The Art of Changing Minds

Megan Phelps-Roper suggests there are four things that helped her change her mind and all four of those steps can be helpful for having difficult conversations about race and politics with White friends and family:

Certainly, these steps sound much easier than they actually are, and many of them are highly practiced skills. Let's break down these four areas more closely, considering what it actually looks like to take these steps.

Don't Assume Bad Intent: Nonjudgmental Listening

The sections above pretty extensively cover the idea of looking for the good in people and listening with curiosity. But, what does it mean to truly listen from a nonjudgmental place? There are two components to nonjudgmental listening: listening and non-judgment. Coming from a caring place and remembering your own potential for harm allow you to curb judgment, but let's dig in deeper to what it means to actually listen.

Many of us have images of what we've been told good listeners do: they nod their heads, make eye contact, repeat back what they hear, say "I hear you." However, these are just the performances of good listening. True listening requires a lot more skill than physical markers would give away.

Ask Questions: It's an Art

When trying to change someone’s mind, it can be tempting to ask questions in a combative way, hoping to catch someone, trap them, or corner them into seeing your way of thinking. If you’ve ever seen an animal backed into a corner, you can imagine what this does to our primal survival brain. We hiss, we claw, and we bite our way to comfortable safety. Since people rarely learn or reflect meaningfully when they feel threatened, we must take a different approach: The goal of questioning, then, must be to invite your conversational partner to reexamine their own thinking and logic and come to realizations of their own.

As Megan Phelps-Roper points out, asking questions "helps us map the disconnect between our differing points of view" and "signals to someone that they're being heard." She even argues that it can change the dynamic of the conversation. But it's not just any question that will do the job. We can have this impact by:

• Asking open-ended questions

• Getting clarification to better understand

• Understanding that feelings are real

It’s hard to give someone who disagrees with you the floor because you don’t know what direction it will take you. However, if you want to understand the thoughts that drive someone’s beliefs, you need to understand how their thinking works. Begin with open-ended questions that allow them to lay out all the ideas that make up their belief. As we listen to those we oppose, we can see holes in their argument of which they may be unaware. The reflexive move is to point out the hole and deconstruct the argument yourself. However, if your goal is to change their mind, you have to let their mind do the changing. Sow seeds of doubt that grow into reflection instead of uprooting the whole garden yourself. Instead of asking leading questions, which might be questions for which you have a preconceived answer or advice/opinions disguised as questions, ask questions that require your conversational partner to reflect on their own thinking.

Besides asking deep, open-ended questions, don't be afraid to get clarification. There are a few reasons we fail to ask for clarification in tough conversations:

• We don’t want to interrupt the flow of the conversation.

• We don’t want to look stupid.

• We assume we know what others mean.

Asking for clarification when someone says something confusing, untrue, or unclear, allows you to follow their ideas better. It also allows them to test whether they really mean what they said.

Sometimes, we get caught up in trying to question someone's feelings instead of working to understand how they impact their opinion. Certainly, feelings are not facts, but they are real. We are all shaped by the daily experiences we have and our perceptions of those experiences—while not always objectively accurate—are real. The feelings we have inform what the Four Elders call the “inner reality” we speak from as much as the “outward facts” do. Instead of rejecting someone’s feelings that don’t feel accurate or relevant to your understanding of an issue, you can:

• Ask questions to understand where the feelings come from

• Help them walk through the experiences that inform those feelings

• Then, support them in decentering those feelings

Maintain Patience: Once It's a Fight, You've Already Lost

Sometimes it feels like certain people are made of patience, while others have a fuse shorter than an eyelash. It may feel like patience is one of those innate things that people are born with or not, but it is actually something that you can learn to do. To build your patience, you have to build your emotional awareness and your empathy.

In order to be be patient enough to keep a tough conversation calm, you have to pay really close attention to the ignition of feelings that could cause you to respond unproductively. If your patience is the fuse, you have to be able to catch the lighter before the flame makes contact. This means paying really close attention to when your thoughts start to change. If your conversational partner says something that makes you really angry, the ideal thought is, "I wonder what makes them feel so differently about that," but many of us will experience less productive thoughts. We may think, "How could they be so stupid?" or "I wish I could make them shut up!" or possibly something riddled with a lot more expletives. When these thoughts begin to creep in, the fuse is being lit and you have two choices: put out the fire before it causes an explosion or get the explosive out of the way.

Do what you need to in order to get back to neutral and open-minded. If you give into your fuse, whether it be an emphatic eye roll or raising your voice, you harm the relationship and have work to do to heal it before you can start again. If you can stop it before it does damage, you can start right where you left off. Once the last embers of your fuse go out, you’re ready to try again!

You also can build your patience by empathizing with your conversational partner. As Camaryn Alejandra wrote, "There are going to be countless times when the person you are confronting will get defensive, self-victimize, or try to justify their behavior. Use your own experience with fragility to empathize with them and teach them how to overcome it." If you're White, you've experienced White fragility, and that experience is exactly what you can tap into when feeling impatient. Dip into your past and channel the thoughts that went through your head at your most defensive, shameful, guilty points in your anti-racist work. Remind yourself what helped you get out of there and apply it, or simply understand that this is the place your conversational partner are struggling in. You can use the strategies above outwardly, as well as inwardly. You can ask about what they're feeling or you can suggest a break for their sake. This is a form of de-escalation.

Finally, as Alejandra reminds us, it is vital that we don't appropriate Black anger. We can be angry and upset, but to turn those emotions on the very people we are trying to help is counterproductive. Pay close attention to your emotions and decenter yourself, because this fight isn't about you.

Make the Argument: "What I Know Is Different from What You Know"

Part of the reason these conversations are so incredibly challenging is that once you believe something, it becomes hard to imagine it not feeling like a fact. This means both you and your conversational partner are coming into the conversation thinking, "How could they possibly believe that?" As Megan Phelps-Roper so eloquently put it, "We sometimes assume that the value of our position is or should be obvious and self-evident, that we shouldn't have to defend our positions because they're so clearly right and good that if someone doesn't get it, it's their problem...But if it were that simple, we would all see things the same way."

So come into the conversation solidly versed in what you believe and knowing the reasons you believe it. Practice explaining it to someone who agrees with you and ask them to help you refine your reasoning. Then, when you come into the conversation, spell it out. Collect articles from reliable sources that you can pass along when you your conversational partner asks for proof. Read up on the facts so you're not just arguing from your emotional opinions. A lack of facts (from both sides) can make it tough to have a real discussion. If you can provide the research, your conversational partner will also bear the burden of proof for their arguments.

When you share these thoughts with your conversational partner, be clear and thorough, but also leave some space for them to digest the information. Pause occasionally and let them process. You can even check in by asking, "Am I losing you?" or "Does what I'm saying make sense?" or even "Am I going too fast?" Let them marinate in your ideas and allow breaks because the information you're sharing may be brand new to them, so they may need more time to make the connections you've already made.

At the same time, don't be afraid to not know. If you're really listening to your conversational partner, it may make you rethink or leave you with questions you need to answer in order to clarify your own beliefs. That's acceptable and having the vulnerability to say, "I hadn't thought about it that way. I might need some time to do additional research and thinking," will allow your conversational partner to do the same. If you are willing to clearly outline your ideas and open them up to questioning, your conversational partner will likely mirror that behavior. Changing minds is emotionally and mentally hard work that must be done in concert with others, not in combat with them. If you're lucky, the lightbulb will realize it wants to change.