BOSTON, MASS.-Nancy Braus reminded me again of a moment I have never forgotten.
I was in my first semester in graduate school at Brandeis University participating in a small, impromptu discussion including the dean, a couple faculty members, and approximately 10 students, all of us with a deep commitment to social justice.
The dean again asserted the message that was being repeated often to all of us green social justice warriors: "We are not training activists, we are training future researchers in order to inform effective policy responses."
Naively, I blurted out that, as an experienced activist, I found that being in a doctoral program was "like slamming into a brick wall."
At that, the dean leaned back in his chair, the natural physical response to a deep, and very loud, belly laugh. The faculty members present smirked and side-eyed me. I suppose, at that moment, I provided the very justification for their cautious, skeptical, and bemused posture on the passions of activists.
I was led to graduate school after learning from years of often loud, outspoken public activism on gay rights, AIDS, animal protection, labor, and patient rights and protections that visceral rage, disparaging others, name calling, inflammatory and loaded language, and shaming and humiliating others did not win the long-term goals of any of the social change causes that I had so passionately aligned myself with over the years.
They were effective at stirring the pot, certainly, but real change came from the informed development of critical consciousness and, as John Kenneth Galbraith argued, "the power of persuasion."
Persuasion requires thoughtful and effective communication of words, ideas, and one's vision to those of different perspectives and beliefs.
We need not do a deep-dive analysis to see that caustic tactics have not worked in the last nine years of Trump. In fact, the "orange, serial rapist, fascist, Nazi dictator, convicted felon, racist, homophobic, tax evader with a small penis," etc. sits in the White House, yet again, after defeating a woman of color in a democratic election where he flipped every swing state and won both the electoral college and popular vote with 77,303,568 votes (49.81% of all votes cast) and did so by persuading enough voters, including women, Black, Hispanic, LGBT, young (i.e., future voters) and even the Amish of his vision for the nation and our future.
Protesting is important. Screaming and visceral outrage feel good. But it is pretty apparent after nine years of continuing to slander and insult those who don't share your personal vision of the world - those who could possibly be persuaded to change their minds and votes, but likely won't when disparaged as "MAGA fascists" and "Trumpers" who don't "understand how love and morality work" - is not a smart, and certainly not a winning, strategy.
Barry L. Adams
Boston, Mass.
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