Charlottesville reminded me how to have a constructive conversation

Yes, you heard me right.

Bear with me.

Last night I sat out in my back yard and thought about hatred. I’d been watching footage of Charlottesville — which, if you haven’t watched yet, stop whatever you’re doing and watch now.

I cried a little (I really hate hate), and the level of what is probably immovable hatred by some of the people in this video made me temporarily want to stay in my backyard forever, shut off my driveway, and retreat.

This is 1/8th of my backyard. It’s at the end of a dead end, which I could just gate off. If i got some animals and planted a big garden, I’d never have to leave. Those are hops, so beer would be covered.

But of course, that emotion lasted about 0.5 seconds. I don’t get up every morning to retreat.

I started immediately thinking about the tech industry’s past six months — loaded with heated, in-your-face conversation that’s reached what’s now being called a “Culture War.”

The hatred in Charlottesville is at a level where productive conversation may be impossible. When we think about the conversations we’re having about diversity in the tech industry, what opportunities do we have to be more productive and open-minded?

It hasn’t been fun for any of us, but in that moment last night I realized how lucky we were to be in what’s essentially a war of words, comparatively speaking.

The level of hatred in Charlottesville (and in many similar situations in the past) includes AK-47s and militias, people welcoming violence and death if it “furthers the mission”, people filled with so much vitriol that it may be impossible to ever have an open-minded conversation with them. And murder.

We have an opportunity in our own conversation to counter this potential level of hatred with open-minded conversation, education, and inclusiveness.

Think of AK-47s

Not because they’re there, but because they aren’t.

When you walk into your workplace tomorrow, understand how actually low your barriers are to having open-minded and inclusive conversations. They are so low.

You don’t have people filled with such hatred that they drive cars over other humans. You don’t have guns (big ones!) literally backing up arguments.

You don’t have THIS GUY getting ready for his conversations, which are 100% one-sided.

You have the level of emotion, environment and personal capabilities to have way better conversation.

Open space for discussion

I was speaking to a colleague of mine in Mountain View yesterday, her boyfriend works at Facebook. She mentioned that he’d come home recently and felt “timid” to bring up the topic of gender at work, because he wasn’t sure if his questions or viewpoints would be accepted.

What he meant was he worried whether women would allow for him — a maybe less knowledgeable or perhaps less informed person than they — to learn more about the subject, or would they simply attack?

In my opinion, the women part of “we” could stand to be much more inclusive in the conversations we have around gender — the very conversations we’re trying to change. Sometimes — a lot of the times — we aren’t. I speak a lot about creating ways in which men can have a more active seat at “the table”…. but half of that job is on us to create that space.

Here’s what happens when you do this. I wrote a piece a few weeks ago on why there needs to be more women in AI. It got some good, meaty comments, some applauding, some awful, but most wanting to have dialogue. I went into every comment trying to accept the other’s opinion, or at least be civil.

This wasn’t easy to do by any means. But it paid off with thankfulness from a few who were presenting counter arguments. Two examples:

I’ve also found your responses to be very fair and measured — You seem willing to engage in debate with people who are oddly hostile to an interesting piece about the future of AI.

Also, reading through the responses so far, I must congratulate you on your tone here. Your responses are very level-headed and constructive. Well done and thank you.

I personally really enjoyed the conversation we were having, even though there were opposing viewpoints a lot of the time.

Spread love, not hate

This is tied closely to the idea of compassion. We’ve all heard it before. Love will overcome. Kill ’em with Kindness. Love Trumps Hate (sorry, had to, don’t hate me).

But there’s actually scientific evidence to support this, especially if you look at a phenomenon called companionate love.

In a culture of companionate love, employees work side by side in collaboration, each “expressing caring and affection toward one another, safeguarding each other’s feelings, (and) showing tenderness and compassion when things don’t go well,” write Barsade and O’Neill in the Harvard Business Review. “Now imagine a workplace that encourages those behaviors from everyone, where managers actively look for ways to create and reinforce close workplace relationships among employees.”

You can read more about this here:

Social contagion makes it easy to spread fear and hate. Here's how to spread their opposite

Also on your homework tomorrow when you go to work: start from a place of compassion. If you just start there, you increase the possibility to have teachable, productive moments as opposed to moments of combat. This doesn’t always work — because there are just jerks in the world — but you aren’t losing anything if you at least start here.

We’d all be fools to not realize that some of the strong, troubling sentiments exhibited in Charlottesville do exist in the heart of Silicon Valley/Alley/etc, but for crying out loud before you have guns in your morning meetings, take advantage of the opportunity in front of you to have conversations. They’ll be tough conversations, they’ll be heated, but try to make them productive, not destructive.

Does it mean you’ll agree with everyone? No (I didn’t agree with Damore!). Does it mean people won’t get fired? No (he did!). Does it mean you won’t get angry? No (some people still don’t flipping get that there are actual hurdles for women and minorities in tech that has nothing to do with biology! That’s maddening!).

But it does mean that you’re taking a route that has the potential to decrease tension, discredit violence, bring people together, and promote working together and learning from each other.

As we continue in our Culture War and tensions steadily rises, it’s more important than ever that we find a way out of an arms race and in a direction of progress.

So if you see Damore in the hallways, let him talk, tell him where he’s wrong if you think he is, provide evidence… if he doesn’t change his mind, find the constructive pieces of the collective dialogue, move those forward and amplify them.

And don’t pull out an AK-47. Because if you do, we’re all done.