How to Respond to people Amidst a Crisis: POTOW & Let Dave Chappelle Show You

Our country and communities have had a crapton of crises lately and no shortage of people weighing in and saying something about them.

There’s the unprecedented COVID crisis. The constitutional democracy/leadership crises. Now, this week we’ve had yet another black man, George Floyd this time, die in police custody, killed by the police officers who are supposed to be protecting their community.

I’ve had a hard time trying to decide what to say myself. Who am I as a white dude who has never been elected to public office to offer leadership or perspective here?

The English/critical thinking professor in me knows this: TRUST NOTHING. Facts appear to be fluid in this politically charged era, but that should not be the case. A fact is something measurable that can be verified. The rest is all about the communication triangle: a) SPEAKER/WRITER, b) THE MESSAGE, c) THE AUDIENCE. Here are some steps to getting more of the picture so you can help shift public discourse and public policy (which are nice phrases for shifting how we talk and what we do).

Here are five steps that I think will help anyone get a message through the fire to the other side.

1. P – PREPARE by reading. Read Lots Carefully. Listen (not to social media alone, as cherry-picked quotes, data, or headlines can often obscure important context.)
2. O – ORGANIZE. Organize the substance in your mind (or on paper) in to categories like facts, biases, and opinions. Use bullets maybe to get the big stuff out.
3. T – THINK. Think by talking out loud with others, journaling, being creative by drawing, singing, or writing poetry, but know that most people think in layers, meaning we can get the broad stuff in a first attempt, but only by going back over it a few times do we really get to deeper detail and understanding.
4. O – Understand the OTHER side (often this is called opposition in argument circles, but that implies a fight). If there is another side to yours, seek to understand and empathize with them (so that you can adapt and clarify your position in ways that are more likely to be heard). Do you want to yell at them and them yell at you forever? Of course not. So that means everybody needs to listen more. Listen to people from different perspectives, especially people different from you. Read their writing. Listen to the sometimes annoying smugness and irritating tone of the “other” and then TURN OFF that anger and imagine their fears. Anger often comes from fear. So if you really want things to change, we all have to learn to take the anger, let it go through us, and understand what drives it, so we can get them nodding. WITH US. Nodding with us.
5. W – WRITE it respectfully. Figure out who you are, what you want to say, who you want to say it to, and write that message down. Then clean it up and edit it down to make it more concise. Present it however you want, including Instagram, Videos, written word, songs, BLM Protest Sign, but think before you write and be sure you revise. Does this message matter. Hell yes it does, so put time into it. And remember your audience. If they think you’re talking down to them, they will stop listening, and they have to listen. Try to find a way to BE NICE. If you can.

Curious about the George Floyd and Police Brutality conversation?

Don’t know where to get started on your reading? Here’s a quick “What Happened” NYTimes article on the George Floyd timeline. It might even be interesting to read some comments, but give yourself a set amount of time (like I’ll read comments for 10 minutes and stop at 1:30).

Here’s one Christian perspective on race and police brutality arguing that something should be done.

Here’s a conservative perspective arguing that “Institutional Racism” is a myth. Note: I had to search harder for these opinion pieces, and there is a good chance many will disagree with aspects of this one. Still, what can be learned? Where is the bias? Where is data cherry-picked? What questions do you have after this perspective?

Here’s a powerful video from an activist named Kimberly Jones called “How Can We Win?” on the topics of protesting, rioting, looting, and general unfairness around black wealth and progress? I personally feel like I learned a lot from this perspective, even if I’m not sure I agree with 100% of it.

Now, if you’ve been curious about the Dave Chappelle link, here’s a video detailing an event that happened in 2015 where Dave Chappelle handles a heckler on the topic of police brutality. It is a story, not a video of the event, but at least a few other sources seem to corroborate that the event really happened, like this STORY from BoredPanda with the original KennyDeForest Tweets. In this video, see how Dave Chappelle handles the situation, and consider the outcome. POTOW baby. He was prepared and he already knew what the message was.

Now go. POTOW and make this better.