By Linda Stamato and Sandy Jaffe
Overshadowed in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis was an event in New York that was nearly as symbolic of America’s racial divide. A brief confrontation between a Black man and a white woman represented much of the tensions over the past few centuries, but it lacked the drama of law enforcement gone awry.
It should not be buried in history, though, because it offers a crucial lesson in lost opportunities.
Mere hours after George Floyd’s life was snuffed out under a policeman’s knee, a white woman in New York’s Central Park threatened to call police on a Black man. He had merely asked her to leash her dog, as required, in that area in the park. The man, Christian Cooper, turned out to be an avid birder and a board member of the city’s Audubon Society. He video-recorded what happened, including her angry threats to call 911 – including her plea on her phone, “There’s an African American man threatening my life.”
Unlike most incidents, this one – because it was recorded – went viral when Christian Cooper’s sister offered it on Twitter. The video led to the white woman being fired from her job, calls to ban her from the park and a steady stream of criticism as her intemperate, racist actions were repeatedly viewed.
There were no charges. But the video was chilling to many who watched it because things could have ended very differently for a man who seemed “out of place” simply because he was Black.
This encounter with racism, along with others in recent months, renewed national attention to the dangers — the marginalizing, dehumanizing and, for many, the routine reality — of simply “living while Black.”
Ending the story there, though, was a lost opportunity.
Cooper’s later observation that the incident perhaps should not have led to the woman losing her job sounded like an opening. An opening for conflict resolution, for using a community forum for facilitated conversations, for mediation and, perhaps, for restorative justice.
A mediated conversation involving both people, for example, could have been beneficial to both. Having an opportunity to talk and to listen, to absorb what an experience meant and the harm it caused, can lead to positive outcomes for those directly and indirectly involved, serving, potentially, as a lesson for the public.
Recall the very public story of the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and the white police officer who saw a Black man attempting to break into a home in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Gates was trying to enter his own home. This encounter became widely circulated, much-discussed and reported on, and, as is often the case, interpreted differently, as in “the usual racist injustice,” for some, and “justifiable police work” for others.
Barack Obama, then America’s president, saw an opportunity. He invited both men to the White House, offered to “share a beer” with them, and created a space for a direct conversation between the two, to explore the harm caused to Gates, and the ridicule experienced by the officer, but also to give both an opportunity to listen to each other, and, to show the nation that it is possible to generate something positive out of a negative encounter.
Surfacing and distributing evidence of a profound wrong to shame an offender accomplishes only so much. Seeing the wrong as an opportunity for potential gain, however, may benefit both the offender and the offended and, as noted, may well contribute to the public good.
There are many fraught encounters, much less visible, that need to be seen as opportunities for serious investments in conflict resolution in our communities.
When disputes take place between and among citizens, in neighborhoods, in public and private spaces, we need mediators from the community to help manage them effectively for the good of the parties and the communities of which they are a part. When differences in communities rise to a level that threatens the fabric of the community we need spaces for talking, for listening, for exchanging ideas, to find ways to improve relationships and help cement communities, not only to lower the risk of civil disturbances but to find opportunities to listen, to heed and to heal.
Many believe that there has been a fundamental shift in thinking and political will that may well make “this time” different.
Let us make it so.
We need to undertake earnest efforts to listen to the experiences of Black and brown people in our communities in order to understand, to assist and to make the changes we need. Along with public actors -- mayors and civic leaders -- we need leaders in the private sector, and those in “the third sector”—churches, mosques, synagogues, schools, universities, nonprofits, and, especially, community foundations— to listen, engage, and take on critical roles.
But, without the spaces, the structures and the support to provide opportunities for listening, for learning, and for helping resolve conflict, we aren’t likely to see the changes in our communities that we so desperately need as a nation.
Linda Stamato and Sandy Jaffe are co-directors of the Center for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy of Rutgers University.
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