The Same Road

For the last several days, I’ve been doing something that apparently has become radical in America.

I’ve been listening.

I know. Crazy concept.

I’m not arguing with anybody. I’m not trying to convince anybody. I’m not asking whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat.

I’m just walking up to complete strangers and asking them the same questions.

And I’ve talked to people from 22 years old to 76 years old.

Different races. Different backgrounds. Different generations. Different life experiences.

And something fascinating is happening.

We’re not nearly as different as we’ve been told we are.

When I ask people what worries them most about where this country is headed, one answer comes up over and over:

The economy.

People are worried about making it.

They’re worried about groceries.

Housing.

Jobs.

Their kids.

Their retirement.

They’re looking around at one of the richest countries in the history of the world and wondering:

Why does it feel so damn hard just to live?

And then another issue keeps coming up.

Racism.

And this is where the conversations have gotten really interesting.

Because when I talk to many white people, I hear something like:

“We’ve come a long way.”

And when I talk to many people of color, I hear:

“We’ve still got a long way to go.”

And I started thinking about that.

Those two statements aren’t necessarily opposites.

They can both be true.

Imagine we’re driving from New York to California.

One person looks in the rearview mirror and says:

“My God, look how far we’ve come.”

The other person looks through the windshield and says:

“Yeah—but look how far we’ve still got to go.”

They’re sitting in the same damn car.

They’re looking at the same road.

They’re just looking in different directions.

And maybe that’s part of what’s happening in America.

We’ve become obsessed with proving whose description of the country is correct.

How bad is racism?

How much progress have we made?

Who’s responsible?

Who’s offended?

Who’s allowed to say what?

Meanwhile, there’s a much simpler question sitting right in front of us:

What do we do next?

Because suppose I believe we’ve made enormous progress on racism.

Great.

Does that mean we’re finished?

Of course not.

And suppose you believe we’ve barely scratched the surface.

Okay.

Does that mean the progress we’ve already made doesn’t count?

Of course not.

So why are we spending all our energy fighting about the mile marker?

Let’s keep driving.

And that’s becoming the biggest lesson of this listening tour for me.

Maybe America doesn’t need everybody to agree.

Maybe that’s an impossible standard.

We’ve got 340 million people.

We’re never going to agree on everything.

Hell, put six people in a room and ask where they want pizza from and you’ll have a constitutional crisis.

But we don’t need complete agreement.

We need enough agreement to move.

And I’m beginning to wonder whether there’s a giant group of Americans sitting quietly in the middle who are exhausted by being told they have to choose one extreme or the other.

Maybe somebody can believe capitalism is enormously powerful—and still believe everybody deserves healthcare.

Maybe somebody can support the police—and still believe policing should be accountable.

Maybe somebody can be proud of America’s progress on race—and still believe we have work left to do.

Maybe somebody can love this country deeply—and criticize it when it falls short.

Those things aren’t contradictions.

That’s citizenship.

And that’s why I’m going to keep doing these interviews.

I’m not looking for people who agree with me.

I’m looking for what we agree about.

Because somewhere underneath all the shouting, the algorithms, the cable-news panels and the politicians telling us how much we’re supposed to hate one another, I suspect there’s another America.

An America that’s worried about paying the mortgage.

An America that wants its kids to have opportunities.

An America that wants people treated fairly.

An America that wants safe communities.

An America that wants a government that actually works.

And an America that’s getting pretty damn tired of being divided into teams.

So I’m going to keep listening.

Twenty-five conversations.

Then fifty.

Then a hundred.

And when I get to a hundred, I’m not going to ask:

“Who won the argument?”

I’m going to ask:

“What did we hear?”

Where do Americans actually agree?

What are they afraid of?

What do they want changed?

And most importantly:

What are they willing to do about it?

Because the white guy who says, “We’ve come a long way,” and the Black guy who says, “We’ve got a long way to go,” may actually be telling us something incredibly important.

They’re both acknowledging the road.

So maybe our job isn’t to stand on the shoulder arguing about how many miles we’ve traveled.

Maybe our job is to get back in the car.

Keep moving.

Keep listening.

Keep talking to each other.

And start fixing the things we already know need fixing.

Because we don’t have to agree about exactly where America is today.

We just have to agree that tomorrow can be better.

And then we’ve got to get off our asses…

and build it.