A Strategy to Better Discuss Gaza

The "Brave Community" approach

I have been disappointed but not surprised to see so many US universities, those institutions that ought to provide us with thought leadership, fail to rise to the occasion when it comes to Israel-Palestine. Instead, too many universities have resorted to their usual anodyne and asinine statements and their favorite tactic: demonizing students. The kids, as always, are alright, even when they may make mistakes.

I find it particularly hypocritical to judge young people for failing to do perfectly what we, their teachers and elders, do not do at all. We do not discuss the ongoing conflict in Israel-Palestine consistently, rigorously, or fairly. Not having a fact-based, consistent, or fair discussion of Israel-Palestine is a defining characteristic of the US experience. When I immigrated here at age 15 from Cabo Verde, I was stunned by how this nation that routinely heralds its origins in “thirteen colonies” succeeded in the mental gymnastics required to excuse its own settler colonialism and the practice as it exists in occupied Israel-Palestine. Thirty years on, I am Americanized enough to understand that mental gymnastics are a feature, not a bug.

That feature—the cultivated ignorance of the unsavory aspects of US history--is the underlying subject matter of a book I published earlier this year. The book's primary subject is to share a method, Brave Community (BC), that I developed and use to support people's challenging but productive learning about racism and similarly fraught topics. For almost a decade now, I’ve used the approach to teach my students and people in diverse professional and community settings. BC works by setting up the best conditions for people to go beyond “just talking” and towards learning about subject matter that is difficult but urgent to face.

I am saying all this today because some people might find the BC approach helpful as they engage their communities in discussions of the situation in Gaza, whether they gather in classrooms, meeting rooms, or living rooms. So, if you decide to try the approach that I outline below, do let me know how it goes in the comments (or ask me questions).

STEP 0: PRE-WORK: YOU IN YOUR CONTEXT

Grounding for learning (or just “grounding,” for short) is the foundation of the BC approach. It is a combination of content and culture for learning. By content for learning, I mean evidence, facts, data, text, video, or whatever materials we can use to learn about the topic. The material should be fact and evidence-based and not unfounded opinion. I know that on Musk’s internet, it has become controversial to say there is a difference between facts and unsubstantiated opinions, but there just is! Content in BC does not include unfounded opinions. By culture for learning, I mean the ways to approach one another and complex content productively. Grounding, then, is a combination of what and how we will learn about the current situation in Gaza (in this case).

Before you start, you need to take an inventory of what kind of content and culture—what grounding you have to work with. For culture, ask yourself: what kind of group is this? Do they generally do well in discussion, or have they barely talked about things? Suppose you're a teacher of a huge classroom where there has never been any substantive discussion. In that case, you will have to work harder than you are leading a 10-person seminar that's a few weeks into healthy, respectful discussions. Similarly, suppose you're the director of a nonprofit where folks have worked well together for ten years. In that case, the culture setting will be a lighter lift than if you run one where the staff was all hired during the pandemic and is in their first in-person year.

While culture can be worked on in real-time when people gather for the discussion, content must be thought about and planned for in advance. It is being grounded in clear content and culture that allows people to have the capacity for the heavy lifting this topic requires. This is when you ask, “OK, but how much content? I don’t have time to get a degree in Middle Eastern Studies. I’m just trying to get through this all-staff meeting/quick classroom discussion/neighborhood potluck.” Right, so, this means content must be limited and not exhaustive. The content should be something short, rigorous, and relevant. It must allow you to meet your goal of creating an inevitably challenging yet productive discussion. Here are some examples:

This Reuters overview of the history of the conflict from October 2023 or this guide from Vox

This October 13, 2023, message from the Secretary General of the United Nations.

This October 18, 2023, letter of resignation from Josh Paul, who quit his job at the US State Department over “policy disagreement concerning our continued lethal assistance to Israel.”

(For younger K-12 students—but also for anyone- there are sites like Zinn Education Project, Rethinking Schools, and EdWeek.)

All these are examples of content that would work in a classroom as well as a workplace, community center, or family gathering because the material (or parts of it) can be shared and reviewed in a short time. Of course, if you are a college professor, schoolteacher, or just someone who can assign more in-depth content in advance, you can and should. The more we know, the more grounded we are, the better we can do this. The point is that we should not skip content altogether because we cannot “cover everything.”  Covering everything is not required in order to ground ourselves in facts instead of feelings. Whatever metaphor you prefer, works: grounding is the soil, grounding is the foundation, grounding is the container. Without grounding, the BC approach does not work.

STEP 1: GROUNDING THE GROUP

The very first thing you do is a grounding “speech,” or remarks to frame what will happen. You can say whatever you like, but there are two rules: be authentic and explicit.

A teacher might say to students, “I know this is not the topic of our class, but I am aware that it is foremost in our minds. While it is a difficult topic, I believe we need to and can discuss it. Let’s talk together about how to make sure that happens. We are going to focus on…”

A director might tell staff: “I know that discussions of this issue among you all have turned incredibly hostile. I can’t fix what’s already happened. I have gathered us here today to engage with the issue differently and, hopefully, more productively. I hoped that reviewing the article together would be a good way to focus…"

The reliable way I do it is through some version of the above, followed by something I call Backplanning Norms. That works like this:

1.    I ask the folks gathered to share words that describe previous experiences of discussing the issue (or a similarly difficult one) that have gone poorly for them: “Give me one word that describes experiences of discussing the situation in Gaza that have gone poorly for you.” They will usually say things like tense, hostile, uncomfortable, one-sided, superficial, etc. We’ll talk a bit about our shared bad experiences.

2.    Then, I ask the group to share words that "describe ways of being that would support you in having a productive experience here, right now, different than the bad ones you’ve had." Folks usually share words like empathy, honesty, patience, evidence, focus, etc. We also unpack words for a bit to ensure we all know what we all mean.

3.    When we’re satisfied, I wrap it up: "These will be our custom norms we're committed to for this discussion. We needed to work these out before we started because we knew this topic was difficult. These agreements will help us have a productive discussion.”

You don't have to do it like I do it. What matters most is that you do something authentic, something the group will feel is sincere, and something that focuses the group's attention on how it wants to conduct itself in the discussion to come.

STEP 2: SUPPORT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Believe it or not, if the grounding is done right, people feel more able to be brave in their ideas and words while also being more empathetic with each other. Think about it: wouldn’t you feel much more comfortable discussing this topic where (a) there was a specific item of content everyone was responding to and (b) there was a discussion about norms beforehand? When we know what to expect, and establish our norms together, and they have a specific piece of content we are all focused on, we do better. Once that’s happening, our job is to be brave and respect the norms, encourage one another to do the same, and to nudge those who may need to remember those norms, or stick to the content.

STEP 3: MODELING BRAVERY AND ACCOUNTABILITY (if things go off the rails)

There are two moves for situations when, despite you following steps 0-2, things still go off the rails: someone says the wrong thing, or someone has an outburst. If that happens, 

 (1) You model bravery and

(2) you remind people about the grounding. It usually sounds like:

“Ok, I think we need to take a beat…”

“We’re all feeling this tense silence. I wonder if anyone feels like they can share what’s going on…”

"It looks like we've gone off track, and I think it's helpful if we stick to the [content] we agreed to discuss..."

"Hey, Kai, I hear you’re raising your voice, and I think you’re feeling a lot, so I want to ask you to take a break. Can someone else take over from Kai and keep the discussion going, while he takes a minute?" This kind of move is not because feelings are not allowed or expected. This move is needed because emotions that are not manageable shouldn’t become the group's responsibility. So, the person who is feeling a lot needs a moment so they can return to a comfortable place and (hopefully) rejoin.

That’s it; those are the steps, and they all depend on establishing that grounding first.

This is a simple stepwise outline for what will, in practice, be a rather complex human interaction, of course. However, in my experience, following these steps really helps.

Some FAQs

Q:        Can't I just open the space for folks to say what they need to say without doing all this other stuff?

A:        You can, but much research and experience show that it will likely go poorly.

Q:     What if I do the Backplanning Norms and nothing else? Will that work?

A:        Backplanning Norms or anything to improve the culture will support people, so yes, it will be helpful. But without the compliment of content, it won't be "grounding." Being grounded is a reliable way to support people in being brave and empathetic.

Q:        How do you know this won’t blow up in my face?

A:        I don’t know that for a fact. When I and others have used this approach, things have not blown up in our faces. I also know that last month, when I did not have time to ground the group before discussing the relationship between settler colonialism and racial capitalism, things did blow up in my face for the first time since 2016. However, each situation is unique, and this conflict is particularly challenging to broach, but we must.