Won’t You Be My Neighbor Part II

Whatever your views are on this weekend’s verdict, there is no denying that the Zimmerman case has revealed the daunting reality of the silos that exist in our country. The case has shown a light on our divided communities and the fear, violence, and mistrust that continues to thicken the walls that separate us. In my last post, I discussed how silos can be created intentionally to keep out hatred and protect the community within. In light of recent events I want to take a look deeper look at why our country is so divided and return to the question of how we begin to break silos, instead of refortify them.

Even though our melting pot nation is filled with a variety of cultures and viewpoints, neighborhood diversity is becoming a decreasing commodity. Shortly before the 2008 election, Bill Bishop released the Big Sort about how American neighborhoods are becoming increasingly segregated. Bishop began to realize that in his neighborhood in Austin there were practically no republicans, while others in Texas existed with no liberal in sight. “In 1976, only about a quarter of America’s voters lived in a county a presidential candidate won by a landslide margin. By 2004, it was nearly half,” he pointed out in his book. Upon closer inspection he found that America wasn’t just sorting by political persuasion but by what we eat, how we pray, where we shop, even what shoes we wear. American neighborhoods, churches, and stores were ever-increasingly filled with people who have the same views.

His theory for the cause of this segregation is that America lost its national narrative in the sweeping changes of the 1960s. The fear, turmoil, and uncertainties of that time, led people to create “island communities” to give them a sense of security with people who look and speak like themselves. Faith in the old institutions that bound us crumbled, trust in the government declined as did political party membership, newspaper circulation, and church attendance. In it’s place we created new communities personalized to our preferences, homogeneous, and comfortable. As Bill Bishop concludes:

We have built a country where everyone can choose the neighborhood (and church and news shows) most compatible with his or her lifestyle and beliefs. And we are living with the consequences of this segregation by way of life, pockets of like-minded citizens have become so ideologically inbred that we don’t know, can’t understand and can barely conceive of “those people” who live just a few miles away.

Silos are at their worst during times of unrest. Zimmerman was prompted to start his neighborhood watch group after a rash of break-ins. Here in Baltimore, the Canton community has been dealing with the difficult question of how to respond to a crime spike in their community. “I’m becoming a worse neighbor,” a friend who lives in Canton admitted to me over lunch, “I’ve become suspicious of anyone who looks out of place, I reach for the phone to call the police when anyone comes my door who I don’t know, and I keep a wary eye on anyone even remotely approaching my house.” Unfortunately in many communities “looking out of place” often has racial connotations and the steps communities make to protect themselves makes their neighborhoods more hostile to outsiders which in turn makes those “outsiders” more hostile to them.

What the Zimmerman case reveals is that these silos have dangerous implications for our country and there is no time better than now to begin to examine how we begin to dismantle them. As President Obama said in his remarks on Sunday:

The death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy.  Not just for his family, or for any one community, but for America…I now ask every American to respect the call for calm reflection from two parents who lost their young son. And as we do, we should ask ourselves if we’re doing all we can to widen the circle of compassion and understanding in our own communities…We should ask ourselves, as individuals and as a society, how we can prevent future tragedies like this. As citizens, that’s a job for all of us. That’s the way to honor Trayvon Martin.

In our moment of calm reflection, we need to examine the silos we have built in our hearts. If we want to break down silos, we’ve got to dig deep within ourselves to forgive, empathize, and accept the role every one of us plays in creating silos. It means reaching out to people we feel have wronged us but also recognizing that others have been wronged by us too. It’s an internal process of breaking down walls as much as it is an external process. We are all part of the ecosystem that builds and causes the building of silos and that history affects our effectiveness in breaking them down now. Silos are complicated messes of people, emotions, memory, and history. We carry the legacy of history and culture that makes it hard for us to go beyond the fortresses that provide us comfort. Silos weren’t built in a day and will not be easily torn down either. I think we forget what a huge mental lift it is because it seems as easy as showing up for an event, having a conversation, sharing an idea.

I have been to far too many meetings in various cities that ask why they aren’t diverse, but not enough willing to start the slow and long process of examination and action it will require to remove, stone by stone, the walls between us. I see a lot of events that are about getting the community together to share ideas but not a lot of events about how we create that community in the first place. Diversity is an afterthought; once the event has begun we look around the room and say, “Gee, it’s all white people.” We need more intentional discussions, programs, and efforts to address this serious problem. Tearing down silos requires herculean empathy and constant consideration.

The beginning of the end of silos will come when we begin to unravel the silos that exist in our minds and hearts. It requires us to get uncomfortable, find new collaborative ways of ensuring safety, create new inclusive narratives, and most importantly listen to people whose perspectives and viewpoints are so vastly different from our own. We will be required to see the greyness in every situation, admit that our own perspective is not the definitive one, and see that other people see and are shaped by the world in remarkably different ways. We will be required to face a history of mistrust, fear, and violence and admit our role in creating these silos.

We will need to have discussions, some which will make us angry, some which will challenge our assumptions, some which will touch open wounds, and others that will be insightful and delightful. We will have to hear the record scratch and watch the room turn as we walk into places where we are not yet welcome. Most importantly we will have to work on this every day. Silos were not built with speed or ease and turning the tide and uniting our communities will neither be a fast nor simple process either, but I have faith that we have the ability to break through.