Conversation Makes A Difference

On Tuesday nights I hang out with a group people for something called, Doubt on Tap. It's a great time each week talking about issues that are important. We discuss politics, religion, and current events. Basically all the stuff you don't talk about in polite company.

This week we spent some time talking about issues of race. It was intense. It was so good though. People from all different backgrounds around a table being honest and being real creates something beautiful.

I was reminded last night that these conversations make a difference. They make a difference because ideas, concepts, and ideologies become people. People have names and stories. It is really hard to hate a person.

It is easy to be snarky and condescending behind a computer screen. You're just being mean to pixels. But, when you're face to face with someone, it is really hard to be simply mean.

If nothing else happened last night at Doubt on Tap I know this did: black people and white people talked about race and our world and that these folks will now have faces and names to put together with the events of our day. For those of us at Doubt on Tap the events in Ferguson are no longer disembodied images on TV but they tie into stories of real people around a real table in Ypsilanti, MI.