Advocating Outside of Our Bubbles.

Viewpoint articles are written by members of the SPH community from a wide diversity of perspectives. The views expressed are solely those of the author and are not intended to represent the views of Boston University or the School of Public Health. We aspire to a culture where all can express views in a context of civility and respect. Our guidance on the values that guide our commitment can be found at Revisiting the Principles of Free and Inclusive Academic Speech.

If you work at a school of public health in Boston, it can feel like you’re only having conversations with those who agree with you. We often gather to discuss the most pressing issues of the day, and the phrase “preaching to the choir” is heard a lot. We bemoan the fact that data rarely crosses party lines—let alone regional, racial, or class barriers. Our information silos are heavily fortified.

As it turns out, these silos, or bubbles, are hard to break out of. At a time when so many are feeling the urge to speak out, a lot of the actions available to us—calling our representatives, sharing articles on Facebook, marching with our community—never seem to carry outside of our bubbles. These are all good and necessary actions—and they are effective in creating change! But often I’ve felt that I don’t just want to strategize with my choir of friends who agree with me—I want to have honest and vulnerable conversations with people who hold opposite views. This simple thing can seem impossible. The chasm is just too wide.

Or is it?

I’m starting to believe that what we hear about the unbridgeable divides in this country are, as often as not, just misconceptions born out of the dismay many of us are feeling, and that there is always hope for communication. Building a bridge is difficult, lonely, and requires a careful balance of boundaries and openness. But I believe that unless the effort is made, any objectives we achieve will be vulnerable to eventual dissolution by the “opposition”— which can include our neighbors, colleagues, and family.

So how exactly do we have these conversations? Last semester, the Activist Lab held several “Beyond Rhetoric” sessions, using a model of civil discourse developed by researchers at the University of Arizona. Designed to facilitate hard conversations around gun violence in America, local public housing residents had the opportunity to come together and discuss things they normally would not speak openly about: their fear of violence, and its effect on their children and grandchildren. It was wonderful to see these lines of communication open up among neighbors, and the response to this event showed the desperate need in communities for honest, yet not combative, conversations.

The question for many of us is, how can we recreate this experience in our own lives without expert facilitators on call?

My best advice is to be open to opportunities to speak your truth, always holding yourself to the standard of civil discourse—even when others can’t or won’t. The truth is, we can’t make others hear us, or react in certain ways to our experiences. But when we feel able, we can do the hard work of opening up those lines, and invite others to reach out from where they are.

Recently, I had the experience of publishing an op-ed in my Lafayette, Louisiana, hometown paper on the subject of refugees and Louisiana’s history of welcoming people from all over the world. Much of the response, especially on social media, was disagreeable. But it taught me an important lesson: Speaking directly to an audience that you know doesn’t agree with you will invite controversy. But my words also served as a beacon to others who were happy to see their views reflected in the paper and gave them a venue to join the conversation. A couple of days after my piece ran, a local historian even published a response. It was fascinating to see such a full-bodied conversation play out in a space I didn’t expect. And for all of the negative comments, I gained a handful of connections with people who were happy to engage in the conversation.

Often we feel that conflict is reason enough not to speak out, or that we’re not the right ones for that job. It can be too painful to speak, even dangerous. You don’t have to put too much pressure on yourself. Speaking consistently, even softly, can have just as big an impact as shouting from the rooftops. What I’ve learned from my small experiences, and observing countless others, is that feeling passionate enough about something to project your voice outside of your bubble will invite interactions you might never have had otherwise.

And that is where change begins.

Joanna V. Brown, Program Manager, Activist Lab