On Feb. 13, scholars from Massachusetts-based universities convened online for the second installment of the recently developed discussion series titled “Dialogue and Action in an Age of Divides.” The first session, which took place on Jan. 29, featured panelists from the University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston College Law School and Boston University School of Law, and delved into the contentious topics of hate speech and the boundaries of free expression. Moderated by Layli Maparyan — the executive director of the Wellesley Centers for Women and professor of Africana studies at Wellesley College — the second session, titled “Coming Together Across Difference,” emphasized a crucial message: despite differences and disagreements, individuals are fundamentally interconnected, and true progress stems from unity rather than division. Panelists provided insight drawn from research and personal experience and shared ways for audience members to work toward bridging together differences. 

Prof. Alexandra Pineros-Shields (Heller), associate professor of the practice of racial equity at the Heller School of Social Policy and Management, was one of the panelists. Before joining Brandeis University, Pineros-Shields served as the executive director of the Essex County Community Organization, a mission-driven organization focused on racial and economic justice. ECCO boasted a network of 40 congregations, spanning interfaith, interracial and interclass communities. 

Pineros-Shields drew from personal anecdotes during her role as executive director. She recounted the challenging journey of ensuring all Lynn, Massachusetts police officers received implicit bias training following the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown. The initial community gathering turned hostile with a sense of ambush upon the Chief of Police's arrival, when a Boston Globe reporter began asking questions. Despite setbacks, community leaders persisted and gave testimonies of their experience with the Lynn Police Department. In concluding the community gathering, leaders asked whether or not the police department would hold implicit bias training, but the Chief of Police declined. 

In brainstorming next steps, one leader posed the question of “instead of asking to get the police to hold an implicit bias training and inviting ourselves to it, why don't we host an implicit bias training and invite the police to ours?” The shift in approach led to a transformative meeting where ECCO leaders shared, with the police department, stories of internalized racism, prompting the realization that they too could benefit from implicit bias training. They also asked the police department to join and this time around, the chief said yes. 

“I asked the chief what happened at that April meeting to make today possible,” Pineros-Shields said. “He quickly responded, ‘That's easy. You saw us as human beings.’” ECCO has successfully gotten police officers in the city of Lynn to participate in implicit bias training, secured the usage of police body cameras, and gained the city council’s support to develop and fund an unarmed crisis response team. Pineros-Shields said ECCO’s success in bridging the divide between police officers and marginalized communities stems from acknowledging and taking responsibility for racism and violence, recognizing their own roles in these dynamics. “We stepped into our own vulnerability to establish trust with the person we had seen as the enemy.” 

In her opening remarks, Danielle Allen, a James Bryant Conant University professor and professor of government at Harvard University, highlighted her personal background steeped in activism and civic engagement. Allen said that her grandparents founded the first NAACP chapters in northern Florida in the forties, as well as helped fight for women’s right to vote. “I was lucky to grow up in a universe of super civically engaged people,” Allen said. However, with that, she noticed that the following generations  came to have increasing political disagreements. According to Allen, her aunt lived in the Bay Area in 1992 and was running for Congress for the Peace and Freedom party, while her father was running for the U.S. Senate from Southern California as a Regan-era republican. She recalled that her politically opposing family members “argue fiercely” about market liberties, civic virtues and public sector investments at the dinner table. 

“I was a young person … trying to make sense of … this debate,” Allen remembered. “I loved them, so it wasn’t as if I could just sort of pick sides because [of] which person I like better.” Despite growing political differences within her family, Allen witnessed the importance of engaging across divides and preserving human dignity. She came to learn that no matter the severity of the disagreement, the dignity of the human is more sacred. “They share this cross generational project of empowerment,” Allen said. “They were both pursuing empowerment for themselves, their families and their community.” 

Expanding her reflection to a broader context, Allen commented on the prevalent perception of the United States as deeply polarized along political lines. “We just hear stories over and over and over again of how we really are just sort of at each other’s throat all the time,” said Allen. She challenged this narrative by pointing to instances of bipartisan cooperation at the state level. Citing examples such as Florida's 2018 Amendment 4, which restored voting rights to individuals with completed felony convictions, and Mississippi's overwhelming support for a new state flag, parting ways of the Confederate symbols, Allen showed the potential for collaboration and consensus-building. She emphasized that “the way people are actually able to turn that common purpose into concrete result is by focusing on the human, by building relationships, by forming coalitions and ally ships and really doing that work to keep that core commitment to human dignity front and center.”

The third panelist, David Lazer, a distinguished professor of political science and computer science at Northeastern University, addressed the significant political divide that has expanded over the past four decades. This division is marked by substantial disparities along spatial, class, urban-rural, racial, regional and religious lines, all of which align with partisan affiliations that were not as pronounced 40 years ago. On college campuses, the close proximity of strong disagreements often leads to friction, exacerbating the widening difference of political discord. 

Using his political science and computer science background, Lazer noted that technologies have evolved to bring together individuals who share similar perspectives; however, they often fail to foster connections among those with divergent viewpoints, and instead place them in “conflictual juxtaposition.” He worries that as a society, that we are retreating from the possibility of connection.  This concern is underscored by Instagram's Feb. 9 update to the political content policy, signifying a shift away from what Lazer sees as fostering political discussions.

“Abandoning the field as it were for political discussion and that incidental contact with activity and so on, is, I think potentially a [turn] for the worse,” Lazer shared. “I actually think social media for all their problems have also been taken for protest and for petition and for political mobilization.”  

For one of his books, Lazer hosted virtual online town halls with members of Congress with randomly selected constituents talking about controversial issues such as immigration. He drew upon this example as a meaningful way where technology helps connect and enable the discussions in a meaningful way. 

“[Constituents] were like, ‘oh my gosh, it’s delightful that they would invite me and want to hear from me,’’’ Lazer recalled hearing. “We’re not all gonna agree, but we all have to live under the same rules and that’s part of the challenge of democracy. We owe it to each other to talk and to listen and that is very hard in the current moment.”

All three panelists’ remarks share the common theme of the power of invitation. In order to make any good effort in “coming together across differences,” inviting others to engage and participate is a critical first step. 

A recording of the panel discussion can be found at Northeastern University’s website, under “Dialogue and Action Panel Series.” The next part of the series, “Constructive Dialogue in the Ager of Social Media,” will take place April 2, from 5 to 6 p.m. EST. More information can be found on Northeastern’s website.