Divided We Fall: Listening with Curiosity

>> Do the right thing, do the right thing Do it all the time, do it all the time Make yourself right, never mind them Don't you know you're not the only one suffering?

>> Do the right thing, do the right thing Do it all the time, do it all the time Make yourself right, never mind them >> Can Americans on opposite sides bridge their divides and build lasting bonds?

The ordinary Americans you're about to watch believe the answer is a resounding "yes."

First, you'll see what happened when strangers equally divided over then-president Trump spent a weekend together in the documentary "Divided We Fall: Unity Without Tragedy."

You'll witness them wrestle over gun violence, immigration, climate change, and racism.

And you'll see them begin to listen to each other with curiosity.

Then we join a live audience to watch as these ordinary Americans reunite years later for an honest conversation to explain what they learned and how it changed them.

We also hear, from conflict-resolution experts, why the results of this experiment give them hope for America.

Let's begin.

>> Do the right thing, do the right thing Do it all the time, do it all the time >> Don't you know you're not the only one suffering?

>> Before the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln told Americans that a house divided cannot stand.

Despite the divisiveness and contempt that we see today in our culture, we believe Americans want to be united.

Twice, we filmed strangers from opposite sides of our political divides.

Gen Xers from Massachusetts and Millennials from Chicago gathered together for a weekend, all wrestling with what it means to be an American, our divides, and our connections.

Join the journey.

>> Do the right thing Do it all the time, do it all the time >> I'd like you to really give some thought to the moment when you were most proud to be an American.

>> Initially, this was actually a hard question for me, because being black in America, it's hard for me to have moments of saying, you know, I'm an American first because I'm always black first.

My experience is slightly different because of the color of my skin, and that's always what's at the forefront.

And so it's hard for me to think of a time where I'm proud of being an American where it's separated from being proud of being black.

>> When I graduated med school, I mean, I didn't come up from a wealthy family.

I don't have parents that are doctors.

I had lots of college professors, high-school professors tell me I couldn't do anything or -- you know, especially not in medicine.

And graduated med school.

I mean, I kind of had the ability to create my own path, and you can't do that in every country.

>> Every year, kind of around either -- whether it's Memorial Day or Veterans Day and just thinking about, again, the struggles that everyone goes through and fights, and we've always found a way to get ahead.

>> Mine is June 26, 2015.

It's when the freedom to marry was established.

Obama will always be in my heart for doing that.

>> For me, it was when... Barack Obama was elected president.

Catching a glimpse of that, it just felt amazing to believe and to hope that there was maybe progress being made and that there was a brighter future and a better path for all of us and maybe for the world.

>> I think I was a senior in college.

I just turned 21.

It was my first time voting for president.

I felt optimistic.

I felt surprised that people got behind a black man.

>> Proudest moment was when Donald Trump got elected.

I'm very proud of Americans.

>> I was an invited guest to the White House.

I was at the Young Black Leadership Summit.

And I had an opportunity to meet with the president and speak to him and Dr. Ben Carson.

They began a chant that was, "We the free."

To come from Mississippi cotton pickers to be an invited guest to a sitting U.S. president and then chant that we're free in the White House was a very defining moment for me in America.

>> Yeah, I mean, it was kind of hard for me to think about it, 'cause, I mean, I've never been like, you know, "Screw America," but I've never been like, "Hey, I'm American," you know.

But, you know, this past year, I was able to go to India and Israel.

And being able to sit in a country where they don't have the freedoms that we have and they're restricted to follow certain laws that, you know, we have the freedoms to do here.

Flat-out, you know, we're able to do more things and have more freedoms than other countries do from a religious aspect, from a relational aspect, being with who we want to be with and things like that.

In those moments, I was able to sit back and say you know I was glad I was born in America, you know?

The South Side of Chicago is rough.

So my mom ended up having me and my siblings bused to a school across town in Mount Greenwood.

Prior to that, I've never encountered, you know, white people before.

It was just like a culture shock for me.

I started to see the difference between me and them.

And it wasn't necessarily the skin color.

It was more so of, you know, people who have money, people who don't.

Anybody tell me what they think that means?

When I see kids who maybe they don't get the affirmation at home that they should get, I want to be that for them so that they can, you know, see in themselves, "I'm better than my circumstances."

If I could teach everything I know to the next generation, they'll be greater than I can ever be, and that's really my inspiration behind teaching.

>> Mine -- mine usually involve near-death experiences.

I spent a lot of time since I was pretty young in the ocean, growing up in San Diego.

So snorkeling, free-diving, surfing.

I bake because I think the kitchen in itself is the closest thing all of us have at home to a chemistry lab.

I work at Comer Children's Hospital as a hospital magician.

We have a Chinese praying mantis.

That's a Dubai roach.

I've owned leeches many times, and I will feed myself to them.

be the closest to nursing that we can experience or understand.

It's weird.

>> I'll tell you, we had a good childhood, but it was -- it has a twist.

My father was a local police officer who was a contractor on the side in the '80s, early to mid-'80s, and the construction industry boomed.

His business got huge overnight.

We moved into the biggest house in town, flirting with the Red Sox guys.

That's the business that we're in.

You know, you could either be flush or bust.

It's one of those types of deals.

I still work on the jobs.

I kind of get dirty.

But one of the lessons I learned is that bigger isn't necessarily better.

The bigger you are, the harder you fall.

>> We have six kids altogether.

We were both married before.

There's three boys and three girls.

And I work full time, and my husband works full time, so we're just busy all the time.

But as much as we're busy, I think that -- I tell people that I kind of thrive on the chaos.

I don't know what I would do with myself if I wasn't busy.

>> The proudest moment as an American.

Joe, how about you?

>> It was the Patriots' Day bombing.

About an hour and a half after the bombing, 60 cities and towns, we all responded to Boston.

I remember people thanking us, saluting.

No one was bitching that we were in Boston.

>> For my generation, I'm gonna go with September 11th.

You know, you know where you were, what you were doing.

>> Seeing everyone coming together as a country, helping victims, donating to families, helping trying to find people.

You know, every time I saw a flag, I got really choked up.

>> I strapped a flag to the back of my truck, and I remember my guys were working on two or three houses in a row and I was driving down the road and I leaned on the horn, and like 20 of them turned around.

They see the flag blowing, and it was like pandemonium.

Absolutely the days post-9/11.

>> You saw more people opening doors for each other and being more respectful to each other, like we were all one.

>> It's just been a steady, swift decline since then.

So, you know, as horrible as that was, we all were in actual agreement for a couple of weeks.

>> I put the election of President Obama.

>> Him being elected was just like -- it was just, like, unbelievable that that could occur in a country where African-Americans were slaves once.

>> I never in my lifetime thought I would see any kind of diversity in the highest office in the land.

And as a woman, it gave me hope.

>> As far as the election...

I am proud to say I did vote for Trump because I believe that there needed to be changes.

>> I thought someone was gonna steal mine 'cause I was going last.

I was like, "Please don't.

Don't steal mine."

The day we killed bin Laden.

That's what it felt like to be an American.

Like, don't mess with America.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> The next question is, what is your least proud moment as an American?

>> It was the election of Trump.

I see it as a symptom of something being very wrong in our country.

I lost some of my hope.

So... >> The election of President Trump.

You know, like, there was nothing positive about how things have been since he's been elected.

>> You're sitting right next to each other, so let's go to Donna.

>> I don't know if you noticed my facial expressions.

[ Laughs ] >> Not at all, Donna.

>> I didn't see them.

I want to know.

>> No, 'cause I was looking this way.

I'm always proud to be American no matter who's president.

>> To see us fighting over an election, I think that whole thing that happened after 9/11, I think people need to remember that.

We need to get back there.

>> I wake up every day proud of who I am, the country that I live in, so I'm extremely proud to be an American.

I guess it's more of an aggravation that people can't get along.

And when we pick 9/11 or Patriots' Day, those are the times that it doesn't matter where you are.

You are an American.

>> Unity without tragedy.

>> There you go.

I like that.

>> Mic drop.

>> Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, that's right.

Alright, we're gonna let you drop the mic there.

>> Happy birthday >> I grew up on the far south end in what I call now -- in hindsight, knowing my history, I call it a redline community.

I was actually bused out to Mount Greenwood, which is a white neighborhood and a white school.

And from there, asking questions to my mom such as, you know, "Why haven't we had a black president yet?"

And she told me, you know, that the reason why we hadn't had one yet is because they were waiting on me to grow up and fulfill that role.

Whenever I would go to family functions, they would call me that.

They would say, "Oh, our future president," you know.

My dad and my grandma, everybody would feed that into me.

So that was like one of the most powerful things you could hear as a kid.

For anybody that feels passionate about teaching or looks at it like a calling like I do, we want to take that child and transform their entire existence so they become independent thinkers.

And anybody who stays up late at night thinking about these kids and planning, it's a lot deeper than just teaching a class.

>> Now let's listen in on the Millennials and their least-proud moments.

>> I don't mean to cop out, but I would say never.

There's never been a moment that I haven't been, uh, proud to be an American.

>> It might have to be Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation, and I just felt as though if there is so much controversy around this particular person, choose somebody else.

>> It's from Obama's second election up until now, like, right now, like, I'm not proud.

Just the state of the country in general, um, as far as, like -- It's like now we're at a place where no one has an opinion.

Everyone trumps their truth over others' truth.

You have to pick a side, and your side you choose determines on your ethnicity.

You have to back whatever your ethnically connected to.

Your sexuality -- whatever your sexually connected to, you have to get behind those things.

And there's no space for understanding and to talk through, you know, and I think that America right now, we're just in such a sensitive state.

Everything offends us, and everyone wants it to be their way.

"My life experience should be everybody's life experience."

And, you know, that's just a part of America, like, I'm just disappointed in.

>> The election of Donald Trump.

I was upset because of the what-ifs.

I was for a candidate that was for universal healthcare, and the reason why I say that is because 35,000 people die without healthcare every year.

There's 30 million without healthcare right now.

And I think that that could have stopped with somebody that has been more progressive like a Bernie Sanders.

>> It was Rodney King.

Then seeing Oscar Grant get killed on camera.

Nobody goes to jail.

Mike Brown.

Eric Garner.

You just see it day in and day out, so I feel like it was a continuous thing where the state pretty much legalized violence against black people.

>> For me, it was when Obama got elected.

Not because of his color.

Because of the people that came out to vote and did not study things or ever vote in any type of politics or anything.

They just went, they saw a color, they voted.

>> Now we're gonna open the conversation, so we're going to go from the "I" back to the full circle.

And the prompt is just this -- what was your reaction or response hearing what other folks in the group had to say?

>> I got to go right now.

[ Laughter ] I just have a genuine question.

It's, um, why do you assume that everybody that -- well, most people that voted for Obama did so because he was black when you also have candidates -- Jesse Jackson in the '80s?

>> I didn't say because he was black.

I said people who have nev-- >> Who didn't -- Who didn't -- >> No, I said I do not disagree with him due to his skin color.

>> And you said that people only voted for him because of what?

>> They came out of the woodwork.

>> Why?

>> They've never voted before.

>> Then what galvanized them to vote?

>> His color.

>> That's skin color.

That's race.

I mean, I'm -- >> I'm not racist.

>> I didn't say you were.

[ Laughs ] I asked a question.

I said, why did you assume that people came to vote because of his race?

>> When you watch the news... >> That's the media.

>> They've never voted before.

>> Who?

>> They never -- They never -- >> It was my first time being able to vote.

>> Congratulations.

That's great.

>> But why did people vote for Trump?

>> 'Cause we needed change.

Obama did nothing.

That's why.

>> Why did people vote for the other white males for being the president for all these hundreds of years?

I think it's offensive that we say people only did that because he was black, but there have been other black candidates who have run before people did not get behind.

You're denigrating a group of people who are primarily African-American and saying they only vote for somebody because of their skin color when in the history of this country, most people get privileges because of their skin color.

>> The media will prop a person up.

Barack Hussein Obama was from Chatta -- an Illinois state senator.

My first job ever in my life was his intern in Springfield.

He was widely unknown.

So he walked into the Senate position.

He was the speaker at the DNC.

The media start prepping him up, prepping him up, prepping him up.

"We got this black man.

You know, he's not really Negro.

You know, he's black."

And he had a white mama, so he reaches with the white people.

He was raised in Indonesia.

"Yes, this is what America needs."

So the media pushed that and they pushed that and they pushed that.

They never asked him, "What's your plan?

What you gonna do?

How can we measure you?

What are your goals?"

No, it was only the idea, and people went for the idea.

>> Well, I grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts.

So I'm a city girl.

My mom and my dad divorced when I was 3.

Times were pretty tough, and my mom was on welfare.

After dinner, one person washed, one person dried.

'Cause you didn't have a dishwasher.

One person cleared the table, and one person swept the floor.

[ Laughs ] I had my son when I was 20 years old, so I was a single mom.

I've always had two, three jobs.

It's tough.

You got to do what you got to do just to pay the bills, and here I am at 50, and I'm still doing the same thing.

>> I'm a food writer.

I have a degree in food studies.

And I think communality, sharing food, sharing a table with people is really important, so I love that we started each day at breakfast sitting at a table with other cast members.

It just brought out that humanity.

I was like, "Oh, my God!

You know, I don't care who it is.

I care about these people at this table."

[ Indistinct conversations ] >> You guys, they have an Obamalette.

>> I just saw that.

>> What?!

>> I just saw that.

>> Oh!

Oh, my gosh.

>> And they have a Trumplette.

Interesting.

I wonder why they picked this place.

>> It's huge.

Well, let's get it.

[ Laughter ] >> Found myself writing a lot in the book.

I wrote like three pages.

>> Really?

>> Wow.

>> [ Laughs ] Yeah.

Just putting everything down that made my blood boil.

>> What, from yesterday?

>> Yeah.

>> Nothing made my blood boil yesterday.

I just listened to people and hear their opinions.

That's what I mean, though.

Everybody's entitled to their opinion.

>> Some people threw me for a loop, and I was like, "Wait a second.

I totally made assumptions based on appearance."

>> I mean, I don't think that reasonably intelligent people would have voted for Trump anyway.

>> In the beginning, it's like nobody knows where each other stands on their opinions, and we all get along.

And that's how it is every day.

You see somebody on the street, you're not gonna ask them, "Hey, who did you vote for," or, "Where do you stand on this?"

You just say hello and you be civil to each other.

You know, you hold the door open.

>> It's sad, but it's like, today, if you voted for Trump, by default, you're an idiot, you're a racist.

>> It's almost like you're shamed if you vote for Trump.

>> I have a 15-year-old, and, um, he is a big Trump supporter, and I am not.

>> He's a Trump supporter?

>> He is a Trump supporter.

You know, I'll go up to his room, and the cat's sitting on his bed watching Fox News, and I'm thinking, "Thank God the cat and my son do not vote."

[ Laughter ] Um... >> So, I was born in New Jersey.

Around about 4-ish, my mom remarried to my dad, and we moved to Delaware.

I was a big tomboy as a kid.

Um, I played with a lot of boys in the neighborhood.

I mean, hopping fences.

I always thought I was a fast runner, so I always wanted to race everybody.

We used to play Power Rangers, and I was always the Pink Ranger.

[ Laughs ] When my brother was shot, I was going into my freshman year of high school.

He called my mom, and all she heard was, "Ma, I've been shot," and then the phone went dead.

It's not something that really goes away, that really leaves you.

You kind of keep pressing through life.

It's something that definitely affected our family to this day.

I mean, it still affects my brother.

>> My parents got divorced when I was about 1.

We grew up in a -- what was it -- two-bedroom apartment, with three boys and a single mother.

My dad -- he does wildlife photography as a hobby.

And that just kind of inspired me to get a camera.

It forces you to be present in the moment, and I think that kind of goes hand in hand with the whole mindfulness school of thought.

All of those things kind of shaped me to continue to be more, I don't know, independent.

I kind of like doing my own thing and thinking my own way.

>> I'm black, okay?

Four black grandparents, black.

What I hate is when people, when you are having a conversation and then people interject race in order to, like, stop the conversation, because we didn't talk about groupthink.

That became a racial conversation.

>> Well, I don't like to be called racist, because I am not.

And that's why I said, "I am not," right away.

>> Well, don't say that.

I'm telling you, stop saying that.

>> Never say that again.

>> Never say that again.

>> You don't have to say that.

>> Because I am not.

>> That's, like, the worst thing you can say.

"I'm not racist."

>> Nope.

"I said what I said.

Whatever you think, those are your emotions.

That is your brain.

That is your reasoning.

It has nothing to do with me."

>> With Obama, it always felt like even when I didn't like his decisions or disagreed with his policy, I always felt like I trusted him as a person and he was doing the best he could or he knew things that -- his heart was in the right place.

You know what I mean?

>> Yeah.

>> Like you said, it's the exact opposite when Trump -- Even if it's something like, "That kind of makes sense..." [ Inhales sharply ] There's something else here.

I don't trust it, like, fundamentally, even when I do agree with it.

>> Well, and honestly, something that grinds my gears is when a woman votes for Trump.

It's like you see how he treats his wife, right?

You see how he made fun of Dr. Blasey Ford.

Like, are you crazy?

>> I feel like when people voted for Trump, especially a white person, from my vantage point, it was somebody who was going to do something for the business world.

But now if you still wanna vote for him, I'm like, "Well, what's going on?

Like, you seeing all this."

>> Even from a business point.

>> I mean, and I'm just trying my best to see from another side, you know?

And I -- Yeah.

Somebody who inherited millions, billions, whatever it was.

>> And went bankrupt six times, from his inheritance.

>> Right.

I just feel like -- >> He was a millionaire by the age of 6.

I'm sorry.

Not to interrupt.

>> No, you're good.

>> I just want to throw it out there.

>> I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what Barack didn't do.

I'm still waiting on it.

I'm sorry.

Like... >> I know.

I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what Trump did do.

[ Laughs ] >> I'm like, "That's crazy."

Like, you can't have opinions anymore.

>> Well, that's why I said freedom.

>> Yeah.

>> For freedom of speech.

>> This is just a stretch, and it sounds like a typical Republican statement, but it's like that buzz word, "liberal agenda," where it's just been building this narrative for years and years and years of what it's supposed to look like.

And then when you start showing things that are the opposite, people freak out, and they're like, "No.

This doesn't fit.

This doesn't -- This isn't how it's supposed to be."

>> I'm not a Republican, but I do believe in, like, order and value and accountability, you know?

Like, I think that the time for the political party is over.

People are like -- >> The parties have changed 100%.

>> I totally agree.

And I actually think that removing those stereotypes, it would change so much.

>> When I call myself a Republican, that's the Republican I'm referring to, is individual liberties, people being responsible and thinking for themselves, individual thinking and, like, groupthinking.

And I think that's where the two sides kind of separate, where there's that mentality to groupthink.

They're like, "What's -- How can all people benefit?"

"By helping each other."

Like, as opposed to, "How can one person benefit?"

"By helping themselves."

Like, I think that's the core ideology behind it, and that's what drives both sides.

>> I was surrounded by this feeling of victimhood mentality, where everybody was a victim of something.

Yes, everybody has crappy situations, but they were hanging onto it.

>> People are like, "I've never been proud to be an American.

This country is so racist."

I'm like, "Have you ever been anywhere else?

Have you ever --" This is the best country in the world for black people.

So that's why we have to, like, really define what our American problems are, we have to fully heal from the Civil War, because that's our main issue.

>> Yeah.

>> We did not heal properly from the Civil War.

And then we can start to like -- >> Moving forward.

>> Move forward.

Right.

>> And I like the idea of the businessman, no experience, no Washington, coming in with that mind-set.

But some of the crazy stuff he would say, I was amazed that he kept bouncing back after those silly statements, you know?

"I don't like losers that get captured."

>> I woke up the next day, and I'm like, "He won?

He won?"

You know, and I voted for him.

And I voted for Obama the first time, because I was hoping things would change.

>> That was probably not my proudest moment.

It was a choice that I made, and sometimes you don't -- maybe aren't all-in on the choice that you made, but you have to make a choice.

>> I'm registered as an Independent, but I tend to lean more Republican.

But I kind of liked a lot of Bernie Sanders' points of view and things that he wanted to do.

>> Why are we trillions of dollars in debt to a communist nation?

You know what I mean?

If our system's so good, why are they flipping a profit and lending it to us?

It's either our system's not good, which I don't agree with, or the people who are running it... >> Unfortunately, you can't tell people, "You're fired," so you have to try to unite and work.

And that's one thing I always liked about Obama.

>> As a doula, I have my own business, I have a business page.

You know, so somebody in one of these groups said, "You know, have you posted about, like, your outrage about, you know, Charlottesville?"

And if you hadn't, that basically means that you support it.

I said, "So wait a second.

So you're telling me because on my business page I haven't spoken up, that means that I, you know, support that?"

And they're like, "Yeah."

And I got called a Nazi.

I straight-up got called a Nazi.

>> Blue eyes, blond hair.

>> Blond hair.

[ Laughter ] >> Come on!

>> The biggest thing for me is just the extremist part of it.

You know, we need to have dialogue.

These things need to be talked about.

But we've become so P.C.

in our approaches to everything that it's crippling.

>> I listen to NPR news every single morning, and it just got to be this drone, and it almost got to be like -- what's happening to me is happening to someone who listens to Fox every day.

It's just the complete difference of that.

>> I thought it was really interesting when they asked us what kind of media we use, because I don't watch television news.

I only listen to NPR.

I only read, like, the Washington Post and the Huffington Post.

And, you know, if I did have to watch TV, if Fox News was on, I would walk out of the room.

>> Oh!

>> And in a way, that's bad.

>> I'm gonna remember that everyone's here for a common thing that we all agreed to do and everyone here is a fellow American, and 99% of the stuff out there is propaganda anyway to make us hate each other.

>> Where are we getting our information?

What is our truth?

What facts do we have?

What don't we have?

Is there a difference between truth and knowledge?

>> A fact is a fact whether it's you or you or you.

Are we saying that truth is more personal?

>> A fact is, like, an indisputable statistic.

>> Truth is more of a personal thing.

>> Your idea of truth needs to be able to change with factual info.

>> I do watch CNN and Fox, and they're often pretty contradictory, so it's hard to determine what is the real truth.

>> Are we really looking for other people's opinion or the facts, or are we just looking for the facts that we want to hear to keep in our own, you know, beliefs and our own truths?

>> "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" -- I loved that show.

And I'll be completely honest.

I got a lot of my news from that.

>> You think it's funny.

I don't.

[ Laughs ] >> But it...

But they're not this news source.

They're there to make you laugh.

>> I feel that they're trying to brainwash you.

>> It is so engrained that you need to be liberal to be a good person.

>> Do you almost feel like it's almost like a form of brainwashing?

>> It is.

I do.

>> You just didn't want to say the word, but it's -- No.

But that's -- You know -- >> Because the liberals are the good people, and they see things the right way.

>> We're gonna challenge you to come up with important steps that you believe the country could take to address immigration in a way that bridges the divide.

>> I'm all for building the wall, but it's not because I'm anti-Hispanic or Latino.

>> Are you saying just on the Mexican border?

>> No.

I'm saying -- I'm saying -- Yeah, just on the Mexican border is where I'd build the wall, because -- Now, if they started flooding from the north like that, then we'd have to do the same thing.

>> Do you think there's no illegal Canadians?

>> Listen, if you had a cut on this arm that needed 20 stitches and a cut on that arm that needed a Band-Aid, would you put 20 stitches there?

No.

You just put the Band-Aid.

You need the stitches here.

We need the wall on the southern border.

If you look at the amount of kids that got separated from their families over a period of 10 days -- thousands.

You know, they lost track of them.

There's so many, they lost track of them.

But that wasn't like we were having a special that week and they flooded up.

It happens every single day.

[ Laughter ] You know what I mean?

>> Half-off to be an American.

>> Exactly, exactly.

"Come in this week and get more green cards and get more food stamps."

Listen.

That happens every single day.

We can't as a country sustain tens of thousands of people coming in every month.

You know what I mean?

There's no way to take care of them.

>> Maybe the actual and metaphorical divide is this wall.

So let's maybe -- We can back off the wall and say, "Are there other things?"

>> Do it with troops, then.

Do it with troops.

>> Yeah.

>> You can look at it and say, "That's something."

But an idea or extra Border Patrol, you don't see it.

>> It works around Jerusalem.

>> Do we know even a wall would work?

>> Something that I and people in my circle could do is educate ourselves.

We just talked a lot about facts and truth.

I don't know all of the facts about how many people are here illegally and what percentage of those people are committing crimes, you know?

"We've got Mexican rapists coming in."

Okay.

Are we talking one person?

Are we talking thousands?

And I think that does matter.

>> What if it was your daughter that got raped?

Would it matter if it was one person or a thousand people?

>> Well, I mean, I can't judge thousands of people based on the actions of one person, whether they're undocumented or a citizen.

>> But we're talking about undocumented people.

>> I see stuff on the news, too, where someone was killed and it's an illegal.

And, you know, you see it.

But people are being killed by Americans, as well.

I know I would feel better if they come in and they come in legally.

>> So the fundamental thing is if we're gonna help alleviate the problem, we have to find a way to help them enter the country and be legal.

>> And also treat people humanely.

>> So what did you want to do?

Put them all up in a hotel?

>> No, but there have been reported cases of people not being treated humanely, and they can't get themselves out of it.

>> You can't make a city out of all the illegals in the intake program.

You have to detain them, whether it's in a Walmart somewhere, and people are just gonna call them cages, just like they have been doing.

>> Well, they are cages.

They're dog kennels that they're being kept in.

>> They're big dog kennels.

[ Laughs ] >> I mean, I could blow the whistle on 20 people right now.

>> Go after the employer.

>> Go ahead.

Talk.

>> But I don't know if I would.

[ Laughter ] >> You blame the employer and not the immigrant, which I agree with, because, you know, the employer knows what they're doing.

>> So, the employer thing, I agree.

It's just that some of them could be getting fooled by the immigrant, whereas some of them are doing it to take advantage of the immigrant and to beat the system and pay taxes and all that sort of thing.

>> Some things that come to me is, you know, doing car stops.

And a lot of times, it's Brazilians, usually around, you know, fall, spring, summer.

They're landscapers.

At least in Massachusetts, I think a lot of officers avoid almost arresting now because it's a big waste of time.

As soon as you get them to the court, the court says, "Eh, we don't know what to do.

See ya later."

I look at it as I don't want somebody who shouldn't be driving hit a member of my family or your family.

>> I call people illegal immigrants, and some people call them undocumented citizens or undocumented people.

I've never seen them as undocumented.

I suppose that's really what they are.

I am not sure if "illegal immigrant" is, like, a derogatory word.

I mean, it kind of makes them seem bad or illegal, meaning unlawful, which that's how I see it, because they're breaking the law by coming in the country.

I guess I've learned a lot from other people.

Maybe opens my eyes, makes me think about what's important, maybe what's not important.

>> So, what I want you to do is I want you to make, you know, roughly the equivalent of a frame with your fingers.

And I want you to really take a good look at what's inside it.

Alright, now, I want you to take that frame and shift it in 6 inches in any direction and note carefully what you see in it.

Did you see the same thing in the frame both times?

>> All: No.

>> No.

Was it actually remarkably different?

>> All: Yes.

>> Now, silly question, but the second time, was the stuff that was in the frame the first time, did it go away?

Did it disappear?

>> All: No.

>> No.

It was still there.

Right?

It was still real.

But was it what you were thinking about, noting, focusing on?

Much of what we do is seek to control this -- the frame.

>> My grandmother is, like, the, like, least racist person ever, and she's from, like, the cotton fields of Mississippi.

But she's like -- When she was a little girl, she had a white girlfriend, but then when the girl turned 13, her dad was like, "Okay.

Now she's 13.

You're gonna have to call her 'miss.'"

And my grandmother was like, "Then I just won't be her friend.

I'm going home."

And they moved up here.

Think about like one million people left Mississippi and came to Chicago, and that's how Chicago became the epicenter of black America.

She's like, "When I got up here, it was hard," but the people who helped her the most were white.

The building that we have now her white boss helped her get.

You know, so it's like, "Don't look at color.

Look at how people behave.

And then if they're misbehaving, then put that on them, but not their entire race or their entire family or whatever, because people are individually bad."

>> I grew up on the South Side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin -- born and raised.

Both of my parents were born in Puerto Rico.

My dad moved to Milwaukee when he was 22, my mom when she was 7.

Growing up on the South Side of Milwaukee, it's a heavily immigrant, Latino community.

So when I was like 7, they got a divorce, so didn't see my dad too much after that.

And kind of at a young age, yeah, just really looking for, like, guidance and mentorship, as a lot of people do, in my community.

Your mentor is just, you know, the homie that's a few years older than you in the neighborhood just kind of showing you around and giving you that support.

So that's what I had, you know, growing up.

I got into it with somebody in high school over just something small -- a little music feud or something.

And I see a car pull up just beside me.

The window rolls down, and it was the person that I had that disagreement with in high school.

He puts a gun directly point-blank to my face.

That was the first time in my life that I thought to myself, like, "Am I really about to die over an altercation that could have been -- that never would have been anything if I wasn't hanging out with the people that I was, if I wasn't living in that environment?"

>> We had 20 mass shootings or whatever in the past six months or whatever.

That's 20 mass shootings -- 20 people that shot people, whatever.

How many people aren't shooting people?

Like, and I get -- >> Millions of guns, millions of citizens with guns.

>> If 99% are responsible, all it takes is that one that can do something drastic that affects everybody.

>> So should that one affect 99%?

>> I think there's a lot of value with the idea that "Oh, you can go get something.

You can go get a gun if you really want one."

But that's because we have state-by-state policies for guns, you know?

Right now, it's really easy to get a gun in Chicago 'cause you can drive to Indiana.

I think part of the problem is we're trusting states to handle guns rather than just create a uniform federal policy.

>> What has the federal government done well?

I mean, I can't think of really any federal organization that's just like -- we need to give it to the whole federal government to run, because what do they do well?

>> But you like the federal law.

>> The post office, the police, the military.

>> The post office does not work well.

>> Do you like any of those things?

Do you like any of those things?

>> Doesn't work well?

>> It works fine for me.

>> I don't know how you stand on Common Core, but should the federal government be mandating how you're teaching?

>> I agree with your statement on that.

>> So, I mean, why would you say, you know, Big Daddy in Washington, D.C., knows how to handle our business better here?

>> So if one person comes, it's happened many times these past few years, and just shoots a school and kills, you know, 10, 15, 20 kids, is there -- you're saying there's nothing we can do because that person just decided to be bad?

>> Could have done it with a sword.

He could have done it with anything.

It's not a gun issue.

>> I mean, that's -- >> You run.

>> Not from a distance.

>> You can't kill 20 people with a -- If you're the 20th person to die from a stabbing, you must be the slowest person on the Earth, because as soon as I see one person stabbing, I'm running.

>> I think that goes back to what we were talking about, though, with suicides.

Like, yeah, you can kill yourself with anything and you can say like, sure, you're not gonna stop someone from doing that, but we've seen guns make these things more lethal.

>> What is the gun-control issue?

Is the gun control issue the school shootings, or is the gun-control issues the combination of the school shootings and what's happening in Chicago?

>> I think for me, it has to be both.

>> Because, I mean, as far as the publicized, it's not the issues that's happening in Chicago.

And you can see the bias even in that.

>> True.

>> When you see on the news if somebody -- if a school shooting happen, that's publ-- "We need to take away people guns."

Like, they are running with it.

Like, people -- 40-some, 100 people can get shot the next day in Chicago, nobody's fighting to take away guns.

And so it's all about -- like, there's an agenda there.

>> With school shootings, it's framed as mental health.

In our neighborhoods, it's framed as a cultural problem.

>> Yeah.

>> "They're just bad people."

>> If you really look at it and you compare someone who shoots up a school, like you said, and it'll be a white kid, it'll be like, "Oh, he must've had depression or, like, has been bullied or something."

But then if, like, a black kid goes and shoots a couple people, he must be in a gang or must be involved in drugs or something like that.

>> The same mental illness that he suffers from, like, we deal with that stuff in the hood.

>> I really could care less about individuals that are gonna be mad that they can't have automatic weapons.

Like, these automatic weapons are killing our children, and so people have to take a step back and get over this -- this -- this almost romanticized notion about the Constitution and be in the now.

This is 2019.

>> I am a gun owner.

I'm a concealed carry.

There are different types of guns.

And there are assault rifles, and there's AK-47s.

And, like, my gosh, why does anybody need to have that in their house?

>> There are people who are hoarding these bullets and these guns because they feel that something could go down.

How can we as a population say, "After today, no one buys an AK-47 anymore," but these people have all the AK-47s?

So now I can't even get one even though they have like 20.

That's not fair.

>> I wasn't proposing they get to keep them.

>> Oh.

Oh, okay.

[ Laughter ] >> They don't get to keep it.

Everyone throw your guns in, get a chip.

>> Okay.

Alright, alright.

>> I loved the group with the ladies up here a little bit a while ago, yeah.

It was really nice.

>> We had an all-male group?

>> Gun violence.

>> Oh, I didn't know that.

>> Well, the second that we got there, like, you mentioned we all provided such an encouraging and nurturing environment.

We were all like, "Okay, we're all here, you know, just to kind of talk about what we want to do, and we're gonna do a little bit of what everyone wants to do," and, you know, just that type of sisterly bond.

>> Outside of gender, like, our thought processes, it'd all be the same.

>> Men and women, really, they are different, you know?

As much as I care about equality, the way our minds are made up, biologically, they're different.

And so it was nice to be with a group of all women, just because, you know, I understand women.

>> I think that the female group was very focused on getting to a solution.

Guys are themselves.

You have to manage their masculinity within that political discussion, because you don't want them to feel attacked.

>> We need to have 50-50 in Congress -- 50% women, 50% men, at least.

With their will and our persuasive and willing to solve a problem, it would be so much better.

>> I think Dan thinks very logical and he does a good job of pulling the emotion out of it and seeing both sides.

And I've been accused of playing devil's advocate most of my life, and that comes with taking a moment to try to understand all perspectives and kind of challenge all perspectives before, you know, jumping to a conclusion of who's right and who's wrong.

>> That's been a curse my whole life, too, is devil's advocate.

>> [ Laughs ] >> I think we were there for the same goal.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> With Donna, it didn't so much feel that.

>> I was -- Yeah, with you.

And it was awkward for me, because I was coming in here as a Trump supporter.

And I actually found out a lot about myself.

>> I've noticed that he's really intelligent, and I'm really intelligent, so I guess so.

[ Both laughing ] >> We're taught, like, ingrained in us that we shouldn't bring up, like, politics, because there might be an argument.

>> It's taboo.

>> You don't talk about religion or politics.

>> Religion and politics.

But the reality is, is that that's the reason why things are so bad, and that's the reason why things aren't changing, because we're not talking about it.

>> It's not about convincing someone that I'm right and they're wrong or vice versa.

It's about finding the common ground and realizing that there is common ground.

>> We're coming in to prove that our way is right instead of, like, coming in to listen and to hear, like, "Okay, why do you feel that way?

Why is it that way?"

It's just like we want to come in and dominate the conversation.

>> Admitting to being wrong, that ego, on the other end of that, people will ridicule you and shame you for being wrong.

They have that attack mode.

>> To Dan's point, no one wants to step outside their bubble and be vulnerable or be the bigger person and, you know, try to understand the other side of the argument.

>> What's really dividing all of us is anger.

>> You can't be angry and listen.

It doesn't work that way, because when you're angry, you only hear what you want to hear.

>> "I have felt increasingly that what we are really talking about is not how we can have more civil conversation, but what we are talking about in the context of our society from one thing is how we can learn how to have a democratic conversation."

>> Incorporating purposefully other views and other opinions, even if they are maybe not our own or run somewhat counter to ours.

>> You've got to compromise, because, you know, this country is purposely made up of all different cultures and religions, and that comes with conflict.

>> As a person that voted for Trump, I feel like everybody thinks that I don't want a more perfect union and I'm not for equality in -- >> I didn't think that, personally.

>> But for me, I feel like I'm always attacked for that.

It's like, "You voted for Trump, so you're against gay people, you're against black people, you're against trans people."

>> You can't just blanket it.

Everybody's got a different view, but we got to work together.

>> "We, the people, of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America."

What do those words mean to you?

>> Well, phew!

It's hard to be perfect.

Some people think they are.

Some people think the world is.

>> I just like that that included everybody.

Didn't say white people.

Didn't say black people.

Didn't say rich people.

It didn't say poor people.

It said people.

>> Understanding that at this time, I wasn't being thought of as "We, the people."

>> Who's your vision of the "we"?

Who's included in that?

>> All of us.

>> Yeah, everybody.

>> Like I said, that's what "We, the people of the United States," the people that are here.

>> We think about New York's stop and frisk.

Like, they are more than likely patting down a black or brown person to see if they have something on them as opposed to their white counterparts.

>> But do they have it?

>> The re-enslavement process.

But a lot of times if you live in these hoods, sometimes you carry just for protection, and you might not even be the aggressor.

I know I'm a man, but I don't feel as though society views me as more than 3/5 of a person.

>> I'm black in America.

I mean, like, I get it.

I live in an urban environment.

I live in a very heavily policed neighborhood.

But what I also know is that if the police pull me over and I don't have a gun or if I don't have any weed, they're gonna say, "Have a good day, Patricia.

Be well."

I'm just saying this is my -- we can only go by my experience.

Therefore, everything here is for me, not just 3/5.

>> I agree with what you're saying, but I think the key phrase of what you just said was based off of your personal experience.

Based off of his experience, it's a whole other ballpark.

>> We all have different experiences.

You know, your experience as a black man is true to you.

It's your truth.

That's what you experience.

Mine is different from yours.

And we often say this on the side of "Well, his truth, you have to honor his truth," but we never say we have to honor the other person's truth, the fact that they don't experience those things.

>> Privilege is not about what you have gone through.

It's about what you haven't gone through.

You know, but Ernest's experience is different from what Tommie experienced.

That doesn't take anything away from Ernest.

It doesn't take anything away from Tommie.

I would say that if Tommie hadn't experience that he is privileged.

That's not a negative.

That's a blessing, to not have experienced that negative thing.

>> James Baldwin says, "To be Negro and conscious in this country is to be in a constant state of rage."

And I don't want to be enraged, you know?

I'm done being mad at white people.

Because I'm trying to move myself away from that emotional barrier, it was kind of... emotionally pulling for me to have that put in my face again.

>> The last challenge of our weekend was how can we, today, pursue a more perfect union.

>> I was so excited about voting for a president that I forgot that there are all these other offices, too.

>> That's the issue.

Like, we have problems here, in our communities.

>> We felt that we needed to first educate people on the local issues and how their government works.

>> As far as voting, what would make it more accessible for people to vote?

>> Maybe we should do automatic voter registration.

>> Yeah.

>> I'm down with that.

>> Oh, definitely.

>> So as soon as you turn 18, you are registered to vote.

>> On a federal level, we want to make the election day a holiday.

>> We're still suffering from, you know, post-Civil War issues, and those are issues that has never been addressed.

There has never been a public come out with "Hey, slavery was wrong."

>> You know, we're told just get over it 'cause it was so long ago.

Slavery really didn't end until the '50s and '60s.

I mean, it was called something else.

It was called sharecropping.

>> And the end result would be having, like, an open discussion and how it affects us today and, you know, just publicly apologizing for it.

And I feel like that can change a lot.

>> If we want to talk about what makes me feel proud, I would feel so proud to hear our government have that debate and that discussion and that acknowledgement.

>> They're talking about the most important democratic principles.

>> I put "no personal attacks" and I don't want anonymous attacks.

>> Tolerance.

>> Leadership.

>> One of my things was a strong union.

>> Respect for our environment.

>> I'm gonna say freedom.

>> Freedom.

>> My number one was freedom.

>> Building a better economy.

>> I bet you if we had the facts and the data, we would see that the bigwigs in office are getting more money for cars and gas cards and aides and all sorts of fluff that's unnecessary, and somebody else is kind of pulling the puppet strings.

Like, let us get mad at illegals and undocumented when the real anger is where the money's going.

>> None of it matters one watt of a bit if people can't vote.

>> What happened in Florida in 2000 with the hanging chads and the disenfranchisement.

>> I love that you're bringing up the hanging chads.

>> Hanging chads is still there.

>> Never forget!

>> Any American citizen should have equal access to education and healthcare and basic needs.

>> Consistent education for everyone.

>> There is disparity in schools, and I feel the other group is going to say, "Well, you got to go to Andover schools and you got to go to Concord schools.

And what about me?

I'm in Roxbury.

What kind of opportunity am I gonna have?"

>> On a very fundamental level, you have to stop funding public education with property taxes, because in the inner city, the property taxes are very low, so those students are never gonna get the same kind of education that people from Andover are gonna get.

>> My guess is that none of you would have predicted that two groups of people would ever have picked the same governing principle for the country -- equal access to healthcare, education, and fundamental human needs.

>> Newspaper headline, social-media headline or, like, Facebook ad?

[ Laughter ] >> Everyone wants to click on that.

>> We're not so polarized.

>> We can get along.

>> There is hope.

>> Connection, not conflict.

>> 12 strangers attempt to unify the nation.

>> Let's be friends.

>> Parallels in politics and where our lines cross.

>> I like that.

>> Mine sucked.

[ Laughter ] Bridging the gap -- the meeting in the middle.

>> Ooh.

>> That's a good one.

>> Don't "ooh."

[ Laughter ] >> That was good.

>> 12 ordinary people abandon their lives for a weekend to solve America's problems.

[ Laughter ] >> Discourse trumps discord.

>> Ooh!

>> In bold heading, it was "Trump haters and supporters unite," and then underneath that in a little bit lowercase, "Nobody gets killed."

[ Laughter ] >> The unexpected collaboration between two polar-opposite political parties at the hippie farm.

[ Laughter ] >> You probably can't relate to this at all.

I tend to use humor [laughs] to try to maybe cover up or hide things or defuse things a little bit.

I think what this has really asked of us is to put pithy comments aside or maybe keep them in a separate space and work on instead allowing yourself to be vulnerable.

>> The only way things are gonna change is to be able to talk and not have it dissolve into serious confrontation and aggression.

>> We actually have a lot of the same things in common and a lot of the same things that we want to accomplish within the government and the communities.

I think that people don't realize is that there's such a divide.

We're not that divided.

>> We may disagree about the President, but there are other issues we can definitely relate to each other upon.

And even in some of the group discussions we had, we shared some of the same thoughts and ideas.

So one disagreement didn't necessarily result in, you know, every disagreement.

>> When we're talking about, you know, what can we do, you know, personally to change the conversation or make the conversation more civil, we just did it.

>> I believe so.

>> And maybe in a big way, maybe in a small way.

>> When we went around and said what was your proudest moment and what was your least-proud moment as an American, and when you said the day that Trump was elected, I'm like, "Oh, my God.

I'm not really gonna have anything in common with that girl."

[ Laughter ] And as I got to know you, I have everything in common with this girl.

>> Absolutely.

>> We have so much in common, whether it's, you know, through the jobs that we do or just the normal, everyday activities that we do.

We have a lot of common ground.

>> Any political difference that might exist is really just one small piece of who we are as people, so it doesn't matter who you vote for.

We all want what's best for our kids.

>> What I've learned is just to not see things as conflict, but more as a connection, you know?

That we have things that are different.

There are so many more things that might connect us universally.

>> We have to think about others and what they've been through and listen rather than speak.

>> I definitely learned something from speaking with you.

>> I think I have a lot more to learn, and I think that you're a good point for me to learn from.

>> And I feel the same way.

>> Yeah.

And yeah, I hope that we have a friendship that, like, lasts, lasts, lasts.

>> I do, too.

>> [ Laughs ] >> This was so refreshing to me, 'cause it allowed me to be able to go back home and be able to, like, talk with those who disagree with me in a matter of not so much of "you're crazy" or "you're wrong," but like, "Okay, that's cool."

>> Yeah.

>> "I get it."

>> And I think there's something to be gained there, because we have different viewpoints.

I mean, I can talk till I'm blue in the face with my friends about the same things, but, I mean, there's not a lot of opportunity to grow from it when you kind of share the same viewpoints.

Where like I said, you gave me something new to go on, so you shifted my perspective.

>> I agree.

>> I spent a lot of months being like, "The U.S. is done.

This is ridiculous.

Like, you can't go a day without getting into something.

Like, there's no -- it's not gonna last."

But coming here and having so many different backgrounds and hearing different stories, that's what I wrote in my headline -- "There is hope."

>> I feel like you're a friend, and it's a friendship I'm gonna carry with me forever.

>> Yeah.

Same here, man.

>> I love you, man.

>> Love you, too.

See what three days do?

Yeah.

Doesn't take long to fall in love.

>> Do it all the time Do it all the time Make yourself right Never mind them >> I have worked for decades studying deeply divided societies that get stuck in enmity or civil war or worse, and, importantly, the conditions under which they escape that and move in a different direction.

There are moments of hope that I saw in the documentary "Divided We Fall" where you get a sense of how Americans who differ fundamentally in their politics can come together, can sort of see the humanity in the other side, and build relationships that last.

And that's critical.

>> The experience gave hope to participants on both sides that more Americans can cross that same bridge.

>> I think it'd be really awesome if we could get other people and bring them in and let them see even a taste of what we had.

>> This experience that we shared here, I don't want it to leave it here.

>> Yeah.

>> How do we take it back home to our neighborhoods, to our communities?

>> The only thing I can think of is the same way that we've created this together is, like, just coming to people with that openness and not being afraid to be vulnerable.

>> We can find common ground, and we can respect one another, and we can be the embodiment of what we want for the rest of the nation.

And that's usually contagious.

>> I don't think it's that complicated to do, but people have to want to, you know, bridge the gap.

>> We've kind of been conditioned to not engage in that sort of conversation with anybody that might have an opposing view -- you know, like, "Oh, you shouldn't bring up politics, because people are gonna argue about it."

I think the exact opposite.

I think that we need to bring it up so people are speaking about it and so things do get done, because if we're not talking about it, then nothing is gonna get done.

>> When you do find those differences, like, that's somewhere you need to push more, not, like, close off or back away from.

>> Somehow, if everybody in the United States could somehow be a part of what we're doing right now, it would be radical.

And the country needs something radical right now.

>> What was really nice about the structure of "Divided We Fall" was that there was opportunities to chat as a group where you mix the blue and the red.

Then I'll also have opportunities to chat separately and feel connected with their own side.

And there are some situations in the film, too, where it was a little uncomfortable.

As a viewer especially, you know, it was conversations that were hard.

But seeing how they were able to have these conversations and move past it and still have a really positive and memorable experience from it -- that's really impactful.

>> One of the real challenges is that the interventions which we try to organize are often short-lived.

They can be very effective, but they have what's called decay effects.

Within a week, people's previously held attitudes towards the other side tend to re-emerge strongly and then persist.

One way to get around that is to build lasting relationships between people who are actually on other sides of the spectrum.

[ Indistinct shouting ] >> A year after the attack on the Capitol, the cast reunited in Colorado to engage with a live audience.

>> I was in the audience when the screening happened of "Divided We Fall" in 2022.

And what really struck me and probably everybody who attended it, was how the relationships that had been formed in that short weekend had preserved over months and years since then.

>> But we, or at least I, sometimes shy away from some of the conversations that I'm gonna have with family, friends, and neighbors that I know are gonna be incredibly difficult.

And yet they open themselves up to be so vulnerable, and their strength and courage and willingness to do that, to meet with people they had never met before and have those kinds of conversations I think is a testament and then their willingness to come share with us.

So let's give them another round.

[ Applause ] >> The most appalling thing I heard was that slavery is not still relevant.

>> The most appalling thing, I think, was when people said they were never proud of being American.

I think for me personally, that was the most appalling, because you should just be proud to be who you are.

And that's who we are.

We're all Americans.

That's what unites us.

>> You know, I don't sing or dance or juggle or anything, but I have this wonderful ability where I can appall myself at times.

And, you know, I haven't seen this movie in a couple of years.

And I guess at the time, I felt pretty passionate about the whole wall thing.

And if you guys remember at that time, it was, like, really talked about a lot back then.

I mean, I don't feel like that today.

I was appalled at myself.

>> These kinds of issues become front page and become mobilizing even at the local community, because somebody's pulling those levers.

And is this something that real Americans are genuinely, you know, anxious and concerned about, or has this been manufactured and then weaponized in a way to further divide us?

>> We all want, you know, unity.

We all want peace.

We all want freedom.

And I think when we are able to sit down and actually have a conversation and realize that's, like, what the core of our hearts are, we're able to, like, come up with solutions as opposed to, like, always pointing a finger at who's wrong or who's right or proving a point.

When you come to a debate, you come with your facts, your sheets, and stuff that you study.

You don't care what this person is about to say, and you already got in your mind what you're gonna respond to if this person says this.

That's a debate.

Conversation, like you said, is hearing what this person is saying and not hearing to respond.

You're actually listening to this person, seeing where they're coming from, and understanding why they think the way that they think.

You know, and we don't have a lot of that.

You know, it's a lot of debate.

It's no conversation.

>> I didn't have any expectations.

I remember going in -- it was like five years ago, I think, that we filmed the Boston cast, or close to it.

But I do remember leaving, and it was the same way it ended for you guys -- that both sides wanted the same things for the country.

That was my biggest takeaway, saying all this petty arguing over all these small things, and we all want the same thing at the end of the day, it makes you more inclined to want to listen to people than to want to argue with people.

You know, for me, that was the biggest takeaway.

[ Applause ] >> I ultimately showed up day one like, "I'm going to school some people today."

[ Laughter ] And, you know, ultimately, I think an hour in, I was like, "You know what?

That is not constructive whatsoever, and would be only be inconveniencing myself."

And I think ultimately, it really showed me, like, how much I had to dismantle my, like, structure and perception when it came to the other side.

>> What kept going through my mind all the time is, "If this is a reality show, nothing goes good, unless we go bad."

[ Laughter ] And that just bothered me.

And, like, two days before we were supposed to be in Ashfield, I called Tom.

And I said, "Tom, I'm not sure I want to do this.

Because, you know, on Monday, I'd like to know that I'm gonna go back to a job and, you know, not not be viral or something."

And obviously, I did it, and I'm proud to have done it, and I still have my job.

[ Laughter ] And after we were done, I would like to at least think with the Boston cast, we became friends -- you know, both sides.

And we met a couple times down in Cape Cod.

And when we went there, we had good conversation.

>> Part of what's happening in our society is real divisions are being exacerbated and amplified by a media ecosystem, by social media, and by political actors that want the division to be deeper and louder so that there's more fear and to generate funding for their specific work.

>> There's a real difference when you can be together in person and look someone in the eyes, versus being online or trying to converse via social media.

And that came up.

>> If I met you online and you were just one-dimensional, you could have said the same exact thing on Facebook that you said in conversation, face-to-face.

>> Right.

>> The conversation would have gone a very different way, and I think it would have become much more confrontational, and we both would have felt...about it.

>> Outrage is an addictive substance, right, that we know from brain-science research that when people feel a sense of outrage, when they feel a taste of retaliation, it triggers pleasure centers in our brain that are also triggered by things like heroin, right?

So they know that they're playing with an addictive substance.

And so social-media platforms encourage provocation and challenges like that.

Mainstream media also encourages those kinds of contentious debates, because they get our attention and they're addictive.

It's a trap that we all can fall into, because we're hardwired for it.

But these companies know it, and these companies are preying on it.

>> You know what I'm gonna say.

[ Laughter ] The two-party system.

>> Yeah.

>> It's outdated.

I mean, we've all kind of talked about that, at least as a major part of it, because it forces complex people to be put into two boxes.

And a lot of us, we have things that fall into both sides, right?

Like, we want things that are conservative.

We want things that are liberal.

But they're telling us that we have to choose one.

It's just not working anymore, and what happens is we start to label and use that as a way to stay separated.

>> Khadijah took a big chunk of mine, but I kind of wanted to go off of what she said.

It's natural to create assumptions based on somebody's look, based on somebody's actions.

We create these assumptions if we don't know them well.

So what the two-party system does is immediately, if somebody says they're Democratic or they're Republican, you're creating an assumption.

So removing that stigma and those stereotypes would take that judgment away.

[ Applause ] >> I'm really surprised sometimes at how many times a friend or a family member will have watched this and said, "But, oh, how could you stand when so-and-so said this?"

And it's something that they and I have a very similar -- you know, my friend and I have a similar opinion on.

And I find myself defending people in the cast who... [ Laughter ] Yeah, which is kind of surprising.

But I always think back to that exercise of the perspective of, you know, I'm like, "There's so much that was left on the cutting-room floor.

There's so much more to these people than just that one opinion or that one sound bite.

>> We learned a lot about each other and how diverse we were.

And I think that it's really important to know that other people don't go through the same experiences as you.

And because of that, that's where their opinions are formed.

It's our experiences that form our opinions.

And I've learned to understand that and to take a step back and listen, because the person that's standing in front of me may have no idea what I'm talking about, because they may not have experienced it.

And so I think that was the biggest thing for me, my biggest takeaway.

>> The perception gap -- this term comes from our own work on false polarization, which measures the difference between how we think our political counterparts or political opponents think and what they actually think.

And we can measure this by using survey research where we ask people to make estimates, and then we ask the other side, do you agree with these statements?

And we find sometimes that there are differences between perception and reality that are 40, 50, 60 percentage points.

>> It is completely worth it to connect with somebody on a deeper level, a more personal level, and put the effort in.

Like, I think this is proof.

At least it was for me.

I mean, it was one weekend that altered my perception and my method of communication that's lasting me throughout all of my verticals of relationships, whether it's personally, romantically, professionally.

It was the most I think delicate, yet amazing decision I've ever made.

[ Laughter and applause ] >> Well, since... [ Applause ] Since the filming of this for me and Michael... [ Laughter ] No.

Man, just being heard and listened to and feeling like even though, like, I know somebody loves me, even if they disagree with me, like, you still cool.

Like, that alone makes me feel like I'm understood.

It makes me feel like you care, opposed to me having different opinions and our relationship is severed.

So I think just that aspect kind of created that environment for love, 'cause it was like, "Yo, we disagree.

You feel like this way, you feel like this way.

But at the end of the day, you're still a dope person, and that doesn't change who you are to me."

So that was from my experience.

>> And he is just really cool, so... [ Laughter ] >> We did set boundaries, or we did set rules.

That was, like, one of the first things that we did.

>> Is swearing allowed?

>> Well, ask the group.

>> Is swearing allowed?

I'm into it.

I'm into it.

>> If it works.

Yeah, if it works.

[ Laughter ] >> Interrupting.

>> What about it?

>> I don't think that's very nice.

>> Okay.

[ Laughter ] >> Did I hear an active listening?

Heather.

>> Rather than just waiting for somebody to finish talking so you can talk, to really sit and listen to what they are saying and hear what they are saying and process what they are saying before you respond to them.

>> Yes, but some people just tend to go on and on and on and on and on, though, too.

>> Maybe and just part of that is, "Hey, can you wrap up in 10 seconds?

", or something.

>> Great.

What other norms?

>> Agree to disagree.

You're looking for opinions.

We're probably gonna give them.

I think they shouldn't be personal attacks.

>> It's kind of hard for people to do, including myself, but try and engage in dual perspective.

So when you ask them the question of why, it's not an attack.

It's because I don't know.

And then try and put yourself in their shoes, and maybe the vision becomes clearer.

>> You have to trust that no matter how different their opinion is, that they are just as good, as smart, as caring, as kind of a person as you are, even if everything about their opinion is telling you the opposite.

[ Laughter ] >> So 10,000 murders, you know, based on firearms.

Okay.

How many were prevented?

I mean, I'm just saying, are there 20,000?

>> Do you truly feel like more are prevented -- as many or more are prevented than are caused?

>> I do think so.

>> Research has shown that suicide is often impulsive, where if someone has an idea and they're just fed up and done with it, if you give them the option to walk into a store and buy a gun that very moment, that number would be tenfold.

>> If you just take a little time and you trust that other people have good intentions just like you do, then there's actually a lot more love in the world than you'd imagine.

>> You know, it's interesting.

There's a recent study that looks at the difference between empathy and compassion, and empathy being "I feel your feelings," and compassion being "I'm concerned about you and want to help," and that those are different things.

And what they find in this research is that people that are high in empathy talk that are low on compassion tend to become more depressed and isolated and hopeless, because they're feeling all of these hard things, but don't know what to do about it.

On the other hand, people that feel high compassion and less empathy, that are more about concern for other groups and doing something about it, feel much more connected and hopeful and possible.

So I do think leaning into compassion for people that are different from you, people that have very different lives from you -- I think there's a ton of hope in that.

>> There is one concept that I spent a lot of time researching called meta-perceptions.

So, oftentimes, we think that the other side disagrees with us more than they actually do or hates us more than they actually do.

We need those who are motivated to learn about the other side, combating and challenging this misperception.

>> We actually have a lot of those same things in common, and a lot of the same things that we want to accomplish within the government, in the communities.

And that's a lot of things that we talked about that I think that people don't realize, is that there's such a divide.

We're not that divided.

We actually have a lot more in common.

>> As is evident, it did indeed leave us transformed.

I would say for me, it's allowed me to stop and give grace to others.

>> In everyday life, it's respond, don't react.

>> If you're never wrong, you can never grow.

>> It's bigger than just politics, yo.

It's somebody just appreciates somebody's lifestyle, the way that they live their lives.

That's their life.

It's not yours.

You don't have to micromanage it.

Appreciate it, respect it, and, you know, we'll see the change in the divide in America.

'Cause it ain't just politics.

So... >> Keep talking to new people.

You'll keep learning, you'll keep hearing different opinions, and you'll keep feeling reaffirmed that we have more in common than not.

>> It is worth it to put the effort in, to bridge the divide, to bridge the gap, because you don't know who else is going to be receiving that same momentum, and you don't realize how far it's gonna reach.

>> You're probably thinking about somebody right now, right?

I'm pretty sure everybody in here got somebody they can think of that, like, y'all literally can't stand 'cause their opinion is different from yours.

I challenge you, you know, after today, like, go talk to that person.

Take them out to coffee.

Take them out to lunch.

And don't talk about the stuff that y'all got, you know, different.

Like, talk, find some things that y'all got in common.

Talk about the birds, the bees, favorite color, favorite cereal.

Something.

[ Laughter ] And, like, really spend time with that person and ask questions instead of responding.

Like, ask more questions.

Allow them to feel like, yo, this person is making an effort to get to know me.

This person is making an effort to get to understand me.

Once they feel that way -- It ain't gonna happen overnight, but eventually, they'll feel like, "Okay.

Maybe I was the...that wasn't listening."

I'm sorry.

I shouldn't say -- [ Laughter ] "Maybe I was the person that wasn't listening.

Let me hear them out.

Let me hear what they got to say and hear that, and then move on from there."

Like, it ain't gonna be easy.

Love is never easy.

You know, if you're in a relationship right now, you probably know you probably some days you can't stand your husband or wife or whatever.

But, you know, love make y'all keep going.

And that's the same way it should be in every relationship and in every aspect of being with humans.

Like, just be empathetic and compassionate and all that other stuff.

>> Right now, everyone in this room is sitting next to someone.

There's an opportunity there.

We became a community in just a few days together.

The decision for a community is something you face in every interaction, everywhere you go, in everything you do.

When you leave this theater tonight, are you going to just go to your car and go home and go to sleep, or are you gonna stay a few minutes in the lobby and talk to the people who were there?

And maybe they aren't gonna be people you agree with, and maybe it's gonna be a hard conversation.

But if that's what the goal is, to improve a community, every moment is an opportunity.

So I would just encourage you to not be forced into a room with eight strangers for three days instead.

[ Laughter ] Take that opportunity now.

>> Can I get a selfie with everybody before we leave?

[ All cheering, laughing ] >> I loved that on the two mornings we were together, we started each day at breakfast, sitting at a table with other cast members.

It just brought out that humanity.

I was like, "Oh, my God.

You know, I don't care who it is.

I care about these people at this table, and I feel for them."

>> And, like, coming last night and already seeing the show, too, but then seeing it again with the Boston cast, for one, it's like, "Yes!

I get to meet the other celebrities on the show."

[ Laughter ] I've seen you guys on TV.

[ Laughter ] But it's like I knew you.

>> Yeah.

>> Like, it was no surprise.

I was like, "I know you.

You know, I met you on the show.

I've seen your background.

Like, hey."

[ Laughs ] So, like, it wasn't -- It wasn't the same feeling as walking in the first time, because it's like this has been done, and, like, we know we're gonna get along, like, you know, so -- >> I agree.

>> Like, the whole documentary, there was, like, moments where I was constantly reflecting.

And then I think for me, I was just like, "If that can happen in a few years, that's incredible."

And, then, also, seeing the students -- like, there was a freshman undergraduate class that was in.

And I was just telling them -- I was like, "Isn't it Friday?"

I'm like, "You're here on a Friday night.

That's incredible!"

Like, and hearing their responses and hearing their impact from it -- I mean, it was just during my reflection, it was just a beautiful reunion.

>> Yeah.

It was really neat seeing, especially rewatching the documentary pre-COVID and post-COVID.

>> It's a completely different experience when you are watching that film with people in a room instead of, like, on Zoom, or telling people to go watch it online and hearing when people laughed.

>> Yeah.

>> It brought it alive, and it made it -- I don't know.

There was just, like, a warmth to it.

>> Absolutely.

Yeah.

>> It was great.

>> I didn't realize it was that funny.

I was like, has it always been this funny?

Yeah.

[ Laughter ] >> To hear the audience, I mean, not even laugh, but, like, there were oohs, and there was like, "Mm..." You're, like, listening to -- >> Every time I made a comment on the film, the woman sitting behind me was like -- tck, tck!

[ Laughter ] But I thought it was just a great experience.

I thought the people asked really good, intriguing questions of us.

And, then, after the show, like I said, I mean, that was when I had my best interactions with people, you know, one-on-one.

So for me, I mean, I'm really glad I came and did it and enjoyed it, you know?

One guy told me he thinks I grew the most out of everybody.

I was like, "So you're saying I was like a redneck?"

[ Laughter ] >> But that was good.

I was really, really happy with the whole thing.

>> So, I have a question.

I'm curious if and how what happened on January 6 affected any of you guys?

>> Have you guys seen that movie "Don't Look Up"?

It felt so real on that day, because I remember we were all working remote.

And I'm like, "Everyone's just kind of business as usual."

And I text my team, like, "Do you all see what's happening at the Capitol?"

And everyone's just kind of head down, chugging along like, "Yeah.

It's something going on.

But we have deadlines."

And I'm like, "Wow.

Like, this is where we are now, where we're kind of just pushing through issues and not --" >> Desensitized.

Yeah.

>> Exactly, exactly.

So that was kind of shocking for me.

>> Not admitting to this very day that you lost that election is a national embarrassment to all of us.

The insurrection -- it was shocking and hurtful to our democracy.

But I think we as a country recognize that.

>> That goes back to the conversation about fact and truth or whatever.

So if that was their truth and they really heartily believed that it was stolen from them, it was like, "Then what?"

>> What scares me about that -- and this goes to both sides -- is the amount of faith somebody will put in another person and blindly follow them.

>> Yeah.

>> Their facts that the election was stolen was simply because Donald Trump came out and said it was stolen.

>> Yeah.

>> They didn't produce an ounce of evidence.

Rudy Giuliani looked like a buffoon in court with the people he brought in, you know?

And you're right.

It was their truth, and you can't take that from them.

That's their belief.

I'm with you on that.

But they blindly follow.

And that goes to both sides.

But, you know, it's just that was it.

He said it was stolen, so they did what they did.

That is what scares me.

Sorry.

>> Oh, and, also, there are other ways to express your dissatisfaction with the situation.

You don't have to storm the freaking Capitol and threaten people's lives.

And, you know, I think that's the part.

If it had been a peaceful protest, that's completely understandable and within all of our rights.

>> But people believed that he lost because they hate to be wrong.

>> Yes.

And those are the people that cannot be persuaded that they are wrong.

And so that's where I've grown and I realize it's absolutely okay to be wrong.

[ Indistinct conversations ] >> We all care.

We care.

And that's what unites us.

It's so sad, though, that something so destructive is what's gonna then unite us.

You know, like, why can't we do that daily?

>> Yeah.

The unity without tragedy.

>> Exactly.

Unity without tragedy.

Yeah.

>> I do think it's we're in a different era a little bit, though, where I think if you look at how to take, like, an opposite example for a lot of the civil-rights movement, from what I know, there was so much emphasis put on, like, training people on how to organize, on how to respond, on how to act.

There were, like, little groups that would go through that for weeks and get people ready and prepped.

It wasn't just like, "Oh, here's a flier," and everyone just shows up and does whatever they want.

>> Yeah.

>> And now that's what's happening.

Like, it's not actual organizing.

It's just a bunch of people showing up.

And so of course in those situations, people are going to act in bad faith, because there's no community necessarily behind the action.

>> Yeah.

>> It's just action for action's sake.

>> Yeah.

So, to that, I live in Michigan City, Indiana.

It's a small place in Michigan -- in Indiana.

And right after the George Floyd thing, we had, like, a little peaceful protest.

And, again, to your point, it was more so organized.

Like, they sent -- Like a week in advance, they sent out e-mails, Facebook information saying, you know, organizing, "These are the talking points.

These are the things that we're gonna chant."

Like, and it was organized or whatever.

So when we had the protest, it went very well.

At the end of the night, though, there were a few knuckleheads that wanted to go to the Lighthouse Mall, which is in Michigan City or whatever, and start the whole looting and everything.

But what stopped it and what stood out was that our police chief -- he's from the community.

Like, he grew up the high-school basketball star, everything.

He's from the community.

Everybody knows him.

He worked in the high school or whatever.

He went down there and stood right in front of the Lighthouse Mall and had conversation with people.

And, like, it made the news and everything.

Stopped it.

It stopped the riots from happening and everything.

There was a few knuckleheads still trying to do things.

But to your point, just having a community aspect of it and opposed to just randomly just linking up emotionally, like, "Oh, this happened.

Let's go here and say something," like, it makes a difference.

>> Do it again.

One more.

[ Laughs ] [ Indistinct conversations ] >> Okay, okay.

Cheers.

>> Cheers.

[ Laughs ] >> What advice would I give students who are worried about preserving democracy?

Um... >> I think kids just think that only other kids are listening to them, but the whole world is.

>> You know, to be heard, not just seen.

>> That is literally your superpower is your voice.

>> You know, you look at certain groups of people in this country that still have so many miles to go and fights to fight that they shouldn't have to.

>> If they're already caring at their age, then keep going.

>> Put the facts in front of you, and if somebody else comes with more information, put your heads together and find that truth together.

>> If we can get that concept, it starts with one person.

>> It shouldn't be a struggle for you to live here, no matter who you are, what you are.

You know, it's all of our country.

>> There are ways to make a difference at the local level.

You know, it's okay, and it's probably even better to start small.

>> We all know, like, the local level is suffering.

So I think this notion that they can do something now.

>> There is an entire world that can be shaped by them.

>> Create what you want to see.

>> You know, when you can bring people together, like "Divided We Fall," and see them actually building relationships and then going on to live together, work together, find common cause, that's where there's, you know, tremendous opportunity in this country today.

>> We all came out of this saying, I wish everyone in this country could do this.

>> Yeah.

[ Applause ] >> To learn how you can start a conversation to bridge divides in your community, your campus or school, or with your family, friends, or coworkers, go to dividedwefalltv.org.

[ Indistinct conversations ] >> Hey, tell them -- tell them what was your experience like doing this documentary?

>> It was amazing.

>> Do the right thing, do the right thing Do it all the time, do it all the time Make yourself right, never mind them Don't you know you're not the only one suffering Do the right thing, do the right thing Do it all the time, do it all the time Make yourself right, never mind them Don't you know you're not the only one suffering Do the right thing, do the right thing Do it all the time, do it all the time Make yourself right, never mind them Don't you know you're not the only one suffering I see you up again, wandering so diligent Keep crossing your T's as though it weren't irrelevant They say formality, and this is what they really meant They can be the walk, we can, we can be the pavement