Is this America? The land of the free and the home of the brave? Wake up, America! Wake up! The political division in the country, undeniably deep right now. The big question on a lot of people’s minds, can Americans come together and heal? I’m Van Jones, and this is Uncommon Ground. Welcome back to Uncommon Ground. This is a show where we’re really looking at what it takes to make real change, meaningful change, in a country that is as divided as we have gotten here in the United States of America. In the past several years, the U.S. has been going through a real shift. It’s a negative shift. You feel it. I feel it. Tensions are getting worse. Internal conflict is getting more and more pervasive, more and more contentious. Biden talked about it being an uncivil war, meaning the discourse between the political parties is just either non-existent or completely hostile. And even just simple differences between belief systems has turned into just outright disdain, distrust, disrespect of the other side. We all know this is not sustainable. And the divide in the country can’t just keep getting deeper and deeper without some serious consequences. At some point, you end up where you’re headed. And people have begun to ask the question, seriously, is the United States headed for another civil war, a real civil war? And these things can actually happen. And you’ve seen it in history. Are we headed that way? In October 2020, Business Insider published a poll saying that the majority of Americans, the majority believe the U.S. is already in the middle of a cold civil war. That’s one step away from a hot civil war. Now, that statistic might be scary, but it really shouldn’t immobilize us. It should really mobilize us because right now, for all of our tension and conflicts, we still have a stable system. We don’t have low intensity warfare breaking out in the cities. We don’t have militias attacking towns. I mean, so the question is, while we still have this stability, what should we do about it? And what lessons can we learn from other countries so that we can avoid the worst fate here? And I’m not trying to be alarmist. I just think it’s time for us to really have that conversation. And to have it, I could not think of a better person to talk to than my friend, William Ury, Bill Ury. He is the world’s leading expert on negotiation and mediation. He’s the co-founder of Harvard’s program on negotiation. And over the past 35 years, Bill has been a negotiation advisor and a mediator in literally every kind of conflict you can imagine. Ethnic wars in the Middle East, the Balkans, South Africa, former Soviet Union, most recently in Colombia. He even helped out in some wildcat strikes among coal miners in Kentucky. He’s really done it all. And he has real tangible insights and tools that we can use to try to solve these issues that we’re facing right now before things boil over into something worse. We think that the conflict needs to end. It doesn’t need to even be resolved. It just needs to be transformed. In other words, the conflict can continue and it will in this country. But can we change the way in which we deal with the conflict from destructive ways, which include violence, to constructive ways like dialogue, negotiation, listening, and democracy and non-violent action? In other words, can we change the tools that we use to deal with our conflicts from unhealthy ones to healthy ones? I think, you know, we have stakes as high as they are right now. You really need conflict resolution and negotiation tactics, you know, from the top to the bottom. Even just you trying to get through your day, you might need some of that stuff. And we do have some of the resources. We just need all hands on deck to avoid the worst. And I am very glad to have had this conversation with Bill Ury. He brings a lot of wisdom. And I think most importantly, this is a guy who has seen the impossible become possible with his own eyes many times over. And folks like that bring a lot of hope, at least to me. I think he will bring hope to you. I think you’re going to leave this conversation feeling inspired and empowered with some actionable solutions. So stay tuned to hear my conversation with the great William Ury right after this quick break. The WNBA playoffs are in full swing and Tommy Alter’s The Young Man in the Three brings you closer to the game. Get complete WNBA playoff coverage as Tommy sits down with the game’s biggest stars and delivers unmatched analysis. The Young Man in the Three’s WNBA playoff coverage is presented by Quest Nutrition. From irresistibly crunchy protein chips to rich chocolatey protein bars, these treats make giving in feel so good. Quest, big on protein, low on sugar, huge on flavor. Shop Quest on Amazon at amazon.com slash Quest Nutrition and enjoy all the WNBA action on The Young Man in the Three wherever you get your podcasts. At Raising Cane’s, we’re hyper focused on being the best at what we do and getting it right every time. Cook to order chicken fingers, cane sauce, crinkle cut fries, coleslaw, Texas toast, iced tea and lemonade. It’s our one love. But is the hype real? Yeah, it’s real good. Raising Cane’s chicken fingers, one love. Next time, order with our app or online. Well here we are. I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation. I think, you know, for the uncommon ground community, you know, we’re just trying to figure out how to avoid a catastrophe here in the United States. I mean, I would love to get your opinion, but it feels really scary to me and a lot of people. It just seems like the polarization is getting worse and worse. It seems like the misunderstandings are getting deeper and deeper. The sides are getting more and more entrenched. And, you know, you could have a civil war. It’s not unheard of for totally stable countries to fall apart. I mean, it’s happened more often than we like to admit. And I just wanted to talk with you about, first, just a little bit of a reality check. I mean, do you see causes for concern when it comes to polarization, that kind of stuff? Am I seeing what I’m seeing? Am I paranoid? I mean, what do you see? I share your feelings in your assessment, Van. I’m sad to say, actually, because, you know, I’ve spent the better part of my life wandering around the world as an anthropologist and mediator in war zones and in very difficult conflict situations where violence is being threatened. And it’s sobering for me to come back to my own country and see many of the same warning signs here. And yes, we have a stable system that we’ve always taken for granted. And I think it is right for us to be concerned and even alarmed to the point that it actually causes us to take action, because it’s not about being alarmed and then, you know, going to despair, going to denial, or going to, you know, excited agitation. But like, what degree of concern does it take to get us to act preventively? Because we have a huge opportunity. Yeah, you mentioned warning signs. When you’re looking at countries in conflict, peoples in conflict, things that are moving in the wrong direction, what are the warning signs that you look for? And what do you see here? There are many, but three in particular. One is when you start to demonize the other. It’s no longer your opponent. It’s like, this is an existential question, and this is good versus evil. And then you get all kinds of effects. But, you know, what I’ve seen in terms of polling of, you know, progressives and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, increasingly held images of the other as well beyond the pale in the realm of evil. And there’s evil forces at work that each side have these mirror images of the other. That’s one. A second is declining trust in the institutions that keep us stable, you know, trust in the electoral process. I mean, you have so many Americans right now, who honestly believe that the last election was not legitimate. Trust in the institutions of, in other institutions, the universities, the media, you know, to give us fair, balanced views of what’s going on, the police. So the trust in our institutions is plummeting. And the third is the widespread availability of weapons. And I’d say the other thing, I would just add one more, which is the fear, the levels of fear on each side. The other side is prepared to use violence and actually even justifies violence against the other because the stakes perceived as so existential and so high. Well, look, I think if you go through that checklist, the United States looks pretty scary in that I think that a lot of people, very frankly, on both and all sides are losing faith in institutions. And then I say that really across the board, people are deserting their houses of worship. The country’s becoming a lot more secular. That could be good or bad, depending on your point of view. But to the extent that people had a home in a faith community that they had some confidence in, that seems to be going away. I think the Supreme Court, it just seems like, you know, Trump put three folks on and they changed the law and took away rights. And it makes it hard for people to feel that this is a fair game. And I’ve seen myself, when people think the game is rigged against them, they stop playing and they start punching. And that’s really, I think, what you’re describing here. You know, we often think of elections as a good thing and they are a really good thing. But in the context of conflict in polarized situations, elections often escalate conflicts more than they deescalate conflicts because they’re win-lose phenomenon. And the losers, you know, in the election either reject the results of the election or they undermine it. And so we’re about to go through two very significant electoral periods, the congressional elections in November and then obviously the presidential elections in two years. And we need to batten down the hatches. We’re going through a storm here. We need all hands on deck here to avert the worst. You know, one of the reasons why the upcoming elections are so scary is I remember 2000. That was a very close election. And Democrats, I think we lost Florida by 37 votes or 40 votes or something like that. And the Supreme Court had stepped in in a way that felt very partisan. That really felt like an unfair outcome for Al Gore who had won the popular vote, but Al Gore conceded. We didn’t have a concession at the end of the 2020 election. And I think when you have misleadership at the very top that doesn’t respect the long game, doesn’t respect that these institutions have to survive and stay steady, then you get a lot of real problems. But you’ve seen it way worse than where we have it right now. You’ve gone all around the world. I wonder if you could just share just some of the conflicts you’ve been involved in and some of the lessons that you’ve learned before we start trying to apply them here. Sure. Well, when I was a graduate student many, many years ago, the main conflicts in the world were the Cold War. Then there was South Africa. Apartheid was raging in South Africa. And that seemed likely to be a race war in Southern Africa for as long as anyone could imagine. Then there was sectarian strife in Northern Ireland, Catholics and Protestants. And people said that’s in their blood. They’re going to go on forever. And there was the Middle East, Egypt and Israel. And I watched and witnessed, and I actually was there in South Africa, went to Moscow many times, was there in Northern Ireland and was there in the Middle East. And I watched with my own eyes as situations that were seemingly impossible gave way to possibility. It’s not that the conflict ended, you know, that’s the thing is we think that the conflict needs to end. It doesn’t need to even be resolved. It just needs to be transformed. In other words, the conflict can continue and it will in this country, but can we change the way in which we deal with the conflict from destructive ways, which include violence, to constructive ways like dialogue, negotiation, listening and democracy and nonviolent action. In other words, can we change the tools that we use to deal with our conflicts from unhealthy ones to healthy ones? And that’s what I saw happen. I saw the Berlin Wall come down. You know, I was in South Africa in 1989 when Mandela was still in prison and people were saying this would go on forever. And within six years, there is an astonishing political transformation in South Africa. Northern Ireland, it’s not the conflict over, but it’s like the troubles came to an end. Even in the Middle East, you know, Israel and Egypt, which are the main adversaries, they forged a peace that endures to this day 40 years later. So I’ve seen situations which are far worse than our situation where the impossible became possible. Let’s take something like South Africa, which you and I both have so much love for. What was present there? What happened there? How did what was certain to be a race war? I mean, in fact, the Afrikaners, which are the white South Africans, called it Ubuntu. I mean, they had a name that they thought all the black South Africans were aligned to this idea of Ubuntu and that was going to be the race where they’re going to launch against the whites as soon as they got power. Of course, Ubuntu doesn’t mean that at all. And it was averted, but just barely on all sides. What was present in South Africa that we can take some hope from now? Well, there was one thing that was present in South Africa that’s latent in every situation. The question is whether you can activate it. And that’s something I call the third side. And the third side is not third parties. It’s not neutrals. See, every conflict, we always reduce it to two sides. The third side is the side of the larger whole. It’s the community. It’s the surrounding community. The third side’s a circle around the parties, right? And in South Africa, what I witnessed was the activation of the third side. The third side is our most ancient human heritage for dealing with conflict. It’s the circle around, I mean, our ancestors used to circle around the campfire. And in South Africa, they had something called the Ndaba, which was you gather together all the different parties in a circle so that everyone is equal around the circle, right? And you talk. And most important, you listen. And as Mandela recognized, you know, in his tradition, leaders speak last. They listened to everyone else, all the views. And that circle becomes like a container, like a pot that holds the boiling water in which the conflict can be transformed. It’s like food gets transformed, right? So the indigestible becomes digestible. And specifically, what that took the form of was the whole society mobilized. You saw like the labor community, the business community got together, the leaders of faith, the women, the youth, the civil movements, the media. It’s like the whole society mobilized. They had something that they called the National Peace Accord, which was, they would have a peace committee nationally. And then for every one of the provinces, which were like states, the cities, all the way down to local communities, and you’d have people sitting around in a circle, whites, blacks, Asians, poor, rich of all kind, not just having an interesting dialogue, but thinking practically about there was a lot of violence going on, political violence going on. How do we reduce it? How do we work with the police? And it was like the whole society activated. It’s like the immune system of our body was a social immune system that got activated, that allowed South Africa to make an amazing political transformation, where the entire society got mobilized. And my question for us in our country is, where’s the third side? I think when you’re on the oppressed side of the oppressor oppressed dynamic, we’re not being treated with respect. We’re not being treated as human beings. We’re being killed, jailed, tortured. And yet, in order for this to work out, we have to somehow rise above and go from being treated as subhuman and yet perform these superhuman feats. And it’s not fair. It’s just necessary. That’s all. And we have that capacity. It’s because of all that we’ve endured. It’s because of all the spiritual resources and creative resources that we’ve had to cultivate over the years that we have a singular strength and contribution to the process that is contrary to what’s fashionable now, the kind of like, you know, woke this and woke that and we’re not gonna take any more and cuss everybody out and you gotta listen to me and you own your privilege and sit down and shut up. It’s my turn now. All that stuff feels good in the short term. It just leads to the nightmare you’re trying to avoid. It’s totally unfair to ask an African-American lesbian activist to perform Gandhi-like levels of maturity in the face of provocations from our own elders. It’s unfair. It’s just necessary. And that’s tough. That’s tough. You know, you just put your finger on it, man, which is oddly enough, I mean, and it’s profoundly unfair. Reconciliation starts from the victimized population. It’s horrible. It’s a horrible, horrible truth. Horrible truth. Mandela, when he went to jail, I mean, he was tough. He was a fighter. He was a boxer. He went to jail and the first thing in jail he started doing, he was in jail for 27 years, was learn Afrikaans, the language of his enemies, because he knew I’m gonna have to reach out to them. You know, the last thing you’d think he would be learning is the language of enemies. And he studied their history, studied their history of suffering, their history of trauma, so that when he got to jail, he could speak to them in their own language from within their own cultural context. And that plays an amazing role. And then him role modeling that for his people, you know, of like, we have to learn. It’s almost impossible to imagine, but that’s what it took. It was a kind of emotional, psychological jujitsu of acting in the most surprising way that changed the minds, these really hardened minds of his adversaries. Yeah. You know, I think that the idea of a demographic shift, or at least a shift of the complexion of the people in power is very unsettling for people. I think in the West, in Europe, in North America, we’re asking the white majority to do something that really no ethnic group has done successfully, which is to go from being a majority ethnic group to being a minority ethnic group and like it, right? That’s, you’re asking a lot. You know, it’s one thing to do it, but to do it and you gotta like it, that’s tough, you know? And I think if you don’t recognize how tough it is, then I think you underestimate the effort and you underestimate what you’re asking. It just means that change is hard. This is the hardest work human beings can do. So let’s just start right there. This is not going to be easy. And so I think we need empathy on both sides, on all sides, and we need to have empathy for those in this country who feel that they’re losing their country. They’re losing everything that they thought their country, they’re losing their sense of pride, their sense of status. And if you just kind of dismiss them as racist or whatever, you have to fundamentally understand them as well, just like you’re doing, because we all have to go through this together. And that’s what I witnessed in South Africa was the most obdurate, you know, like Afrikaners, like start to soften when, and this is the key, they’re treated with respect. Ladies, is everyone trying to fix their health concerns with unproven gummies and tricks? Well, thank goodness, low libido has a real clinically proven treatment. Low libido can be so frustrating, but there is a treatment called Addi, A-D-D-Y-I. 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And during our Spring Style event, we have fresh new looks that are waiting to make your home look and feel great at the lowest prices. With all the latest styles in bloom, you’ll find savings in every department. Whether it’s a clean and modern sectional, or a rustic and traditional dining table, we have it in stock with fast and free delivery. Come find the look that’s right for you during the Spring Style event at your furniture superstore. Mathis Home. I took my boys to South Africa when they were old enough to appreciate it, but young enough they had to come. Now they’re big teenage boys, it’s hard to make them do anything. And we had a driver, white guy, Afrikaner driver, who was taking us from here to there. It turned out he had been a part of the security forces for the apartheid regime, and had actually been one of the presidential guards for Mandela’s predecessor. And now here comes Mandela. And he describes him having to make a decision. He’s going to quit his job, because the first ideological barrier wasn’t, I’m going to have to serve a Black president. He said, I’m going to have to shake a Black man’s hand. He had never shaken the hands of a Black man. And so Mandela walks in, shakes everybody’s hand, and he instantly realized that Mandela had no malice. That Mandela had a view of South Africa that he had a place, the Zulus had a place, the Xhosa had a place, the Fula had a place, the Afrikaners had a place. And he, in an instant, changed. And I think as unfair as it is to place this burden, and it’s a horrible burden on oppressed people, and it shouldn’t be placed lightly and without all of the due reverence and respect, it says something about the incredible gift in the curse, the strength that comes from overcoming all of these indignities. You know, in the Black church, we say, hallelujah anyhow. No matter what you do to me, you’re not going to take my humanity. You’re not going to steal my joy. That strength is not available to communities haven’t gone through anything. And so you’re actually asking them sometimes to do stuff that they’re just possibly not even capable of conceptualizing or doing, because you’ve been in the gym every day, and they’ve been on the couch. And so there’s a way that it’s horribly unfair. And you might get canceled for saying it in the wrong places. But it’s only the oppressed that can lead us out of this. It’s only the people who have been disenfranchised, disrespected, when they find their humanity and say, I’m going to keep my humanity. And by the way, I’m going to keep yours, too. I’m going to guard my humanity. And guess what? I’m going to guard yours, too. That’s when the miracles happen. I understand. All I can say is corroborate everything you’re saying. That’s just my own lived experience of watching these and participating in some of these situations, is leadership comes from below. And it may seem really unfair, but it just shows just the opportunities that are there. And you’re right. I mean, those who’ve been disrespected and humiliated, then know the importance of dignity and respect. Respect starts with self-respect, right? So if they can come from that place of self-respect, Mandela had enormous dignity, and then respect for every human being. Sometimes we confuse what it means. Respect doesn’t mean I approve of what you do. It doesn’t even mean I like you. It just means you’re another human being and you have dignity that is an irreducible right of every human being. Right. I’m not going to let you dehumanize me, and I’m not going to dehumanize you. I won’t do you the favor of dehumanizing you and becoming what I’m fighting or feeding what I’m fighting. I’m going to insist on my own dignity, no matter what you do. But I think that there’s a fatigue. I think that, you know, you tell people that now and they say, that’s a bunch of kumbaya and these guys are terrible and they should go first. You know, why should we go first? We’ve been going first for 400 years. And so, you know, let’s talk about another struggle, you know, like the troubles, as you call them in Northern Ireland, that have been going on for a long time. What did you learn from your observations there? Well, one thing was people said, oh, this is religious, you know, and this is coming with the mother’s milk and this has gone for hundreds of years. And there’s no way that it can change. And it changed in a generation. So the impossible became possible. Now, how was that? Because the two sides, there was all the things, demonization, arms, low trust institute, all those factors were there. You know, it was traitorous to even talk to the other side. And the first crack in that facade came from mothers, the mothers of young men who had died in the troubles. And so the mothers began talking with each other, Protestants and Catholic, and said, this has got to stop. That’s the third side right there. The third side is the voice of the community saying, this has to stop. And it came from the mothers who had suffered the most. And so it came from the point of suffering again. Then they gave a little courage for the people of faith, of the cloth, who said, you know, Catholics and Protestants, wait a minute, we’re not sure that this is in accordance with the teachings of Jesus. Okay. So they began to talk. So in other words, the mothers gave social permission for the priests and the ministers, and then they gave permission for the people in business and labor who said, Hey, we’re losing jobs. We’ve got livelihoods to make here. And you know, this doesn’t make sense economically. The last were the politicians. In other words, where does the courage come from to say enough is enough. So that’s how the third side got mobilized. All the communities were saying enough is enough. We’ve got to find a way. And the way it was fairly obvious. It wasn’t about, Oh, we’re going to just make peace and kumbaya and everything. No, we’re just going to figure out a way to transform our differences. So that instead of killing each other, we’ll have parliament and we’ll have shared power and, and we’ll co-exist with each other. Even if we don’t like each other, even if we don’t trust each other and so on, we’ll co-exist for the sake of the whole. And that’s lasted to this day. As we begin to think about the U S context, where they got to is where we are now. In other words, if you think about South Africa, how did you resolve it? You resolved it by making sure that everybody could vote and you had a multiracial parliament and Lord knows it has not been easy over there, but you don’t have a race war. You have something else. So the end of their story is the beginning of this chapter for us. We already have all that stuff, but it’s breaking down. We already have all that stuff, but somehow that cauldron pot is starting to break. And I wonder, have you seen anything or imagined anything? Is there anything in history? Is there anything in your own experience or your own imagination? What do you do when you start losing a democratic Republic? What do you do when the vote is not enough? Yeah, I think you start organizing. You asked the question of where’s the third side. We are all third siders. You know, we may not realize it, but we’re all third siders. It’s a latent force in the community. The third side is what sustained American democracy is even, you know, with all kinds of inequalities and injustices and everything like that. But whenever there was a crisis, we met the crisis in some way and we became bigger. And to me, looking back at our history, this is a moment like that. This is a moment like we faced in the 1850s where it was hard. It was really hard, but we faced our issues and we said, can we actually be the United States, you know, united? And that what united doesn’t mean is we don’t have any differences. Our country thrives on differences. I’ve got a left arm and a right arm and I want both. We need both the left and the right to actually make the whole, right? I wonder, you know, as you begin to think about that and we have to, it’s really at the edge of the imagination, even for people like us who want this stuff. I would be remiss not to ask you about the Abraham Accords and the Abraham Walk, because that’s actually your most recent foray into trying to make the impossible possible. And just take your time to walk us through that. And then let’s try to come up with something for our own country. Okay. Well, you know, I’ve been working in the Middle East, political negotiations, Israelis and Palestinians, Israelis and Arabs, whatever, since the seventies. And after 9-11, and I saw, wow, the world’s separating the, you know, the global war on terror was perceived in the Muslim world as a war on Islam. And so I thought, what could start to bring people together? And I had a crazy idea since I happen to like to walk. And I’ve noticed that when you walk, you have a different kind of conversation, which is you’re walking side by side, facing common direction. And if I’m talking to you face to face, you know, if I get too close, this thing, but we can even rub shoulders when we’re walking, you know, and whoever fights when they walk. And I thought, you know, instead of treating religion and the whole story, you know, which was the heart, identity was at the heart of the issue. Why not use identity and even religious traditions as a way to bring people together? So I thought about Abraham and he’s kind of like the father figure of the whole Middle East. Everyone kind of traces their origins back to a legendary journey that he took, you know. So Christians, Muslims, Jews, all respect Abraham. So I thought, okay, why not see if we can retrace his footsteps, a little bit like the Appalachian Trail. There are billions of people in the world who connect with this tradition. Let’s get to cross-cultural communication. But people say, are you nuts? You can’t start, you can’t walk in the Middle East. I mean, it’s not safe. I mean, how are you going to do this? Anyway, here it is like 18 years later since that idea, you know, working with local partners, we’ve worked in eight different countries that are like, I’d say maybe 1200 miles of path. Thousands of people have started to walk and in places that you wouldn’t even imagine were possible, right? In the West Bank of Palestine, that’s the place where it’s most developed. But also in Egypt and Turkey and Israel and all these places, the whole idea is to start to bring people together. And again, it’s just an idea of like, you start with a visionary idea. It seems impossible, patience and persistence. And, you know, it’ll take generations, but remember what brings us together, that what brings us together, we have our differences and those are important, but what brings us together, there’s something greater that brings us together, even than what divides us. I remember, you know, my time in the Middle East and Israel, Palestine, I remember being in West Bank home, you know, some of the poorest people in the world. And somehow we sit down, the table is covered with food. And then you catch out of the corner of your eye, the kid running next door to get food from other homes to bring it. So you’re eating the food, not just to the people, but the whole neighborhood is sending food over. So, and you think, my goodness, this is a level of generosity and hospitality completely unknown in modern America, I’ll tell you that. But in America, should our third side be a shared fear or shared ideal? Is one better than the other? Should we and our leaders unite around a shared fear of what we could lose or shared ideal of what we could build? I would go for the shared ideal, what we can build. I think we’re motivated. We can be motivated in part by a shared concern, which is a fear. But ultimately, what’s going to take us across the threshold is a shared ideal. And that’s Mandela is just an example. He offered a shared ideal of a multiracial South Africa, inclusive, you know, and that’s what I think one of the things that would really help us at this point is, as a country, what I’m noticing is, we don’t have a shared dream anymore. You know, where’s the vision of what America could be for, if not for us, for our kids, for our grandkids? What’s our dream? And, you know, it’s a shared story. And to me, there is a shared story. You know, if you think about what was the founding, I mean, absolutely radical innovation of the American experiment, which was, you know, the ideals, which were obviously far from the reality, but the ideals that every human being is created equal. That was absolutely revolutionary. And that every human being has this innate dignity, innate rights to inalienable rights to, you know, to liberty, life and the pursuit of happiness. And so it was based on that. Now, how do we recover that DNA of our culture and manifest it in the future? And if we have that, then I think we can go through the fires of conflict and realize we can get through this. I agree with that. And, you know, you’re quoting Jefferson with that idea, you know, all are created equal. Of course, Jefferson, the slave owner, and people have a hard time with that. And to me, that is very, very important because the founding reality of America was ugly and unequal. The founding dream of America is about equality. It’s Jefferson in the founding reality. He looks at that reality, too. He’s disappointed that he can’t overcome himself and this stain at the beginning. And yet that same Jefferson has a founding dream that is about equality. And I think that’s what America is. We are a rainbow people, a multiracial, every faith, every color people trying to close the gap between the ugliness of our founding reality and the beauty of the founding dream. That’s who we are. So it makes us Americans. It’s an unending journey. But to your point, that is our Abraham walk. And, you know, I think we’ve got to find ways to walk it together. I completely resonate with what you’re saying, Van, and that’s it. It’s the process. We can take hope from our history because whenever we face these challenges, it was hard. It was really hard at times. You know, there was violence, like in the civil wars. But we got bigger. We got bigger as a country. We became stronger. We became more powerful. And right now, we’re facing another one of those crises. And the choice that each one of us faces is, am I going to rise to this crisis and get bigger, or am I going to contract? You know, in conclusion, you know, there’s that story you told about the third side coming to life in South Africa. If you could imagine, and there are people listening to this who may be elected officials, they may be civic leaders, they may be student leaders. How can people who are listening to this begin to bring that third side to life wherever they are? Well, they can do three things. They can learn to go to the balcony. In other words, what’s going on is going on a stage. Imagine what’s going on a stage. There are all these different parties. There’s all this complexity. If we can learn to go to a kind of a mental, emotional balcony where instead of – because we tend to react. In the reactive part of our brain, you know, as Ambrose Bierce once said, when angry, you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret. If we can step back from that situation, ask ourselves what we really want. What do we really want for our country? What’s most important to us? And zoom into that and then zoom out and see the bigger picture and see the possibilities for America and see how are we going to advance what we really want for this country. So, go to the balcony first. That’s the key. Then, having gone to the balcony, you can then start to build bridges with the other. You can only do that once you’ve really fortified yourself and you’re really strong of where you are. That’s what the balcony is. You’ve done the inner work. Then, you can do the outer work with the other. And that starts by listening. Listening means putting yourself in the other person’s shoes like you were talking about earlier. It means about empathy. It means really trying to understand. You don’t have to agree with them, but just try to understand where they come from. If we can listen and then we can be creative and say, are there ways to have for your interests and our interests, whether it’s on whatever hot button issue, guns or abortion or climate or anything like that. I’ve seen that happen and you’ve seen it happen and then build some trust. We’ve got to build trust because there’s so much distrust. We have to start really to think about how do we restore trust in our institutions? How do we restore trust in each other? How can we trust each other’s words? All of those things together, then remember the larger whole. Remember the circle around it. Remember what it means to be Americans. Include the other and then look for how do we activate that third side? How could we ourselves take that role of reaching out to others individually, but how do we organize if we’re the business community? How do we organize the labor community? How do we organize the faith community? How do we organize those institutions that can serve as third side institutions that can stand up for the whole when the storms come so that we have something strong to guide us through the storm to the ideal that America is a country of dignity for every human being? Well, look, man, I hope that we’re able to do as well in our time of challenge as some of the people who you’ve worked with and studied and learned from, frankly taught, who’ve done it all around the world. I mean, all of that wisdom has to come home now. And I’m just glad the Uncommon Ground community got a chance to hear from you as I do often. Thank you for being on Uncommon Ground. Thanks, man. It’s been a true honor and a privilege and I wish our whole country much success in getting to yes. We see the beauty of hope. That spirit is so beautiful. Those who become American citizens love this country even more. And that’s why the Statue of Liberty lifts her lamp to welcome them to the golden door. It’s so amazing to get a chance to talk to a true legend in any field, but especially in the field of negotiations and conflict resolutions. Right now, he’s the best. I mean, he literally wrote the book on this stuff and people all around the world study him. You can see why. It’s not just his head. His heart is in there. One of the things I took from his words is just this idea that leadership comes from below. At the end of these podcasts, people always want me to think, well, tell us what we can do. What can we do? Put us to work, man. And I don’t think that’s right anymore. I think there was a time when we could look to people who have podcasts, whether they’re politicians or preachers or teachers or folks on TV, and they could just say, well, you should do this. And maybe that made a difference. Maybe it didn’t. I think now leadership coming from below means really leadership has to come from within. I think everybody listening to this podcast, including you, you already know what you’re here to do. You might be scared to do it, but you already know there’s something inside of you when you’re quiet, when you’re writing your journal, when you’re going for a walk that you know is a calling on your life, someone you could help, some cause you might add to, some young person you might mentor, something you might learn more about, a book you might want to write or read, a poem you might want to finish, a TikTok video you might want to post. There’s something in you that needs expression, that needs support, that needs to come out. And I think leadership has to come from within and then from below. And then ultimately, just like you said, the politicians come in last. The leaders usually wind up being the followers when a real movement is happening. I think a real movement comes from within people. Taking inspiration from Bill Ury about the third side, we’re all third-siders. All of us can do something to begin to bring people together. And the only thing I would say about that is, let’s get to it. Let’s start waving some white flags. We’re just tired of fighting all the time. Can we do something? Let’s go for a walk. Let’s break some bread. Why? Because you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Right now, we still have a functioning society. It’s creaking. It’s got its problems. But the idea that this just sucks, America just sucks, everything is terrible, everything is awful. I’m sorry. Go to other places and look around. What we have here is a fixer-upper at best. It doesn’t suck. This is not the worst place in the world. For all of our problems, we still have a massive head start over almost every other country in the world, literally bar none, even today. At our worst, we still have such a massive head start. It doesn’t mean we’re number one in health or education. It just means we still have so much of a head start, and we still have time. We still have a shot. I was talking to Bill right after the podcast interview, and he said, if two years from now we’re in the middle of a civil war, what will we wish we had done now? We should do that. Two years from now or four years from now, things are worse and not better. What will you wish that you had done? What standard do you wish you had taken? What call do you wish you had made? What essay do you wish you had written? What will you be wishing in a few years? Do it now, and I’ll do the same. This is Van Jones, Uncommon Ground. See you next time.