s hard for me when you’re so resistant to believing any of it.

Mom: Well, it’s just that…I don’t know, with so much else going on in the world right now, why you’re so focused on a far-off problem like climate change.

You:  Mom, one of the things I’ve always loved about having you as my mom is how you always made me feel like I was the most important thing in your life – I knew you’d do anything for me, and I know you and Dad made sacrifices so that I could go to college. And now I’m a parent who wants my kids to have a good life.

I know you love Todd and Mimi as much as I do and as much as you love me, so I don’t understand why you’re not willing to make some sacrifices if that’s what it would take for their safety. I end up feeling like you care more about your own lifestyle than what might happen to the planet that could have a devastating effect on Todd and Mimi.

(This is a moment of profound truth-telling, and Mom is about to have a defensive reaction even though your statement was perfect PNDC. That can happen…)

Mom: I think of them all the time. I can’t believe you’d think I’d put myself first!

You: I know you love them more than anything. That feeling I have is because I was frustrated about you treating everything I was saying about climate change being wrong. It’s so confusing to me, knowing that you’d do anything for them and at the same time hearing you dismiss something that I’m so incredibly worried about.

Mom: I wouldn’t say I’m dismissing it, I’ve listened to everything you’ve said and you can’t blame me for not agreeing with you on climate change–that doesn’t mean I don’t love my grandkids. I mean, I was worried out of my mind when you got them those skateboards, I was sure one of them was going to break a neck, but I didn’t think that meant you didn’t love them. I guess we just worry about different things.

You: I think that’s true, and I think a lot of that is because we’re getting our information from different places. The things I’m reading and learning about are saying that, if we don’t come to grips with climate change, that Todd and Mimi will live in a world, where the climate is unpredictable and there are so many intense storms and floods and crop failures and even the potential for tropical diseases like malaria to move up into North America.  

And that’s not the world I want for them. I want them to have stability, and also I want them to be able to enjoy all the natural beauty of this country, like when we went snorkeling in Hawaii, that was just so incredible and the thought of the coral reefs dying because of all the carbon dioxide in the ocean, it really makes me heartsick. I feel a responsibility and a connection to all the life on Earth and I’m horrified to see the impacts of our modern lifestyle on innocent creatures. I also think that in nature everything’s connected and so if the bees and the fish and the polar bears are dying off, then humans are at risk too. I don’t know for sure what will happen, but I’d rather be wrong than risk the kind of catastrophe the scientists are predicting.

Mom: I want them to be safe too, honey.

You: I know that, I love you, Mom.

Additional resources for discussing climate change with conservatives can be found at Citizens Climate Lobby and Navigator Research. Also, SMART Politics teamed up with the Suzuki Foundation to create this Facebook app that can help you navigate climate conversations.

Also, if the person you’re talking to is a libertarian or is very intellectual, consider sharing with them the story of Jerry Taylor, a professional climate skeptic for the Cato Institute, who renounced his skepticism (and left Cato) after taking a more careful look at the science. He now runs the Climate Unplugged website that walks skeptics through the evidence and makes the case for a carbon tax from a libertarian perspective: The government’s role is to protect private property, and greenhouse gas emitters are destroying other people’s property–hence, the government must act.

Likewise, former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis used to call climate change “a bunch of hooey” until a heartfelt conversation with his son turned him around. Inglis went on to found a group called New Climate Voices that emphasizes Christian values and national security.

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You: Oh my God, another mass shooting and we’re still not doing anything about gun control, this just makes me sick.

Jeff: You shouldn’t be politicizing this. That’s so disrespectful to the victims’ families, I mean, give them time to grieve for God’s sake.

You: What do you believe is the appropriate amount of time to wait before talking about gun control?

Jeff: I don’t know, just don’t rush it.

You: I agree there needs to be time grieve. I’d like to see the nation come together and honor their grief until after the funerals, unless the victims’ families wanted to talk about it sooner. My concern is that there are so many shootings that there’s always a waiting period and never a time for taking political action.

Jeff: There’s time—it’s not like there’s a mass shooting every day.

You:  I think I read recently that last year (2018) there was one a month.  When I see how many kids are murdered at school and people at concerts and clubs, I can’t separate the horror of it from the urgent need for change. And when you say I’m politicizing it, that feels to me like you’re saying I’m manipulating the tragedy for political advantage. And that’s not at all what I’m experiencing. I truly believe some kind of action needs to be taken and I’m less worried about politicizing tragedy than about becoming desensitized to it which is what I’m beginning to see happen—like people, including me, are sometimes, like, oh dear, another mass shooting, oh well. If you want to talk about what some gun safety reforms could be possible, I’d be happy to talk with you about it and if you don’t want to talk about I don’t want to force you.

Jeff: No harm in talking but you know I’m a second amendment person. I’m not about to have the government infringing on my rights.

You: Do you worry at all about you or your kids getting caught up in gun violence?

Jeff: Well, to some degree–that’s one of the reasons I own a gun–for protection. Trust me, you ban guns and the bad guys aren’t going to turn their guns in.

You: Do you think people should be able to have any kind of firearm they want or do you think there should be some types of restrictions?

Jeff: No, I don’t think that people should have just any sort of weapon they want, but the Second Amendment is very broad and needs to be interpreted according to modern technology. Same as the Fourth Amendment – it protects you from unlawful search and seizure in your car even though cars weren’t around when the Fourth Amendment was passed.

You: I hear you saying that there’s a limit but that it’s complicated trying to figure out exactly what kind of weapons cross the line. I agree that our interpretation of the Constitution should change with the times. For me, the job of the court is to adapt constitutional interpretation to modern circumstances, includes taking account of the dangers posed by gun violence. If I were a Supreme Court judge, I would say that I don’t think the framers envisioned AR-15s and mass shootings and so the right to gun ownership should be balanced against the need to protect the public from mass shootings. What’s your reaction to that?

Jeff: Well, yeah, they’re used in mass shooting but they also have a legitimate use for hunters. It’s safer and more humane for the animal to use a semi-automatic rifle because with the fast action you can get more shots in really fast if your first doesn’t kill the animal. You ban AR-15s and the shooter is just going to use another kind of weapon or run people over with their car. It’s not the gun that’s the problem, it’s the person.

You:  I hear you saying that you strongly value your second amendment right to gun ownership and that you believe that people who are intent on committing violence will find a way to do so with or without a gun.

I agree with you that gun control will not prevent 100% of mass shootings or other violence and that some people will find other ways of hurting each other. At the same time, when I look at the lower incidence of mass shootings in countries with stronger gun control laws, it leaves me no room to doubt that restricting access to semi-automatic weapons lowers the number of mass shootings. There’s data showing that the 1994 assault weapons ban (which has since expired) decreased school shootings by over 50%.

It seems to me like mass shooters choose semi-automatics for the same reason you mentioned with  hunting – the fast action allows them to kill more people more quickly.

Jeff: I’m sure that’s true, but I’ll be damned to give up my liberty because of the bad actions of a few crazies.

You: I get that it feels unfair to have your liberty restricted because of the violence done by others. For me, the frequency of mass shootings and the fear it creates is also a threat to liberty. The horror of seeing so many children’s lives cut short, their families’ grief, the fear I have about my own son’s safety, the trauma experienced by a generation of children going through active shooter drills is, I believe, an infringement on life, liberty, happiness and security for millions of families. If banning assault-style weapons turns out to be ineffective, I’d rather be wrong about that than lose the potential to reduce mass shooting deaths.

I’d like to find a balance so that people like you can continue to use guns responsibly and, at the same time, it’s harder for people to get access to weapons that can kill a lot of people very quickly.  I think that this would mean, from your perspective, sacrificing your right to certain kinds of military weapons, and, from my perspective, it would mean reconciling myself to living with more guns than I’m comfortable with so that people who hunt or feel the need for guns for self-protection would still have access to firearms.

Addendum: If the person says that they feel a need for guns for protection, you can ask them if they live in a high crime or if there have been a lot of break-ins in their neighborhood. Then you can say, “I get what you’re saying about wanting to feel safe in your home, I feel the same way and I think everyone does. One thing I became aware of recently that I find really amazing is that, ever since the 1990s, crime rates have been going down at the same time that fear of crime has been increasing — like, most gun owners used to say that they had guns for hunting but now most say they need one for protection. (See 2017 Pew study for details). And so that makes me wonder if the gun lobby is trying to scare people into buying more guns than they need.

You can also talk about the issue of how easy access to guns increases the risk of impulsive suicides that might otherwise not have been attempted or might not have been successful. There’s a harrowing discussion of this issue in the book, Dying of Whiteness, by Jonathan Metzl.

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The vast majority of taxpayers have seen little to no benefit from the 2017 tax overhaul. The information below comes from the non-partisan Tax Policy Center. It’s a way to demonstrate the disparity in tax savings under the 2017 tax law for people in different income brackets.

You: How are you feeling about the tax situation these days?

Anthony: I hate it. They get us at every turn!

You: Did you see any benefit from the 2017 tax cut?

Anthony: No, I haven’t noticed much of anything–I was expecting a bigger break.

You: I have some information about what has happened as a result of the new tax law that seem very unfair to me. Do you want me to tell you a little bit about why you didn’t get as much as you thought even though some people got a lot?   

Anthony: Well, I guess so.

You: I don’t want to push what I think on you unless you’re sure you want to hear it.

Anthony: Okay, go for it.

You: There’s a tax calculator that shows what your taxes are before and after the 2017 tax reform act. So for example, if you’re a single taxpayer with no kids and you make $46,000, then you would have paid $11,706 before and $10,781 after which is a savings of $925 which looks pretty good.

Here I’ll show you how I did it on the Tax Policy Center’s website. First I entered $46,000 here:

Then, I hit “Calculate Tax Now” and this is what it calculated:

So you see there the difference is $925.

Then I did it again for someone making a million dollars a year, and this is what it showed:

The tax cut for the millionaire is 17,120! I don’t know about you but I’ll take the $17,000 over the $925. And it just keeps getting to be a bigger cut the wealthier the person is.

I mean, think about someone like Jeff Bezos, the head of Amazon – he made $107 million a day in 2017. He makes more in ten seconds than most of his employees make in a year! He saved a bundle on federal taxes and he also doesn’t pay any state income tax because he lives in Washington which doesn’t have any income tax. Even Amazon the company managed to avoid paying any taxes whatsoever even though they made almost $6 billion in profits!

Anthony: Seriously?

You: I know it sounds unbelievable, right? The money involved is hard to even comprehend, especially compared to how small the tax break is for working and middle class folks. Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire who was a Republican mayor of New York, said that most of the tax cuts went to people like him, and he was like, “Thanks but I don’t need it.”

And something that I didn’t even realize until I started reading up on it more is that the tax cuts for the richest are permanent but for ordinary people they expire in 2027. So when President Trump told his guests at Mar-a-Lago after the 2017 tax cuts, “You all just got a lot richer,” I guess he wasn’t joking. I mean, he himself is saving $11 million a year on his taxes.

You know what really scares me. Over the next ten years, the deficit is projected to grow by more than a trillion dollars as a direct result of the tax cuts, and that means no money for fixing our dangerous roads and bridges and other failing infrastructure. And they’re talking about reducing Social Security and Medicare to try to pay for the huge increase in the deficit caused by the tax cuts. It’s so upsetting to me to think about billionaires getting huge tax breaks and then have Congress talking about taking away money that we’ve paid in for our own retirement.

Addendum. If the issue of corporate taxes comes up you can say:

You:  I hear you saying you believe cutting corporate taxes will generate jobs. I remember after the tax overhaul was passed that there was some talk about how the corporate tax break would help companies like Harley Davidson keep factories open in the US, and then a few months later Harley Davidson said it was moving its Kansas City plant to Thailand and laying off 800 workers.              

From what I’ve seen over the years, tax breaks for corporations and for rich families don’t trickle down to regular people and the loss of funds really damages our ability to rebuild our country, which is happening in states all over the country right now.  If you’re interested, I can show you an article about what happened in Kansas when they cut corporate taxes and it really devastated the economy and the Republican legislature ended up repealing it. I don’t want to see us make the same mistake at the national level.

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You’re canvassing for a presidential campaign. A woman named Myra opens the door and you greet her and introduce yourself as a campaign volunteer.

You: May I ask what the most important issue is to you when you go to vote in November?

Myra: Terrorism. I’m worried sick about Muslim terrorist attacks.

You: When did that become a worry for you?

Myra: Ever since 9/11. I can never get that image of the World Trade Center out of my mind and those people jumping out the windows. It’s so horrifying and we have to do everything in our power to make sure that can’t ever happen again.

You: I remember seeing that over and over again and, it was like, I didn’t want to watch but I was totally gripped by the shock and horror of it. I don’t ever want to experience something like that again. Do you think we’re doing enough to prevent further attacks?

Myra: No, we need to keep Muslims out of the country so we don’t let more terrorists in.

You: Do you think that people who are Muslim tend to be terrorists so not letting them in is the best way to be safe?

Myra: Of course, that’s just common sense. Look at all the terrorist attacks they commit in their own countries and you never know who’s been radicalized here so best to be on the safe side.

You: Is it mostly from news reports that you’re getting information about the attacks or do you get it from other places too?

Myra: Mostly the news.

You: The reason I’m asking is because I think that when a mass murder happens, the first question the media and the public ask is whether it’s a terrorist attack. And because the 9/11 terrorists were Muslims and 9/11 was so traumatized and, like, seared into our memories, the immediate image that comes to a lot of people’s minds when we think of terrorism is Muslims, even though all kinds of people commit acts of terrorism.

I feel very strongly about holding people accountable for acts of mass murder, no matter what religion or nationality they are, and doing what we can to prevent terrorism from happening.

Myra: Me too, that’s why I’m saying, we need to keep the Muslims out. I know they’re not all bad people but look at Iraq, look at Syria, I don’t want them importing that kind of violence into our country.

You: When I look at a country like Iraq, I see a breakdown in the ability of different religious groups to work together or even tolerate each other. That plus all the incredible devastation of their infrastructure and agriculture from all the years of war. I see it happening in other parts of the world too and it scares me to see that it’s starting to happen here too. I see the divisiveness and the way people are so fast to fear and hate each other instead of trying to problem solve together as very dangerous. It’s like we’re in all these groups that define themselves by who they hate and fear. I see a lot of mass shootings by white men in the name of white supremacy or Christianity and occasionally by a Muslim man in the name of Islam. I think Muslims and Christians who commit murder are violating their own religious tenets but I don’t blame the religion for that or the larger group the person belongs to. I hold individuals responsible for their own behavior, and I don’t think keeping groups of people out is the answer.

Myra: So what’s your candidate’s position on all this?

You: I see him/her as someone who recognizes that the underlying causes of polarization and hatred need to be addressed if we’re going to reduce terrorism and violence. And for me that includes changing our foreign policy in ways that don’t provoke blowback from people whose countries are being bombed and are losing loved ones and getting very rageful toward the US because of it. I want a president who will bring the country together to deal with the problems we’re facing—domestic and foreign–in a way that takes everyone’s humanity into account. The candidate I’m voting for is a person I think can help us do that.

Addendum: This is a risk assessment piece you can add if the other person asks you. If they don’t ask, don’t offer it because doing so would negate their belief that the risk is huge.

Myra: Aren’t you worried about terrorism?

You: I have some degree of worry.  The difference I think between how you and I see it is that for me, terrorism and mass murder fall together in a category of violence motivated by politics and hatred. So I’m not thinking that Muslim terrorists are the only or the main threat.

The other piece for me is that I’m aware of is that, even though it seems like there’s a lot of terrorism because the media talks about it so much, there’s statistically only a one in three and a half million chance of being killed by a foreign-born terrorist. So I figure I’m are far more likely to die from air pollution or medical malpractice or even get struck by lightning. And I would rather have the country focus on trying to reduce the biggest health and safety risks – not lightening, not much we can do about that, but I mean work on the biggest threats, not just the most sensationalized ones. Sometimes I wonder if all the focus on crime and terrorism is distracting us from problems that are hurting and killing even more people.

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You are a middle-class white woman talking with your brother. This conversation would be different with a working-class white person who has experienced much hardship or with an affluent white person. As a West Virginian Democrat-turned-Trump voter said, “It’s offensive to tell a laid-off person who couldn’t go to college that their economic struggles aren’t as much of a concern as using the right pronoun. And it’s almost impossible to conceive how your white skin is a basis of privilege when you’re surrounded by addiction, crime, and poverty.” For more on talking about white privilege with a low-income white see “Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person.”

Paul: You know what I really hate is when people get in my face about all this “white privilege” I supposedly have.

You: How are they getting in your face?

Paul: It’s all people talk about anymore.

You: Who do you mean? Like friends or people on the news or what?

Paul: It’s like on the news about how black people aren’t getting treated fairly and it’s because of us white people having too much privilege or control or whatever.

You: What do you think their point is when they talk about white privilege?

Paul: They’re saying we’re all racists! I mean, I know there’s racism out there, but that’s not my fault.

You: So are you feeling blamed for something you didn’t cause?  

Paul: Exactly! When someone accuses me of having white privilege, I want to say, hey, I grew up middle class, I worked my way through college, and I’ve worked my butt off for everything I have, no one handed me anything. I didn’t do anything to any black people. I’m not racist!

You: It sounds like it doesn’t ring true for you because you don’t feel like you’ve led a life of privilege. In fact, I know you’ve worked hard and competed against people who had a lot more advantages than either of us had.

Paul: Right. I’m sorry for your troubles if you’ve been discriminated against, but leave me out of it.

You: When I first started hearing people talk about white privilege, I felt the same way. I felt like they were implying that I was doing something wrong, just by being white, like I was somehow using my whiteness to get an unfair advantage. And then one day I was talking to Steve [your husband] about how I didn’t feel safe going out hiking alone and he didn’t get it and was kind of acting like I was a wimp and should just go hiking alone and not be scared. He’d say I was ruled by fear and it was ridiculous. I felt insulted and pissed and this argument went on for years!

And finally I realized, oh my God, he doesn’t have to worry about being raped. As much as he loves me and wants me to be safe, he had a really hard time relating to my fear because, as a man, he didn’t have to worry about getting raped if he took a walk alone. I suddenly saw it as a male privilege. And when I put it that way, about how he couldn’t really understand the fear of getting raped, he got it and respected my decision about not hiking alone.

Paul: I guess that makes sense—as a guy, getting raped isn’t something I worry about. But when you say privilege, it pisses me off because that’s like rich kids at prep school.

You: It sounded that way to me too, but then I realized that the word “privilege” was being used to cover various kinds of advantages one person might have over another. So wealthy kids had an opportunity that we didn’t have, to attend a private school—that gave them some level of advantage over us. And even though we went to public school, it was decent because schools that are mostly white are usually so much better funded than black schools.

And then I started thinking about most people have some kind of advantage that others might not have. Like, for example, a child born with the ability to learn to read at a young age, will have certain advantages over one born with dyslexia who struggles to learn to read. And it doesn’t mean the kid who doesn’t have dyslexia doesn’t have their own struggles, just not dyslexia.

I see some crucial advantages I have that black people don’t— even though some black people have plenty of money for college and I had to work my way through.

I saw a video of a black man who was a hotel guest in Portland and was on his phone in the lobby with his mother, and the security guard asked him to leave and kept badgering him even after the man showed him his room key. The police came and made him leave even though they knew he was a hotel guest. The hotel later apologized, but I can’t even imagine that happening to me or you. You can watch the video of the whole thing if you want, and there are a bunch more stories of the same kind of thing. It’s unreal!

So now when I hear people talking about white privilege, I have the sense that I’m not being blamed for being white but just being asked to be conscious of the ways that white skin means that I don’t have to go through some of the challenges they do. White privilege doesn’t mean that my life isn’t hard, it just means that my skin color isn’t one of the things that’s making it harder.

Like, if I was driving late at night and got pulled over and, in that moment, could choose any skin color, I’d choose white for dealing with the police, and I think most people would — that says a lot to me. [Hat tip to Mark Greene of RemakingManhood.com for this thought experiment].

Paul: Okay, so if I admit that I have so-called “white privilege,” then what do they want from me? Do they want me to give up my job for a black person or send my kid to a crummy school or what?

You:  For me, even just having awareness feels important and it’s made me realize that I don’t know what I don’t know about being non-white, so I’m open to learning more, and I can talk to other white people about what I’ve learned. I feel more compassion for some of the things black people go through all the time. I understand more what they’re angry about and I can try to avoid doing things that would have a discriminatory impact on them—just knowing about it is a reminder to me to double-check whether I’m acting on the basis of any unconscious biases I have. And also, I have more of an ear out for when politicians or media say things that seem to be ignoring or downplaying the discrimination people of color face.  [If you’re involved in an anti-racist movement, you can mention this here].

Addendum. If Paul expresses concern or resentment about being made to feel guilty about coming to terms with white privilege or unconscious bias, you can say: “To me, this isn’t about feeling guilty. I remember this guy say once in a Ted talk that coming to terms with our own biases that we’ve picked up over a lifetime is like dental hygiene–We get plaque on our teeth every day and need to keep cleaning it off and, if someone tells us we have some food stuck in our teeth, we don’t deny it, we just go look in the mirror and get some floss. I even remember reading this book by an African-American professor who said that when he began writing his book about the origins of white supremacy, that even he had racist ideas and that it was a real journey for him (Ibram Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning). So on the one hand, that’s a little discouraging to think that I’ll never be done but, at the same time, I feel like it takes the pressure off of me to be perfect. I can accept that I’m going to make mistakes and the best I can do is try to learn from my mistakes but there’s no point feeling guilty about it.

There’s a Make America Relate Again podcast featuring two friends from high school, one black professor, one white, talking about white privilege. Though the white woman says some things that could easily inspire ire, the black woman casually and non-judgmentally educates her old friend, who clearly leaves the conversation wiser for it. Recall, also, the conversation, in Chapter Five of the book, between Virginia, the transgender canvasser, and the elderly man who went from disparaging gays as “fags” to humbly thanking Virginia for explaining what it means to be gay or trans. These conversations yielded an outcome far preferable to what probably would have unfolded had the prejudiced person been scolded.

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27% of voters who oppose abortion say they would only vote for a candidate who shares their views. That’s why canvassers will often try to steer the conversation away from abortion and toward common ground issues. However, if you do want to have a heart-to-heart conversation about abortion…

This is an issue with very strong emotions on both sides so it’s important to honor the person’s beliefs and not go into the conversation assuming that the person is motivated by a patriarchal desire to oppress women by controlling their fertility. Begin by learning the other person’s back story that motivates their opposition to abortion—did they learn in church that abortion is a sin? Did they or someone they know have an abortion and later felt guilt, like the woman who was the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade who later become an anti-abortion activist?

While feminists think in terms of a legal or human “right” to abortion, asserting that right in an interpersonal conversation will likely be inflammatory or, at best, a dead-end. What the conversation is about is values, beliefs, emotions and reasoning, not constitutional law.

The following dialogue shows the pro-choice person raising the issue of whether outlawing abortion reduces the incidence of abortion (it doesn’t). There are many other reasons you might have for being pro-choice that you could articulate. Have a listen to a nuanced conversation between two pro-choice, religious women to get an idea of just how many different layers there can be to a pro-choice dialogue and how much more complex it is than the question of when life begins.

You: Have you always been against abortion?

Karen: Yes, it’s morally wrong. I see it as taking a human life.

You: What have been the strongest influences on your beliefs about it? Have there been certain people or situations that affected you the most?

Karen: The bible says taking any life is a sin. Once the sperm fertilizes the egg, a life is born. The fetus has feelings and when you abort that baby, he or she feels pain and suffering. And the bible says that the penalty for murder is death.

You: Do you see it as the same as the murder of a child or an adult who’s already been born?

Karen: Yes!

You: To what degree, if any, do you see a woman’s motivation for having an abortion as similar or different from someone who kills their spouse in rage or kills someone during a robbery?

Karen: Well, it’s the same because it’s self-serving – she’s getting rid of an inconvenience, but that inconvenience is a life!

You: I agree that some women get abortions because they don’t believe it’s the right time to have a baby, maybe because getting pregnant was an accident or they aren’t married or don’t have enough money.

When I think about women and girls getting abortions historically, I see so many of them as being traumatized to the point that they would give up their own life by getting an unsafe abortion rather than have the baby. I think there are so many reasons that women and even young girls have abortions out of desperation — maybe they were raped or their families would reject them, or they’re poverty stricken and can barely feed the children they have. I believe that women have sought abortions for centuries for reasons that come out of despair and I don’t think it will stop even if we go back to making it illegal. For me, illegalizing abortion just means that women who have enough money can go to England or somewhere to get one, and women who don’t have enough money will get an unsafe abortion where they could die.  I’m worried that, if abortion were illegal, the poorest women would suffer the most, and that getting unsafe abortions would result in not only women dying, but families losing mothers since a lot of women who get abortions already have children.

(Note, read this article before citing statistics concerning how many women die from illegal abortions).

Karen: I’m not saying someone should have to be a parent if they don’t want to, they can put the child up for abortion instead of murdering it. And by the way, you left out all the women who are just getting abortions for selfish reasons, like for their careers or because they were too irresponsible to use birth control, and now they don’t want to pay the consequences. 

You: I think having a baby can be one of life’s most beautiful experiences, and I think it can be one of the most traumatic for women who have reason to fear the consequences of having the child. And for me, there is a moral difference between a street murder and an abortion because in a street murder or domestic violence, there’s a desire to hurt that I don’t think is going on for women getting abortion, and also the ramifications for people’s lives are very different.

The common reasons most women give for having an abortion are not being able to afford the baby, being unmarried, or interfering with education, school or caring for dependents. For me, these choices that women struggle to make don’t put them in the category of murderers to be punished.  

Karen: I still don’t see why they can’t just put the baby up for adoption!

You: One example I can think of would be a young woman or girl who was raped. If she has the baby and adopts it, knowing that the child of the violence she endured is walking around the world somewhere can cause lifelong trauma. Or a woman whose life would be threatened if she had to carry the pregnancy to term.

I realize I haven’t asked if there are any circumstances when you believe abortion is appropriate, for example like the young girl I was just talking about.

Karen: No, I think she could just put the baby up for adoption and get counseling from her minister and get over it.

You: And how would you feel in the case of a woman who might die if she doesn’t get an abortion?

Karen: Well, that’s so rare. But I think there could be a very narrow exception and the woman should have to get a second opinion to be positive there’s no other option for saving her life. In that case, I would still be very conflicted but I probably wouldn’t condemn her choice.  [If Karen said she’s against abortion even to save the mother’s life, you could ask, “What is it that makes you place more value on the unborn child’s life than on the mother’s?”]

You: I too would like there to be as few abortions as possible. I can’t imagine any woman who would rather get pregnant and have to go through an abortion than be able to prevent it in the first place.

The solutions I see are based on a few things: One is that, from what I’ve read, it seems that restricting abortions doesn’t reduce the number of abortions. An article in Harvard’s medical journal studied abortion rates and laws all over the world and found that when abortion is restricted, there are just as many abortions but that many more women die—like, in Romania in the 1970s and 1980s when abortion was illegal, something like 10,000 women died getting illegal abortions.

And in that Harvard study, what they found is that what reduces abortion is access to contraceptives. When women were given free contraception, abortion rates dropped up to 78%. And since we’ve got such a high rate of unwanted pregnancies in this country, that seems like a really important piece of the puzzle.

Another solution I see as important is making sure women have pre-natal care, because 11,000 babies a year die in their first day in this country, which is just so incredibly heartbreaking. And that’s a much higher infant mortality rate than other developed economies. So one way to save lives is to focus on making sure that women get pre-natal care and deliver healthy babies and then get the support they need as parents to raise healthy children—and that would also potentially take away one of the main reasons women get abortions, because they feel like they don’t have the resources to raise a healthy child.

What do you think about what I’m saying? If you thought that what I’m saying is true that restrictions push women to get unsafe abortions, and free birth control and parental support would dramatically reduce abortion, would there be reasons you’d still want to make abortion illegal?

Option 1 – Karen: It’s still a sin and if it isn’t illegal, we are supporting murder. Nothing you’ve said changes my opinion. If women want to use birth control and if they want pre-natal care, let them get it themselves, don’t expect me to pay for it.

You: I hear you saying that you’re against free birth control and also have no interest in the problem of so many babies dying at birth because of the lack of proper pre-natal care or the problem of children growing up in poverty. I believe that politicians who won’t deal with those issues are partly responsible for how many abortions there are and also for how many babies are getting sick or even dying because their mothers are poor.

Abortion is such a huge and hard issue to talk about, especially when we have such different beliefs. Thank you for being willing to talk with me about it.

Option 2 – Karen: I don’t know, it’s still a sin and if it isn’t illegal we’re allowing murder. As far as birth control goes, that’s maybe something I could get behind though I don’t see why women can’t just be responsible for that themselves. I didn’t know so many babies die at birth–we do need to do something about that.

You: I appreciate you being willing to think about what I’ve said, especially since we have come from such different beliefs about what the best solutions are.

If you’re having a conversation with someone about biblical authority against abortion, this article has some good analysis to draw on. If the topic is late-term abortions, check out this article.