Her son called her liberal politics ‘intolerant.’ Here’s how she started listening to the other side. – Washington Post

The online platform Bring It to The Table facilitates candid conversations with a broad range of people on highly charged issues. In this video, participants discuss if equal opportunity exists. (Video: Talking Eyes Media)

Thewake-up call she needed came from her 17-year-old son.

It was the middle of the Obama administration, and Julie Winokur, a self-described liberal, was so frustrated withwhat she saw as Republican obstructionism that she would immediately dismiss any argument from the right. Then one day, her own child flipped her narrative. He told her she wasthe most politically intolerant person he knew.

If the other side had a good idea, you wouldnt know because youre not listening,she said he told her. I realized in that moment that I was as responsible as the people I was pointing fingers at. You have to take ownership of your own contribution to the negativity.

That was 2012, at the height of the tea party movement and in the midstof that years presidential election,when itfelt like the partisanship and rancor couldnt get worse. Her sons criticisminspired her to stop lamenting it andinstead try to fix it.

[He dramatically changed his views on gay marriage. Heres how he says the nation can come together.]

So Winokur, a documentary filmmaker in New Jersey, set out on a cross-country journey to meetpeople of different ideologies to discuss divisiveissues. Carting a square folding table and a navy tablecloth with patriotic stars, she endeavored to take her sons advice and really listen to others viewpoints. She wantedto get beyond talking points and regurgitated soundbites to discoverwhy people who see things so differently from her believe what they do.

She couldnt have known then how novel that concept would seem by the next presidential election.

She took her table to towns big and small, gathering a diverse cross section of Americans to interview. Sheeven set it up outside the Democratic and Republican national conventions that summer.

The online platform Bring It to The Table facilitates candid conversations with a broad range of people on highly charged issues. In this video, participants discuss their views on immigration. (Video: Talking Eyes Media)

I always saw this as the citizens antidote to politicians. Its taboo to ask people about their politics, but after being on the road and having many, many people who want to share, they are much more rationale and reasonable than we assume them to be, Winokur said.When you preface something as an opportunity to have a sober conversation where people can share what they believe, its amazing how many people are empowered to help other people with what theyve experienced.

In that spirit,during last years presidential election, she took her finished film project, Bring it to the Table, to college campuses around the country to spread her message about civil discourse. Since shed embarked onher own self-discovery to understand the other side, the national political dialogue had further deteriorated.

In her presentations, Winokur teaches students how to frame questions and engage political others without being confrontational. She tells them to never flatly tell a person their ideas are wrong. Instead, she advises theyask the personwhat experiences theyve had that shaped their opinions on a particular issue. If there wasnt a personal experience that led them to their opinion, she said a follow-up could be asking what they might have read or heard that led them to their conclusion.

Then shell take out her table and invite students to try it themselves. Sometimes she steps in to facilitate the dialogue, while other times she has the students engage with each other.

The goal isnt to change someones mind, but rather to get people thinking more deeply about where their beliefs come from and, in turn, give the questioner a more well-rounded perspective of opposing views.

We regurgitate things, we have a lazy way of analyzing information, we jump on the bandwagon of simplistic language, she said. The primary breakdown is the lack of shared information; theres a huge breakdown because were gettingtotally different information. When you dont share presumed facts, the conversation isnt even. Youre in different rooms pretending youre in the same room talking the same language when youre not.

She had hoped to take a break after the election, but almost immediately after Donald Trumps victory there was suddenly high demand for getting Democrats and Republicans talking to each other. And with the rise of hate crime incidents on college campuses, shes been called in by university administrators scrambling to bridge divides they hadnt previously acknowledged, she said.

She has personally learned through this process how to separate an individualfrom the candidate they voted for; to see them as American citizens rather than political adversaries. Healing the countrys deep political divide wont happen overnight, but she believes that having these conversations is the only way forward.

You cant solve a problem unless you bring it out in the open, she said. I thought it was so bad five years ago, and then it got worse. And were in a moment where it could get even worse. I think its a long game. This is an ugly moment that will get uglier, but you cant remedy something unless you air it, unless youre honest about it.