Introduction

A Tale of Two Countries

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.

— CHARLES DICKENS

We are living in a society today that can feel at times like it is coming apart at the seams. For some this is mostly what they see on the news or on their social media platforms, because they live in environments that seem largely homogeneous. For others it is the day-to-day experience of living in communities that are torn between “them” and “us,” or in workplaces in which there is a constant, underlying nervousness about what we can and can’t talk about. Even within families, different political and social perspectives create tensions and separation.

The purpose of this book is to seek to understand these tensions and offer the hope that there are ways to address our differences that can bring healing. It is not impossible. In workplaces all around the country, people are beginning to engage in courageous conversations about difference, because the workplace may be our greatest hope for reestablishing connection between our different “tribes.” Target sponsors a workshop to encourage dialogue between white women and women of color to generate greater understanding and mutual support, and pulls employees of all backgrounds together to talk about how the threatened ban on the issuance of visas to Muslims may impact their Muslim employees. General Mills conducts regular critical conversations in which employees come together to talk about their concerns and find common ground. Governmental agencies, the military, the intelligence community, and hundreds of corporations, schools, and other institutions engage in trainings to better understand how bias impacts their ability to work together. Starbucks attempts to create an opportunity for customers and baristas to talk about race. Some of these efforts have been more effective than others, for sure, but more and more organizations understand that the stresses that exist outside our work environment come to work with us every day and impact how we relate to our fellow workers.

As we will discover, it is natural for us to bond with people we identify with. Whether those groups are formed by family connection, race, gender, or other forms of mutual identity, we have a particular connection to people who are like us, in whatever way we define that. Most people, however, find that it is limiting to the fullness of our lives if we only relate to people with whom we bond. It is our ability to bridge with others that gives us new ideas, new insights, and a deeper, richer perspective on life. It is also very difficult to get the best out of people when they cannot be fully themselves. Organizations that want to thrive will be frustrated if they do not create a sense of belonging.

And most important for our society, the experiment that is democracy cannot work without bridging across differences.

Yet in our country today, those bridges are either in disrepair or burning.

For years, our political system has largely operated as a bell curve. While there were people on the extremes of both liberalism and conservatism, most politicians gravitated toward the middle, with many falling on one side or another depending upon the issues that were being discussed. During the days of the civil rights movement, northern liberal Republicans worked together with many Democrats; however, some southern Democrats teamed up with other Republicans to oppose landmark legislation. Anti–Vietnam War Democrats teamed up with some liberal Republicans to oppose the war, while some conservative Democrats and other Republicans supported it. The notion of politicians crossing party lines to support legislative action of one kind or another was more the norm than the exception. This is not to say there weren’t plenty of other challenges: LGBTQ people were mostly resigned to living in hiding, the rights of people of color were barely being explored, and the rights of women were even more challenged than they are today.1 Yet the divisions were not as stark as they are now.2

Now, however, we have devolved into what we might call a dumbbell curve, in which everything is on the extremes and nothing is in the middle. The most conservative Democrats generally vote more on the liberal side than the most liberal Republicans, and vice versa. And the gap between the two is increasing, even in terms of where we live. We can see this clearly through analyzing what has been called the Whole Foods/Cracker Barrel divide.3 Whole Foods Market and Cracker Barrel Old Country Store illustrate this polarization as much as any other example. Both companies exist throughout the United States and both emphasize connections to their local communities, yet when you look at the voting patterns of people who live around their franchises, you can see American political segregation in stark relief.

Whole Foods stores generally reside in more liberal/Democratic communities. Cracker Barrel restaurants, on the other hand, generally are in more conservative/Republican enclaves. In the 1992 presidential election, Bill Clinton won roughly 61 percent of counties with a Whole Foods Market in them and only 40 percent of those with a Cracker Barrel restaurant, a 21 percent gap. However, as you can see in Table I.1, that divide has increased every election since then. In 2012, Barack Obama won in 77 percent of the Whole Foods counties and only 29 percent of the Cracker Barrel counties, a 48 percent gap!4

This is not to suggest that there are not counties that continue to have more political diversity, but the trend here is striking. A look at the electoral map bears this out, as does additional research.5 The result has been that these extreme, homogeneous sides have cannibalized reasonable political discourse and shifted our sense of normalcy from an expectation that we will have to work together to a win-lose dynamic in which each side strives to win at all costs.

At an even deeper level, when we look at the 2016 presidential election totals through another lens, an even more troubling pattern arises. This polarization of voting doesn’t only occur in political affiliation; it is a function of demographic identity.6 People who voted for Trump overwhelmingly represent what we might call the dominant identity groups: 58 percent of whites, 53 percent of men, and 58 percent of Christians. Clinton voters represent the nondominant groups: 88 percent of blacks, 54 percent of women, 65 percent of Latinos, 65 percent of Asians, 71 percent of Jews, and 78 percent of LGBTQ voters. It was more than just a question of issues; it was a question of identity. And this is a critical difference. When we evaluate people based on issues, it is impersonal. When we evaluate people based on identity, we objectify them. It is no longer “I disagree with you on this point”; it becomes “I don’t like who you are!” When the people we disagree with politically look different from us and have different cultural backgrounds, it is easier to demonize them as the “other.” It also makes it easier for the power dynamics in society, between those in dominant cultural groups (e.g., whites, men, heterosexuals, Christians, people with higher incomes) to have their identity power manifest in the political process and therefore in public policy.

We are living in a time of increasing political segregation that threatens to tear us apart as a unified society. The result is that we are becoming increasingly tribal, and the narratives that we get exposed to on a daily basis have increasingly become echo chambers in which we hear our beliefs reinforced and those of others demonized.

This mind-set does not only impact our political lives. Communities in the United States are becoming more segregated than they have been in years. Racial segregation in public schools is at a rate comparable to the 1960s, and increasing movement to private and charter schools seems destined to make it more pronounced.7 According to the Government Accountability Office, the number of high-poverty schools serving primarily black and brown students has more than doubled since 2000, and the proportion of schools segregated by race and class (in which 75 percent of children receive free or reduced-fee lunches and more than 75 percent are black or Hispanic) climbed from 9 percent to 16 percent during that period.8

The racial divide in the United States, though never resolved, has emerged more publicly again in response to the killing of numerous black men and women by police officers. African Americans continue to struggle with higher unemployment, poorer schools, lower-quality health care, and, on average, only one-seventh the accumulated wealth of the average white family. This has birthed the Black Lives Matter movement. Yet racial extremists have become more publicly emboldened, demonstrated by a rise in white nationalist and white supremacist organizations and activity. As I write this, the controversy about whether athletes should be allowed to protest is bringing the nation to its knees, as is the appropriateness of Civil War memorials in public places, and questions abound as to whether the 2017 hurricane damage in Puerto Rico is being treated differently because most of the U.S. citizens there are not white. Racial gaps in income and wealth continue to remain significant, and are even increasing as the tension around other societal issues continues to foment.

Fear leads to stronger anti-immigrant feelings throughout the West. Incidents of terrorism by radical Muslims lead to rampant Islamophobia and calls to keep “them” out. Anti-Muslim hate crimes are on the rise, as are those that are anti-Semitic.9 Fear of difference regarding transgender people leads to transphobic reactions and laws to keep people from using the bathroom of their choice.10 Attempts are being made to roll back some of the advancement of equal rights for LGBTQ Americans, under the guise of religious rights. Voter suppression laws are passed that will undoubtedly impact people of color and low-income people, at the same time as legal scholars assert there is, in fact, no real evidence of voter fraud for these efforts to “fix.”11 At almost every turn, we see an explosion of “us versus them.”

The tension extends to our most fundamental relationships. Thousands of families canceled their usual Thanksgiving dinners after the 2016 elections because of the fear of confronting political divide within their own families, in effect feeling more bonded with their political tribe than with their families.12 Businesses find it more and more difficult to avoid the tension that these dualities regularly create in the workplace. Studies show that this workplace tension causes not only generalized stress but an increased reticence to talk about “controversial issues,” even when they impact the work.13 Schools have seen a surge in bullying, some children returning home with the message from teachers and peers that their “families will be deported.”14

At the heart of this division is fear: fear of the other, fear of exposing ourselves, fear of not having control over our own lives, fear for the safety and survival of our friends, our loved ones, and ourselves.

We do not have to accept this division as inevitable. In this book I will be attempting to help explain why we are so pulled to polarized positions, to explain why our demonization of each other is occurring, and to offer hope. There are numerous examples of people and organizations who are attempting to reach across the divide—to create bridges to belonging that can help us remember that it is possible to disagree without being disagreeable, and to remember that we have a shared destiny, whether we like it or not. These efforts are occurring in communities across the country and also in our workplaces. In fact, I will make the case that the workplace is one of the best vehicles we have for building healing and understanding by the very fact that it is one of the few places where people who are different from each other have to learn to work together. I will also offer suggestions as to how we can create that sense of belonging in our families, organizations, communities, and society.

Why Is the Divide So Painful?

Why do these tensions hit us so hard? Because at the same time as we are pulled apart by these political and social dynamics, we are learning at a deeper level that human beings have a strong need to belong, to feel connected to those around them. We have seen over the course of history how this need to belong can lead people to come together, especially during times of crisis, and achieve remarkable things, as in the mobilization of the United States as it entered World War II. We have also seen how that same need to belong has allowed people to engage in some of the worst events in human history: the Holocaust, slavery, the Rwandan civil war, et cetera. We have demonstrated a blind, and often terrifying, willingness to go along with the crowd, even when the crowd is doing evil. In today’s world, the need to connect with those that we relate to, and at the same time stay away from the other is creating a degree of tribalism that we haven’t experienced in centuries.

The 2016 presidential election, and politics in general, is just one way this divide is manifesting itself throughout our culture. The bigger issue, and the bigger question that underlies this book, is: How does the inherent need to belong impact us as human beings? And, perhaps even more important: Why is this happening, and what we can do about it?

I will be exploring why it is natural for human beings to feel more comfortable with people in groups to which we belong. It creates a kind of bond that has us feeling safer and knowing what to expect, what is considered normal, and how to relate. However, if we are to transcend the division that we now experience and move toward a more peaceful and equitable societal order, we will also have to learn better how to bridge across those bonded groups. Perhaps what is now seen as “us versus them” can, at least much of the time, be turned into collaborations in which we draw from the best of both.

I don’t think that it is being hyperbolic to say that we are in a time of crisis. My hope is that this book will create a greater understanding of why that crisis is occurring, and chart a path that can help us build greater connection in our families, communities, and organizations. We’ll start by getting a better understanding of what belonging is and why we need it.

It is natural for us to want to look for solutions, and we will get there. Yet my thirty-five years of professional experience in creating sustainable change has taught me that over the long term, transformational change occurs only when we understand why we do the things that we do. In this case that means exploring why it is that human beings are so driven to live in and be influenced by the groups that they identify with.

It is no accident that people demonstrate a universal desire to fit into groups. The need for belonging is an inherent survival mechanism. We will start by exploring why that is, how it impacts us, and how both the human brain and the mind are geared toward belonging, even at times when it separates us from others.