Daryl Davis is a blues and R&B musician who’s played with the likes of the late Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. Despite his immense musical talent, his greatest talent of all may be his ability to knock down strong racial hatred by using no other tool than the power of empathy and love.
In three decades, Davis has convinced 200 individuals to cut their ties and end their participation in the Ku Klux Klan. These individuals often cite Davis as one of their friends and value the relationship that they’ve grown to have with the musician. But Davis hasn’t made this terrific accomplishment by yelling the loudest, protesting on the streets, or putting people down.
“I never set out to convert anyone in the Klan. I just set out to get an answer to my question; ‘How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?’ I simply gave them a chance to get to know me and treat them the way I want to be treated.”
That is the simple secret truth to his activism; building relationships tears down hatred. In his documentary titled Accidental Courtesy, now available to stream on Netflix, Davis states the key to his philosophy which has allowed him to be so successful; “I don’t respect everything that they say, but I respect their right to say it.”
I believe the popular activism of today can benefit from that key philosophy. Nobody likes being talked down to, disrespected or censored. But in the culture of activism today, a minority of liberal activists have a tendency to do just that. These activists are champions of LGBT rights, women’s rights and minority rights, but as a liberal myself, I find myself discouraged by some of the ways other liberals go about fighting for our agenda.
While those on the conservative end of the political spectrum often find themselves intruding on first amendment rights such as when Republicans from five states moved to limit the right to protest, individuals on the left find themselves in the same boat on several occasions. University campuses, places to go and expand your mind and challenge yourself to new ways of thinking that may put you out of your comfort zone, often are the very places where the worst censorship happens by liberal activists. The best-known example of this is when the right-wing editor for Breitbart News, Milo Yiannopoulos came to UC Berkley only to have his speaking event canceled after protests against his visit became violent. Although protests for the event are more than understandable, shutting down the event altogether is a form of censorship. Protests are fine; not allowing someone to voice their opinion, no matter how terrible and hate-fueled it may be, is not fine.
“I don’t respect everything that they say, but I respect their right to say it.”
That’s where liberal activism struggles to do the one thing that it sets out to do; bring people together. When either side is not allowed to have an equal seat at the table, one side feels alienated and shuts down instead of listening to the other side’s points, and a conversation fails to happen. When this happens, there’s no compromises being made on either side, no exchanging of ideas, and worst of all, absolutely no solutions arising.
The cure for this conversation-killing activism can be found in Daryl Davis’s basic philosophy of ‘respect their right to say what they feel’ and most importantly, ‘treat people the way you want to be treated.’ This philosophy isn’t just a nice idea in theory; it’s science. According to a study conducted at the University of Toronto, liberals who showed empathy towards conservatives and shaped their arguments around the conservative way of thinking saw a higher success rate in convincing conservatives to support causes like universal health care. Professor Feinberg suggested in the article on Science Daily, “Instead of alienating the other side and just repeating your own sense of morality, start thinking about how your political opposition thinks and see if you can frame messages that fit with that thought process.”
Although the easiest way to deal with hate speech and bigotry may be to censor it, the simple fact remains; Not hearing or seeing an evil doesn’t make it disappear, it just makes it silent. We need to tackle divisions within our country with openness, empathy, and a willingness to listen, no matter how hard it may be. When asked by a Black Lives Matter activist why we should listen to anything a Ku Klux Klan member has to say, Daryl Davis simply replied, “Because we’re all living in the same country.”
And that is the point I’m trying to make. We’re all here together, and not talking openly about our divisions in an empathetic and loving way will only hurt and divide us more. This means allowing for opposition to state their beliefs, even if we find it everything from wrong to horrific, taking their concerns seriously, and shaping our argument out of love, respect and looking for a solution wherever that may be. No censorship, only conversation will save us from ourselves. Empathy-based activism has been proven successful time and time again, from Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr. to Daryl Davis, and it will unite us as humans again, but only if we allow it to.
