As we approach Thanksgiving, we enter a season of spending extended time with family and close friends. Unfortunately, as conversation shifts from probing questions about your love life and your plans post-grad, it can often veer toward the dreaded topic of politics, a conversation that has not only polarized our country but our families as well.
How do we effectively navigate these conversations without feeling the need to yell across the turkey while clenching a buttered bread roll?
First, reflect on why you want to have this conversation. If it’s because you have this unconscious desire to prove that you’re correct or on the right side of the conversation, you might as well stop while you’re ahead and not speak. In the Psychology Today article “Being Right vs. Feeling Right,” Dr. Jeremy Sherman writes, “The upshot for us all is that there’s a big difference between being and feeling right and any of us is likely to miss or deliberately ignore this difference. We’re like pilots flying by fallible instruments, instruments that convince us they’re well calibrated even when they aren’t … for example, there’s what’s called the bias blind spot, a bias toward assuming that we’re not biased as though our instruments are exceptionally well-calibrated.”
If we believe that we’re 100 percent correct on our argument, we lose the ability to listen and have an intellectual discussion because we’re simply trying to prove ourselves and convince others that we are right, and they are wrong. There’s very little chance of changing or impacting someone’s political views when you are condescending. So instead, use this time as an opportunity to listen and have an open conversation. Take the chance to understand why a person believes what they believe: respectfully ask probing questions which allow that person to also grapple with what they believe, and allow them to do the same to you.
Dr. Robert Leahy, in Psychology Today article “Talking Politics During the Holidays,” suggests that the downfall to a majority of political conversations includes labeling the other person, catastrophizing what they are saying, taking it personally, discounting any positives and overgeneralizing. If you avoid those, you take significant steps in the right direction.
Furthermore, Rachel Cargle, an advocate focused on the intersectionality of race and gender, encourages those who consider themselves allies of marginalized groups to speak up and call out loved ones. This is especially important on Thanksgiving because it is a holiday intended to celebrate a country founded on the backs of the marginalized groups such as Native Americans and African Americans.
It is crucial to have these uncomfortable political conversations and graciously call out the offensive remarks made, as “toxic ideologies often start around family dinner tables. It’s not just an uncle saying a racist joke, or a grandmother determining her xenophobic ideas as ‘a part of her time,’” said Cargle. “These comments seep into how we make decisions in voting booths, how judges rule in their chambers, how teachers guide students in school classrooms, how employment decisions are made, and how police react in high-stakes situations.”
Nevertheless, there are those of you who would prefer to pass on having this political conversation like I pass on pumpkin pie (sweet potato pie is superior). Your best tactic is avoidance through distraction or redirection, which can come in many forms. It can be as direct as saying, “I’d prefer not to talk about politics this year,” or as indirect as spilling tea — literally. One response might be less detrimental to the rest of your holiday events, but to each her own.
Regardless of whether or not you choose to participate in political conversations, remember this holiday season that the freedom to decide whether or not we wish to engage in these conversations stems from our ability to freely express, argue and discuss our political beliefs, which is a gift indeed.