I remember the day the East and West Germans began dismantling the Berlin wall. My husband and I watched it on the BBC news in our tiny apartment in Tokyo where we'd been teaching English. The best part of the whole operation was when people on either side of the wall crossed over and met those on the other side face to face.
This memory sprang to mind as a result of an encounter not long ago. I was attending a computer workshop. The instructor had given the class a 10-minute break and some participants were using it to surf. The person next to me was browsing a news website comment page, scowling the whole time. He turned to me, pointed at a comment and said, "This guy's right. Everyone hates us but they all want to move here."
I didn't have to ask him what he meant by everyone; I've heard the sentiment often enough. In my mid-20s when I worked as a refugee resettlement caseworker for Catholic Charities Refugee Services in Dallas, TX, people I met at conferences, parties and the gym said this all the time. At that age I felt compelled to correct them: no, many refugees don't want to leave their home countries but it's preferable to being shot by a firing squad or starving to death. I could have told my fellow student this, or point out that now that Vietnam is safe, many former refugees are moving back to help rebuild their country.
Over time, however, I've learned that debate usually doesn't change a thing when I encounter sweeping generalizations that reinforce prejudice and vilify strangers. What does seem to be effective is telling stories about my personal experiences with strangers-turned-friends. Countering "Everyone hates us" with "Oh, I don't know - when we lived in Japan, people were friendly and helpful" or "I've never seen that in the (fill in nationality) I've met" puts my reply in the realm of personal experience. And personal experience is more credible than unverified rumors.
This technique works not only with racially motivated statements but in any circumstance where a conversation partner makes generalizations I know aren't true. Last January one acquaintance made such a comment about police officers. After I pointed out to her that a mutual friend of ours is a retired cop and he's nothing like the stereotype she was describing, she realized what she'd been doing.
When sharing a face-to-face anecdote it's crucial to keep a neutral tone - you're telling a personal story, not debating or lecturing. We all indulge in prejudices. I found myself making assumptions about my fellow workshop participant: I bet he's never been out of Clark County, let alone visited a different country. He's probably never met anyone from Vietnam, Mexico or India. No wonder he assumed I'd agree with him - he probably believes all Americans think alike. And so on. I had to remind myself that I have plenty of friends on the other side of my own political fence - and they're wonderful people. I know they're wonderful because I've met them face to face, have had some challenging but mutually enlightening dialogues, and received numerous acts of kindness from them.
Maybe it's human nature to mentally divide the people we meet into Them and Us. But as Captain Jean-Luc Picard once said (I forgot which movie), being human means that we can always become better than we are. If we settle for the excuse "it's just human nature," we're not being all we can be. We're demeaning ourselves.
The world's problems are so overwhelming that a simple solution isn't possible. But I think that every time any of us consciously practices seeing the people we meet as individuals rather than components in a faceless group, and inviting those people into our lives if only for a single encounter, walls will be dismantled one brick at a time.
