In our society today, inequity of voice is one of the harshest, most damaging injustices.
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People who have gained lived experience with extreme marginalization, disadvantage and trauma have unique, hard-fought expertise. Unfortunately, that invaluable expertise is often disregarded and squandered … to the detriment of all of us.
We have seen, however, that when given the opportunity, people tend to be highly receptive to hearing and learning directly from those who have personal experience with acute hardship. It simply doesn’t happen often enough.
We must invest more in building the skills and confidence of the most underheard and overlooked among us to tell the story they wish to tell and in creating more opportunities for them to be listened to with receptiveness and respect.
In our society today, the forces of division and alienation are strong and emboldened. We have reached a point where dialogue, open-mindedness and compromise are often scorned as weakness. As our fractures deepen and widen, we take less interest in knowing one another and grow less empathetic and compassionate toward those we call “others.”
In Global Dialogues’ work around the world over the past decades, we have seen again and again that stories – especially the stories of the most vulnerable among us – can serve as a kind of societal superglue for bringing people together. People who categorically reject a cross-divide dialogue “on the issues” often open their minds and hearts when asked to hear and talk about the stories of community members who have experienced trauma. Those stories create a rare, safe space for connection.
In our society today, when looking for solutions to societal challenges, our focus is too often on single phenomena seen in isolation at the present moment … and on quick fixes.
The deck often seems to be stacked against those who advocate taking time to look far upstream to identify root causes and complex interrelationships. The same can be said of people who speak of the importance of embarking on solutions that require long-term thinking.
We have seen that community members’ stories are often a welcome, engaging way for people – including policymakers – to slow down for a change, expose themselves to the many interrelated phenomena to be considered when addressing major challenges (e.g., addiction and recovery in the community), and start to come to terms with the need for long-term approaches.
And finally, in our society today, we must do a much better job of intentionally cultivating compassion and love in the pursuit of healthy social change.
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We have seen again and again that listening to and discussing the stories of the most marginalized among us is a uniquely powerful way to do just that.
