Does Talking Help?

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Yesterday my neighbors were across the street, chatting, when I came home. I parked and walked over to join them. We chatted about the new owner of the house next to mine, as well as the old owner (we won’t go there). Eventually the discussion turned to the current situation. Daryl, almost crying, said, “What are we gonna do? I’ve got four black sons, and I dread that phone call might be coming.” We have a lot of people wanting to have dialogues now. But honestly, does talking help? The conversations are basically preaching to the choir. You don’t have to have “dialogues” from white basketball coaches who coach a team that’s, on average, 3/4 black. They already have the understanding that their team wins with the best players. Not the best “black” players or the best “white” players, but the best players. Most of this country isn’t racist. They don’t care that Tiger Woods or Barack Obama are of mixed races. They don’t care what Michael Jackson’s or Prince’s skin color was. It’s those bad apples that, unlike the Osmond Brothers song, are spoiling the whole bunch. But the problem is this: those “bad apples” will not come to the dialogue table. The victims’ names change (today it’s George Floyd; six years ago, it was Michael Brown). The attitudes that give us victims don’t. And you know something that might sound weird? I’d actually like to hear those supremacists’ side. Not that they can convince me that they’re “superior,” but just to let them try to articulate why they hate blacks, Jews, women (the so-called “incel” crowd), etc. I wonder if they could explain why they feel the way they do. Meanwhile, the rest of us will just carry on and try to live the commandment of Scripture: “love your neighbor as yourself.” Missing Persons discussing words from the 80s: