Breaking barriers at the barber shop
Barber shops and hair salons. Those, along with coffee shops and neighborhood watering holes, are prime places to spend an hour or two to really learn what’s on other people’s minds.
State Sen. Dan Duffy, a Lake Barrington Republican, did just that. He went to Blades Barbershop on the far Southeast Side last fall and asked the men gathered there to ask him questions.
He did so at the invitation of Chicagoan Jeffrey Coleman, founder of the nonpartisan Young Government organization. Coleman is the son of Chicago Alderman Percy Coleman and his Young Government group now has more than 6,000 members. Duffy and Coleman both have agendas in all of this. Duffy is eyeing a statewide run at some point but is unopposed in the March primary. Coleman told Daily Herald Politics & Projects Writer Kerry Lester he wants to make both major parties “recognize newly energized and better-educated groups of young educated voters.”
So Duffy went and talked. He said he learned the men in Blades believe Republicans have written off the black community. Perhaps the men in Blades that day learned that maybe all Republicans haven’t written off their community. That, in and of itself, would be wonderful. But there’s a broader lesson here. In this age of seemingly complete polarization in our communities, imagine what could happen if every one of us ventured outside our comfort zones and just listened. No attempts to argue, persuade or proselytize. Just listened with a truly open mind.
That’s also the idea behind an ongoing series of meetings at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library that challenges attendees to take a walk in someone else’s shoes.
That series and Jeffrey Coleman’s efforts at the grass-roots level really are marvelous. They have the potential, at least, to break down barriers and broaden understanding among people of all manner of perspectives.
Why not? The men from Blades could come spend time with Duffy’s constituents at a suburban coffee shop. Suburban and city residents could take a day trip downstate to listen to residents talk about what keeps them up at night. Tea Party activists could go share a soda with Occupy activists. They’d each have to spend a solid bloc of time just listening to the other’s worries.
And then all of those people could spend some time listening to the so-called moderates who want an end to the stalemates in Washington and Springfield, even if it means compromise.
It’s a start. It can’t really hurt, and it just might help. Imagine. If more of us did more of this, could we have avoided the failure of the debt supercommittee in Washington? Might something get done to solve the pension problem in Illinois? Coleman’s concept is a wonderful one more of us should model. We just might start building meaningful bridges of understanding.