It was almost four years ago that I set out on a road trip with my father across the country, visiting 12 states over the course of a two-week journey. Our goal was to conduct interviews and host group discussions on the state of our political and cultural climate, culminating in our attendance of the 2017 presidential inauguration and the Women’s March that followed. This was an impulsive trip, but we’d recently awakened to the rather obvious reality that the emotional state of our country was far more fragile than we’d imagined, and we wanted to act. 

At a gas station stop in Southern Louisiana, I met a man who, after approaching me and chatting for a bit, asked me about the veracity of an article he’d seen claiming that Hillary Clinton was in prison, along with a doctored photo of her behind bars. I got the sense he knew not to trust his source, but was at a loss for where to turn for a second opinion. He displayed vulnerability in that moment that I think about often, even four years later. 

He represents the truest victim of the polarizing place we find ourselves in politically — a person who does not want to be uninformed, but is because the world around him has decided it will be so. And of course he isn’t alone. News comes at us now in tailored format — stories to fuel our not-so-neighborly instincts and deepen false divisions. This new normal is unsettling, but I’m bolstered when reminded of that brief interaction, because it’s a reminder that even the most effective attempts to be divisive fail in the face of honesty and compassion.  

To me, he represents the unlimited potential of what we refer to as a “Difficult Conversation.” I didn’t even seek him out— he saw that I was from somewhere else and decided that I might provide him with a different opinion. Millions of dollars are spent building a narrative that he and I live in “two separate Americas,” that we should write one another other off and keep each other out of power at all costs, and in this wonderful moment it was money wasted. The reality is that difficult conversations aren’t difficult because they’re unpleasant, but because there are forces at play trying to keep them from happening. The biggest threshold to clear is opening your mind and heart a bit. 

Had he not made the choice to strike up a conversation, the interaction wouldn’t have happened. It had been a long day of driving and I find the Bayou to be a bit spooky. I’d retreated for the moment into the bubble we all carry with us everywhere we go, ignoring my surroundings because they caused me mild discomfort, and this stranger brought me out, as though a cosmic reminder of why I was there in the first place.

It is so difficult to hate someone when you know their story. Hate does not allow for nuance, and we are nuanced creatures.

— Will Beare