The Prep
The Prep: 10 Days and Counting
This spring we attended two one-day seminars that were created as a response to the election and people’s desire to learn how to communicate with friends and family members who voted ‘for the other side.’ Run by social workers, mediators and marriage counselors, we practiced keeping our cool as others play-acted speaking from the right. Then we got to practice our responses. Quite frankly, we were terrible at this. It seemed impossible to engage in any semblance of a civilized conversation with our ‘opponents.’
It wasn’t until we spent an evening with our friend Barney Brawer, a former urban school principal and teacher of family therapy, now running a small educational company called The National Classroom ®, www.thenationalclassroom.com, that we began to understand that our mission was simply to listen and, if possible, to ask non-confrontational questions. We weren’t going to change anyone’s mind. DT is already doing that work for us.
David and I listened to Confederates in the Attic written and read by Pulitzer Prize winner author Tony Horowitz. It’s in-depth look at a segment of southern culture through the lens of people who engage in Civil War enactments.
Many people urged us to read Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild as well as Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance. Both are sobering as well as enlightening reads. I’ve embedded links to Amazon so you can check them out if you wish.
The Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center where I am lucky enough to be a Resident Scholar has a new director. Karen Hansen is also the Chair of the Department of Sociology as well as a professor of sociology at the University. As we are spending some days in the Dakotas her book Encounter on the Great Plains and the Dispossession of the Dakota Indians is providing an insightful introduction to the history and culture of this part of the country as told from the perspective of the Native Americans who lived there first and the Scandinavian settlers who later claimed the land as their own. It made me think of a 1971 movie I loved called The Immigrants starring Liv Ulmann and Max von Sydow about a Swedish family who migrated to Minnesota in the middle of the 19th century. But I digress…
When the first post went out last week readers were overwhelmingly supportive, responding with links to articles, books to read and ideas for places to stop along the route of our itinerary. Keep those ideas coming. They keep buzzing around my head while we try to figure out how to pack for 2 months, 8,000 miles and wildly fluctuating weather situations.