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Welcome to Doing Good, a podcast about the people, organizations, and companies creating positive change.
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Co-hosted by Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Campbell, Anna Ferrier with over 20 years in the nonprofit world of northern New Mexico, and myself, Gabriella Marks, photographer and visual storyteller with a focus on people doing good things.
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Today's guest is Eric Sarotkin, a civil rights attorney, mediator, educator, and founder of the Mbutu Works Project.
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His experiences in South Africa, including work connected to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and an encounter with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, introduced him to Mbutu, the recognition that our humanity exists through our relationships with others.
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Now, through Common Ground 101, Eric is asking people around the world to name ten things that human beings share.
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Today we'll explore whether recognizing what connects us can actually help us cross the division between us.
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All right, well, welcome to Doing Good.
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Today's guest, Eric Sirotkin.
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Welcome.
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Thank you.
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I'll just begin with the fact that you're a lawyer here in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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And lawyers are actually not considered.
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They're those who generate conflict more often than they resolve it, as a part of the work.
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So we're we're curious how did your work as a lawyer and your experiences in life bring you to conflict resolution?
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I came out of law school with the same training most lawyers go through, which is win at any cost your case.
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It has ethical parameters, but in reality, it's your doing good was not what the training was.
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The training was how to do best for one side versus the other side.
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And I I came from a progressive background, and I think I came out with a kind of rah-rah, revolutionary law kind of approach to changing the world.
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And uh there were those people over there who were wrong, and there were certain principles that were just right.
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And it was uh uh in the 80s, it was a time of uh Ronald Reagan's uh rise to influence in our politics, and it was a beginning of really separation emerging more and more uh through the moral majority and the things that were happening in the 80s.
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And I just jumped in and took on corporations and uh individuals who were abusing other people, and but took it with a kind of let's go, let's win uh you know, power for the people idea.
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And then I remember distinctly in the 80s the wars that were going on in Central America, and we would have demonstrations and we would be very active in that vein.
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And I remember the uh courageous people I met as we began to defend sanctuary workers, people who stood up against the policies of our mercenary wars in Central America.
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And those people uh were given shelter within churches, synagogues, with uh other places where people took in people, and people were charged with aiding and abetting uh at that time uh these people who were seeking refuge here from the wars we were perpetrating.
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And I remember the eyes of the children.
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I remember the power of uh a particular uh nun I represented who who took courageous stance, who put their liberty on the line.
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And I began to see that they did it with such heart and consciousness that that was very moving to me.
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It was a good reminder for me that it isn't about rights and right and wrong, but it was really about making um a difference in the lives of these people just by keeping them safe.
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And and I was like pretty blown away by that.
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And it had a big impact uh on me at that time, and then that led to some international work around uh in the early 90s, a group of us got asked to go to South Africa to work on the constitution uh that was emerging, it was 1991, and Mandela had been out of prison about six months, and there was a lot of uncertainty what would happen, that would there be a bloodbath, and how to avoid that.
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And the constitutional focus in South Africa, which remains one of the most unique constitutions in the world, was so based on uh uplifting people, and it was a contemporary uh constitution, and we worked on that, and the people we met, and the all of those kinds of experiences led me to do work in South Africa to be an election observer when Mandela was elected in small villages, to go with mediators into the countryside who were working not just on having a free and fair election, but diffusing conflict so that an atmosphere for a free and fair election could take place.
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And we'd go to a village and and uh two sides that had been fighting between the village and the township, and and the mediator would explore and listen to their needs and what went on there.
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And by the end of the session, they all stood up and sang a prayer song together.
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And then uh, as we know, historically in South Africa, when the elections were held for those over three days of elections, there was not uh an act of violence reported in the country for the first time in so long, and it's that people found some common ground.
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So those experiences really helped me.
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Trevor Burrus, Jr.
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What was what was the magic behind that?
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That I mean it was the force of Mandela, I think.
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But uh how how did that on a countrywide basis, how can you basically diffuse what would have been people would have thought, well, you know, out goes the you know the the white regime, and then all of a sudden these people who are being suppressed.
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I mean, how does how do you scale that, you know, that that sort of attitude?
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Yeah, I I I I really think it's a it's a notion of common ground.
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In South Africa, I would learn it later, and we can talk about I did some work with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the TRC in South Africa, and and there's a concept in South Africa called Ubuntu.
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And Ubuntu is I it's there's no definition in Western terms, uh, Archbishop Tutu used to say to me.
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And he when I tried to get him to pin, what is this Ubuntu?
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Because the statute said there shall be Ubuntu rather than victimization.
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And I said, Well, what does that mean?
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You know, that's in the law, that's in the interim constitution at the time.
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And I said, What what is this term Ubuntu?
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And a little smile came over his face, and we were at a breakfast uh little table in the back of the restaurant there where the first commission hearings were happening, and he said there he said there's no definition of Western terms, he said, but he said, I am human through my relationship with other humans.
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What I do to you, I'm doing to myself.
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He said, the solitary individual is a contradiction in terms that we are corporate.
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And he said that um and he said that's why people could come before this commission after suffering such horrendous tragedies and circumstance and say, I forgive.
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And so it all of these experiences, and I between those years in the early 90s, I'm an active trial lawyer, but I was just, you know, this was a side sort of gig.
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It's not paid, you just kind of you get paid in ways that that's what doing good does, I think.
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You get paid in ways that are beyond the the money in that.
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And and in South Africa, it was uh uh a flood of those things to me.
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And I think that um it was not about forgetting.
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It was we the the expression was we we forgive, but we don't forget.
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And so all of these kind of principles, here I am an active trial lawyer and doing all these things, and then how do I how do I integrate these things into my practice, into my state of being, my mind, and how do I uh how do you like you say, Michael, how do you institutionalize this in one way or another?
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And because they philosophy in in South Africa have had this philosophy of Ubuntu, and they're not a country devoid of violence and other conflict, but but there is a a deep understanding uh from that angle, what I call an angle of vision, that we are more connected.
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There's more that connects us than divides us.
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Is is Ubuntu uniquely um low, you know, is it is it unique to uh South Africa, or have you experienced it in other other other nations?
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Aaron Powell It's it's not only not unique to South Africa, it's actually all over the world, but generally in non-dominant cultures.
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Uh it's been the Navajos here in New have uh a term called K, K-E, and it uh it essentially uh is the same as Ubuntu.
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Uh met Navos who've gone to South Africa and talked about that.
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Um the Navajo Peacemaker Court model here uh has elements of that.
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Um the uh the the Buddhists, the the certain aboriginal groups in Australia.
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Uh the there are these terms uh in uh Native Hawaiians and generally in indigenous communities, but it they all have this concept that we haven't had in the Western world so much because we've been taught to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, and we've been taught that uh you know, us and them a little more.
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There's the good and evil of that.
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And uh maybe later we can talk about I've been to s North Korea four times, and I've met people with that I was taught were good or evil, and and um and I think we have a long way to go to break down the separation where we try to put people in boxes, and so I look forward to in my life continuing to expand that, and that's leading up to Common Ground 101 and some of the work of Ubuntu works, uh, what we do or uh work on.
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How do you um apply that in your your your current practice um you know into into conflict resolution and mediation?
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Well, people uh I'm I do uh I'm a civil rights lawyer, human rights lawyer.
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I people come to me generally, uh mostly employment cases over the years, because that's what I've focused on.
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Whistleblowers, discrimination cases, retaliation type cases, and and those kind of cases, um people come with a lot of pain.
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They come in having, they come in afraid, they come in scared.
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And I think for me, uh learning to listen to truths to the person there, but also bringing my client around.
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I I I don't for in any way try to uh and I tell the client this, I don't try to shoot anybody.
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I don't because they come and I want to kill them, I want to do this, and you know, it's that Ellis, Ellis' restaurant, if you know that old uh musical thing, you know, he you know, he comes into the therapist and to try to get out of the war, and soon the therapist is saying, jumping up and down, yelling kill, kill, and he's jumping up and then he says, You're our boy.
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And it's uh lawyers aren't there to be cheerleaders, they're not there to be increasing the divisiveness.
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Law um is a healing art and can be.
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And so in that vein, how it impacts my work is that uh I'll talk to that client.
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Uh, how do you see the w in the shoes of the other person who's harmed you?
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And that's a big thing.
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How do you walk in their shoes?
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How do you the expressions walk in their moccasins and other things?
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Well, that I I wanted to ask if there is a uh a standout moment that comes back to you most often, a moment of forgiveness that you saw in one of these situations where you were helping to mediate that that really stands out for you as as sort of that iconic moment that you remember when you think about the work that you do.
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Yeah.
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There there are so many in in a lot of ways, but uh certainly in uh in South Africa, the these hearings that um went on around the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
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I got involved because of our connections that we're building in South Africa, and they wanted an international monitoring project of the TRC.
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Because there were people there concerned that they're giving away this, you know, these people need accountability too, because there was an amnesty side of it.
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In South Africa was interesting because the amnesty side of that, where you got off, is that you had to tell everything you did in order to get amnesty.
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Wow.
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It was not blanket amnesty, so it was a truth telling from your side also.
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And so just that whole process was was super meaningful.
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I think certain things stand out.
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I mean a hearing where um there was horrific torture going on that was being described, and and this was the the beginning of the hearings, they're televised all over the world, and and the archbishop just stopped at one point and started weeping, and he put his head down on the table and just wept, and the whole hall went silent.
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And and that moment was super powerful to me.
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And I talked to him after, and I I you know and I asked him you know about that a little bit, or actually he brought it up.
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He said, he said, oh, he said, Eric, I shouldn't have lost my composure, you know, something like that.
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And I was like, oh no, please, you you did just what he did there, and he wept for everyone.
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He wept for everyone, and he um uh he demonstrated that you don't have to close your heart to deal with difficult things.
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And as a lawyer, we're taught something called detached objectivity, that you're supposed to be detached and not, you know, don't get involved, don't get emotional, don't, you know, in other words, don't be human.
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And uh that does not help the legal profession or the process really.
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Uh you have to know that you can be vulnerable and and be able to demonstrate that.
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So so I'm a big weeper.
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So my eyes got a little moist hearing that story.
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Yeah, it's uh beautiful.
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Yeah, there and and there were you know more things, you know, like that.
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Um, you know, when when I met him and talked about Ubuntu and such, and he said, and I sat down and I was recording a thing.
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I because I had said it to him, I said, I want to get a recording to encourage people to come over and be monitors and that kind of thing.
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And he said, sure, sure, meet me here.
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And we met in the back of the restaurant.
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And the first, this was the first hearings of the Truth Commission.
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Big thing.
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He's central focus, and he's taken time with me, which I thought was wonderful.
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But I didn't want to use up too much of his time.
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He's a busy guy at this point.
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So I sat down, I put on the tape recorder, and I said, Archbishop, um, I wanted to record a statement for people wanting to come over.
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And he said, Yes, yes, yes.
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And he put his hand over on mine.
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He said, Yes, but first, let's say hi.
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And I was like, uh I always remember that.
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It's um it's the lawyers go into a situation and they have their legal pad and okay, let's sit down.
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Okay, tell me what happened.
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And they went there.
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And and you miss the human exchange.
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You miss that moment.
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And and so I said hi.
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And then all of a sudden, when he was up here, hi, and I I was down here, all of a sudden we were on the same level.
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People to people.
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Just in that moment.
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And and that was so so.
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It was a gift to you.
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What a gift he gave you.
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Yeah.
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Trevor Burrus, Jr.
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It's a gift to me in in that kind of ways.
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Um, if I mean I mean uh what I just want to say one thing.
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I mean, the whole this whole process was uh an act of faith.
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Because, you know, if you had a specific constitution that laid out, you know, what what one part you know party A is responsible to party B, I mean, the there probably I mean, was was there an uncertainty whether or not this is going to work out?
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With the Truth Commission?
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Yeah.
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Oh, sure.
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Yeah.
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I mean, there were people who thought that uh you know, having people tell their stories, which were horrendous sometimes, and just speaking, they weren't being grilled, they weren't being questioned deeper, and that kind of thing.
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Uh, and there was a question of, you know, will this be successful kind of notion?
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And the best story around that is this hearing in um KwaZulu-Natal, and there was an individual testifying that he had ordered a shooting at a bus stop, and he had gone ahead and um and he said we were at war, we were trying to show the country wasn't governable, we were trying to overcome apartheid, and I ordered this.
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And there's a woman in the front row in a wheelchair who had been paralyzed by the shooting.
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He said, I could never go back to my community, I know that, and I don't expect people to forgive me, but this is what was about, what it was about.
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And a whole group of people got up and they left the hall and they were gone a couple hours, and then they came back um in while that testimony was still going further, and they came back in and they one of them stood up and said, I want to address the commission.
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And the commissioner said, Well, about what?
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And he said, I want to say that we're from his community, and we just met, and we wanted to say that we forgive him and he can come home.
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That's beautiful.
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At which point, um he broke down crying, the commissioners are crying, the the he embraces the woman in the wheelchair because he had said, I've known her my whole life.
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I didn't know she would be at the bus stop that day.
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And he so he had testified about that kind of pain.
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And um and so my lesson to the question.
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Is uh what I learned was uh it's like the starfish story, all the ones on the beach, and the someone says, How to this little boy, how can you do anything?
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There's like 10,000 of them, and the boy picks up a starfish, throws it in the water, and says, It matters to that one.
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And it's the same with that situation.
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How do you quantify it?
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Say this worked.
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Oh my God, it healed for that community, that moment in time.
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And so the TRC was filled with moments of healing that can make a difference.
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And we too often evaluate things in winning, losing, or quantitatively that this is uh a success or not.
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And in the end, it it it mattered to that one.
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It I mean, in in its abstract form, it makes sense, but in the practical application, I gotta imagine that by having two such powerful and moving personalities, Mandela and Tutu, that you know that was that that that had to have been the secret sauce, right?
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I don't know.
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I I would like my hope would be that what was allowed to happen was what we as humans deeply want to happen.
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And there was permission for that, you know.
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And um I I think what Eric's talking about that uh at a deep level, I think we're all looking for justice and and uh thinking about a uh interview we just did or a podcast we just did around Navajo culture and the balance and rather than a legal, like we have legal systems and those require certain outcomes, but uh when you're focused on justice and allowing people to be fully human, I I wonder uh I don't I don't know.
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I'm interested in what you think, Eric.
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Is it is I mean it got obviously you need leadership and you need to at the top.
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I don't know if you need like a a leader though.
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I don't know.
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I mean did you did you feel like it was coming from the from the ground up, Eric?
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Or was it Oh absolutely the the creative people in the ANC and other groups in South Africa were so impressive and were meeting people all the time who have a vision for the world that's that's different now.
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It helped to have focused on Mandela and his release and his uh his element of forgiveness, yeah uh or I think Tutu provided a kind of moral framework for this to take place and had a certain stature.
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And I I think those things help.
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You can't underestimate that, but the the uh the amount of people working and organizing, I was recently in Minneapolis in February, and it was you know a complicated time to be in Minneapolis, but it was uh the the the organizing effort that they did on the ground, they trained 30,000 people to be these observers, to follow the ice vehicles, to help a community.
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And and I mean it's a very people-driven defense, if you would, there.
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And and so I I don't want to underestimate uh the amount of people, the independent electoral commission, all these mediators going in the countryside, working, working, working to resolve conflict in in other ways.
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And if you have a philosophical basis of Ubuntu that at least gives you that understanding that um we're in this soup together, what does that mean?
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And and so I think it helps that people are raised with a notion like that also.
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But it's a very simple notion, like you said, it's it's a uh it's not something that is, I mean, it is something that is innately human.
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It's there's something we're tapping into when we do that.
00:26:28.079 --> 00:26:48.400
We're tapping into a a kind of remembrance of what it means to be a human being, and there's so much coming at us, and so many layers over that that try to tell us otherwise, and tries to tell us that we're your enemies, your it's us and them, and those kinds of things.
00:26:48.720 --> 00:27:01.759
And people on a deep level, when they they know it's different, whether you're at a World Cup game and you're shouting and and the guy next to you or the woman next to you is shouting and you're there.
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:10.559
I mean, your position on abortion is pretty irrelevant at that moment as you're hugging around the goal that was just scored.
00:27:10.880 --> 00:27:25.920
And so that to me is uh helps us remember that there's almost been a conscious effort to divide us over many years right now.
00:27:27.279 --> 00:27:34.480
It's um it's interesting the way that memory is um coming up again and again in these conversations that we're having.
00:27:35.039 --> 00:27:40.160
And that the importance that memory plays in identity and in keeping a moral compass.
00:27:41.039 --> 00:27:41.279
Yeah.
00:27:41.599 --> 00:28:01.519
You know, um we we we we had the honor of uh interviewing uh Zachariah Ben, who is a Navajo farmer, uh, who essentially you know grew up on the reservation and and uh through circumstances, they f he and his wife felt that that it was time to move off the reservation and get their own farm.
00:28:01.920 --> 00:28:14.240
And so they you know, they they they set up uh they they they identified a property, were able to purchase it, but it's in in what would be considered one of the most red territories in New Mexico.
00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:39.200
And you know, he said that you know they had apprehension about moving there, but uh in reality, you know, uh he he's one of one of his best uh you know neighbors, um, although they are completely you know diametrically opposed in terms of a lot of policy and and who they follow, you know, that um the common ground, so to speak, is is that they're both farmers.
00:28:39.440 --> 00:28:51.839
And so this this these these two people who really would not have a conversation like the the uh the the football uh analogy are actually you know liking each other and working together.
00:28:52.079 --> 00:29:04.880
And and I think m it's probably has to do a lot with Ben uh Zach's uh you know growing up in terms of you know the Navajo uh way of dealing with conflict and and those who you know oppose you.
00:29:05.039 --> 00:29:07.599
And it's it's it was it's it's very successful.
00:29:08.160 --> 00:29:13.440
Yeah, it it becomes uh uh magical in in many ways.
00:29:13.599 --> 00:29:24.640
And I've seen it in collaborative law sessions where the in the field of law there's something called collaborative law, and there's thousands of lawyers who've been trained in it across the country.
00:29:24.960 --> 00:29:35.039
That if in a primarily divorce case you each pick someone trained in collaborative law, they agree in contract with you not to go to court.
00:29:35.519 --> 00:29:47.119
So they can't like uh you know puff up and then bill and bill and bill and things that go on, but they they're their goal is to collaborate on a resolution for the whole.
00:29:47.519 --> 00:29:58.319
And you sit at a table and Stu Webb, who you uh you helped found this type of this area of the law, used to say that's where the magic happens at that table.
00:29:58.559 --> 00:30:00.880
And you know, it's the kitchen table notion.
00:30:00.960 --> 00:30:13.440
It's uh it's a way in which you you is your goal winning or is your goal collaboration that changes it, you know, make it better for win-win in some way.
00:30:13.599 --> 00:30:17.680
If you can interject those concepts, it does begin to make a difference.
00:30:18.160 --> 00:30:22.319
Which I think is a natural lead into discussing common ground 101.
00:30:22.720 --> 00:30:23.200
Yeah.
00:30:23.440 --> 00:30:25.519
Uh common ground 101.
00:30:25.680 --> 00:30:56.960
Um I you know, I'm continually at the point in my career, having been a lawyer for 45 years, I guess, uh that I am always looking for a way, and have been for a while, but even more and more lately, to uh take the little bit of things I've learned, the little wisdoms along the way, and how to um open more doors and hearts in some way.
00:30:57.279 --> 00:31:08.480
And so I started out with uh I there's a a JFK quote about there's more that unites us than divides us.
00:31:08.960 --> 00:31:24.480
And there's it and and I I I come I I believe that I I traveled, as I mentioned, to North Korea trying to build relations, to go to Washington, go to South Korea, tried to get people dialoguing and talking who weren't talking.
00:31:24.720 --> 00:31:41.279
And that to me was always like, but and by being there, I I learned uh, you know, I I found common ground with people in the most unique and complicated and often traumatized situation.
00:31:42.240 --> 00:31:52.640
And so it was a uh a learning experience there as well.
00:31:53.039 --> 00:31:58.559
And I felt that uh wow, we have so much more in common, and we forget that.
00:31:58.720 --> 00:32:14.559
We used to, it would be Bush calling the uh North Koreans the access of evil and Iraq and Iran, and North Korea sees what's happened in Iraq and Iran, and they're they're not um blind to that.
00:32:14.640 --> 00:32:22.240
So if you put yourself in shoes, I mean you have lots of learning experiences in that experience, in those experiences over a number of years.
00:32:22.480 --> 00:32:30.480
But uh I think that so what I did is I started working on 101 things that we all have in common.
00:32:30.640 --> 00:32:34.079
And I I worked until I had 101 things.
00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:38.720
And then I thought 101 is an introductory course, right?
00:32:38.799 --> 00:32:43.680
You know, we take a course called 101, it's generally the intro to something.
00:32:43.920 --> 00:32:48.240
And I said, this is kind of uh intro to remembering our common ground.
00:32:48.559 --> 00:32:49.279
Wait, I have a question.
00:32:49.440 --> 00:32:51.359
How long did it take you to get to 101?
00:32:51.680 --> 00:32:56.400
Oh, it's it's I mean, if I just put pen to paper, it probably wouldn't have taken so long.
00:32:56.480 --> 00:32:58.000
But how long did you work on it?
00:32:58.319 --> 00:33:00.319
I worked on it for probably six months.
00:33:01.920 --> 00:33:04.000
And uh, you know, off and on.
00:33:04.400 --> 00:33:07.039
But then I would add to the list and that kind of thing.
00:33:07.119 --> 00:33:11.039
And I was real bent on um Oh, I bet that was on um fulfilling.
00:33:11.599 --> 00:33:26.640
Well, when you do this, I mean it's it's earth-shattering, really, because it's a remember, it's like, yes, yes, we we want to drink clean water, we don't object in that way.
00:33:26.799 --> 00:33:29.839
If we're farmers, we want a good crop.
00:33:30.079 --> 00:33:51.039
If we're um uh individuals who are um, you know, if we're watching a sunset, you know, any certain experiential things we have in common that that is beautiful, or the sound of uh a creek going by, or uh different things.
00:33:51.200 --> 00:34:00.160
I'd always very early on, I was moved by the analogy, because I grew up in Michigan and I was around lakes, and there's boats on lakes, right?
00:34:00.240 --> 00:34:09.039
And it's power boats go by or somebody goes by, and the person out on the boat waves, and you on the shore, you wave back.
00:34:09.679 --> 00:34:19.760
If you can viscerally feel that moment, all of a sudden you're like connecting for no reason really, but I see you, you see me.
00:34:20.159 --> 00:34:28.079
And and from the boat, that always stuck with me as okay, there's there's some kind of connection thing going on.
00:34:28.159 --> 00:34:32.000
And this is before learning about Ubuntu and those kind of things.
00:34:32.159 --> 00:34:42.480
And so what I've set up in Common Ground 101 through our Ubuntu Works project is I've set up uh a website.
00:34:42.639 --> 00:34:46.800
You can go to commonground101.org.
00:34:47.280 --> 00:34:55.760
And at common ground101.org, it asks you to put in ten things you realize we have in common with everybody.
00:34:56.079 --> 00:34:58.079
Just come up with 10 things.
00:34:58.159 --> 00:35:01.280
And um, I mean, let's popcorn some here.
00:35:01.440 --> 00:35:04.480
What do what do you think people have in common?
00:35:05.119 --> 00:35:07.039
Oh, we love our families and our children.
00:35:10.800 --> 00:35:17.039
We love beauty and lack of anxiety.
00:35:19.280 --> 00:35:23.920
I I I I don't mean to bring this all down, but I keep thinking about the children's book, Everyone Poops.
00:35:26.480 --> 00:35:29.280
That's what they used to train us in the hospital life.
00:35:30.480 --> 00:35:43.440
My my professor said when you get angst about the judge up there, just think of him, you know, sitting on the like bringing it down.
00:35:45.679 --> 00:35:46.159
It's true.
00:35:46.320 --> 00:35:46.719
It's true.
00:35:46.880 --> 00:35:52.079
I mean, you you go on with these things to where you, I mean, that good night sleep.
00:35:52.239 --> 00:35:55.440
Yeah, oh my god, who I hate a good night sleep.
00:35:55.599 --> 00:35:57.039
I want to be on my bone.
00:35:57.760 --> 00:35:58.400
Oh yeah.
00:35:58.880 --> 00:36:00.719
I hate anybody who likes good night's sleep.
00:36:01.360 --> 00:36:02.559
It's like and that kind of thing.
00:36:02.639 --> 00:36:10.639
But if I say to you, man, I slept really good last night, and the person next to me said, Oh, you're so lucky, or the person says, Me too.
00:36:10.800 --> 00:36:15.360
And then you're like, you know just what that person is talking about.
00:36:15.599 --> 00:36:19.840
And there are hundreds of these things, and I want to build up those.
00:36:20.079 --> 00:36:32.400
I want to get classrooms to fill out you can reduce bullying, I think it can have an impact on schools, is to see that person through the eyes of our common ground.
00:36:32.639 --> 00:36:32.719
Right.
00:36:33.039 --> 00:36:34.079
I'm I'm very curious.
00:36:34.239 --> 00:36:48.639
I'd love to pressure test the concept uh by visiting, revisiting something you said at the very beginning of this conversation, which was when you uh were just a baby lawyer and just going out into the world and you had been infused by your family with a sense of right.
00:36:50.320 --> 00:36:55.840
Two folks who have different senses of right, how do they find common ground with this?
00:36:56.480 --> 00:37:12.880
Well, generally, like i when I do a mediation uh and uh I do them not overly frequently because sometimes they if you're an active trial lawyer, they don't think you're impartial or something.
00:37:13.199 --> 00:37:20.000
But I actually, when I do mediation, I start out with not going to the issue.
00:37:20.400 --> 00:37:24.000
I start out with the common ground type approach.
00:37:24.159 --> 00:37:27.760
I say, well, let's talk about what you have in common first.
00:37:28.400 --> 00:37:31.599
Let's just talk a few things, let's see what we're about.
00:37:31.920 --> 00:37:33.360
Uh how do you feel about this?
00:37:33.519 --> 00:37:44.639
Or if I have to lead, or or I just say, write down things you think the other side, you know, the other, have in common with you.
00:37:45.679 --> 00:37:47.440
Well, that's a mind twist.
00:37:47.519 --> 00:37:48.320
You're not expecting.
00:37:48.480 --> 00:37:52.559
I'm going in there to settle this, I'm going in there to raise my grievance, I'm going in there.
00:37:52.960 --> 00:37:54.880
Okay, ratchet it down.
00:37:54.960 --> 00:37:58.480
It's like the archbishop's hand coming over and saying, hi.
00:37:59.039 --> 00:38:05.280
I'm going in and saying, okay, that's how you can relate as a human being to one another.
00:38:05.519 --> 00:38:08.000
And let's let's talk about that first.
00:38:08.320 --> 00:38:15.280
And it has a big impact on reaching a resolution because of that recognition.
00:38:15.440 --> 00:38:17.840
And I wish peace talks would do that more.
00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:20.079
I wish um that's what I tried to do.
00:38:20.159 --> 00:38:27.039
I go meet with the State Department or meet with congressional committees and or testify about uh North Korea.
00:38:27.199 --> 00:38:47.039
And I was always trying to um talk about dialogue and common ground and and take that approach with them because they even lacked language to deal with them as an equal or as uh uh on common ground.
00:38:47.119 --> 00:38:49.440
They there it was all demonization.
00:38:49.840 --> 00:39:02.159
I I even said it to Michael Moore once, the filmmaker, and I said, Michael, you know, um I was just in North Korea and this, and it's not everything we're told, it's not so black and white.
00:39:02.239 --> 00:39:29.280
And and all he could do is make a joke about uh, oh, you mean that that drug-running president who um who uh is into porn or something, and he's just pulling the talking lines and he did that, and he missed an opportunity to, with good-sized crowd we were in, to make a point that is different from that and different from the usual.
00:39:29.599 --> 00:39:32.639
But I found that people don't have the languaging of it.
00:39:32.800 --> 00:39:51.440
I mean, as a I say it as a guy, I mean, I had to go through um feelings training, um, I would call it, which is um we we had a group called the International Alliance of Holistic Lawyers, and we would get meet with people from all over the world and who had a more holistic view of law.
00:39:51.599 --> 00:40:01.280
And one session that had such an impact on me was a session on feelings, because I I grew up thinking good and bad were feelings.
00:40:01.679 --> 00:40:03.840
And, you know, how are you today?
00:40:03.920 --> 00:40:04.800
Oh, good, how are you?
00:40:04.880 --> 00:40:06.079
How are you feeling today?
00:40:06.400 --> 00:40:10.480
Good, okay, you know, and I thought these were feelings.
00:40:10.639 --> 00:40:29.280
And in reality, we went over the list of feelings, which is joyful, sad, happy, otherwise, and I don't mean to just diss on the guys, but it's the women I have found have been a little more emotionally developed that way to understand those are feelings.
00:40:29.519 --> 00:40:33.920
And and really, I've I I had to learn that.
00:40:34.159 --> 00:40:45.199
But then integrating that into my work and my practice with a client, we could go so much deeper when I could say, that must that must be make you really scared.
00:40:45.440 --> 00:40:48.639
That must that must have made you really angry.
00:40:48.960 --> 00:40:54.000
That must, you know, instead of um, oh, that felt bad, didn't it?
00:40:54.719 --> 00:41:00.159
It's almost like you're you're you're you're building a um process for empathy.
00:41:00.719 --> 00:41:13.760
You know, that that I mean, if if you can't empathize with somebody's life story, you know, life life situation, then you really aren't going to move any further because you're just gonna be stuck in that image of who they are.
00:41:13.920 --> 00:41:24.320
But once you once you get to that empathetic level, I think I think that's where it it starts to really open up so that people can you know see the other person's point of view.
00:41:24.800 --> 00:41:27.760
Yes, I think empathy plays a huge role in that.
00:41:27.840 --> 00:41:37.199
I think we're naturally empathetic in on the micro level, and when we hit our politics and otherwise, we we we often shed a lot of that.
00:41:37.519 --> 00:41:37.679
Sure.
00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:42.239
Um Jeremy Rifkin wrote the book Empathic Civilization.
00:41:42.639 --> 00:41:56.880
Uh and he's um uh Rifkin's books are always like predicting the future of what could come, and otherwise, but he doesn't The End of Work was a great book that had a big impact on me by him.
00:41:56.960 --> 00:42:01.679
But we obviously haven't ended work, but uh as I know it.
00:42:01.840 --> 00:42:22.639
But it's uh The Empathic Civilization, uh which uh there's a great, it's a huge, thick book, but there's a great one of those comic strips that like animated whiteboards that tells the whole book in like five minutes on on the um of Rifkin's theories.
00:42:22.719 --> 00:42:23.440
It's on the internet.
00:42:23.679 --> 00:42:27.039
You could check it out because it's mind-blowing.
00:42:27.119 --> 00:42:28.639
And I would use those with lawyers.
00:42:28.719 --> 00:42:33.920
I would go do training sessions on on surviving and thriving in the legal profession.
00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:35.760
I go around to law schools and such.
00:42:35.920 --> 00:42:44.719
And that was always a uh I would show that because these are the tools in our toolbox as lawyers.
00:42:44.880 --> 00:42:52.239
We have not had around the feelings, around empathy, around uh other types of things.
00:42:52.559 --> 00:43:04.239
And yet um as human beings, unfortunately, here we've we've maxed over a lot of what it means to be human.
00:43:04.880 --> 00:43:05.599
That's great.
00:43:05.840 --> 00:43:08.559
We'll be uh you have another question?
00:43:08.800 --> 00:43:10.559
Okay, we'll be right back.
00:43:13.280 --> 00:43:15.599
Want to learn more about today's guest?
00:43:15.840 --> 00:43:25.119
Visit doinggood.fm to explore this episode, listen to more stories, or tell us about someone you know who's doing good.
00:43:25.440 --> 00:43:28.320
That's doinggood.fm.
00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:32.719
So uh we're back.
00:43:32.800 --> 00:43:38.320
And um uh one question I wanted to do is in terms of the Common Ground 101.
00:43:38.480 --> 00:43:46.880
I mean, how what what's your pitch for people going on and and and and giving their 10 bests and or you know, 10 things that are common?
00:43:47.039 --> 00:43:52.800
Aaron Ross Powell I think my pitch is that you will suddenly feel hopeful about the world.
00:43:53.360 --> 00:44:01.840
And when you do this very simple exercise, a lot of us feel hopeless sometimes about the Visive world that we're in.
00:44:02.159 --> 00:44:14.639
And doing that says, aha, uh, it begins a light bulb going off, and you might read other people's their uh entries there, and you you might begin to say, oh, that's right, that's right.
00:44:14.719 --> 00:44:16.800
And so what can we do with this?
00:44:17.039 --> 00:44:27.119
And then we're um uh of course you can donate or help get it out there because what we're trying to do is get it into, as I mentioned, schools.
00:44:27.280 --> 00:44:31.840
What I want to do um is billboards all around.
00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:34.079
It's because to me it's about remembrance.
00:44:34.239 --> 00:44:46.000
It strikes in it the people I've talked about where I have very diverse political views with, get it when we say, when I say, well, do we have this in common, this, this, this, this, this.
00:44:46.159 --> 00:44:48.719
And then it's harder to demonize.
00:44:48.880 --> 00:45:06.159
It's harder to uh, like it was said in the Iraq War, I remember, and probably in wars for eternity, it said, if you um if if we bombed with food, that's what a lot of us were saying when the Afghan reaction to September 11th happened.
00:45:06.239 --> 00:45:27.039
And let's say you start dropping bushels and bushels of food uh down on and on and on, and all of a sudden, on the ground, they want to rally their neighbor against the evil American whatever who's just fed his whole their whole family.
00:45:27.679 --> 00:45:32.559
Uh it's it's like you you have a different take on things.
00:45:32.719 --> 00:45:47.280
So how you react to something, do you react out of violence, do you react out of uh retribution, or do you do you react out of empathy, compassion, and demonstrate your best as a human being?
00:45:47.760 --> 00:45:56.320
Which which the outcome is a reciprocal uh feeling towards the person who should have been uh aggrieved.
00:45:56.880 --> 00:46:04.559
Yeah, and it isolates the other person who is trying to use divisiveness in a way that hurts people.
00:46:04.719 --> 00:46:12.639
Um I'm in the middle of editing a film that I did 20 years ago that I produced called Committing Poetry in Times of War.
00:46:12.960 --> 00:46:17.840
And it it's amazing because it's about critical thinking within schools.
00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:40.639
It was I was representing uh uh Bill Nevins who got fired because his kids were speaking out with slam poetry against the war in Iraq, and he got fired from Rio Rancho schools, and we'd organized the community, and we had all this great slam poetry footage, and so we did this film, and now we're doing a more manageable cut of the film and re-releasing it.
00:46:40.800 --> 00:46:43.920
But in doing that, I'm like, oh my God, the same issues.
00:46:44.079 --> 00:46:45.280
We're dealing with the same thing.
00:46:45.360 --> 00:47:01.519
But looking back at the Bush administration and Cheney and the war then and the falsehoods, and the and in the film, George Bush is before Congress saying, either you're with us or you're with the terrorists.
00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:12.400
And and then um, and then it says people, this press secretary uh is saying, people better watch what they say, watch what they do.
00:47:12.639 --> 00:47:23.360
And you look at the roots of divisiveness that have arisen from the 80s, 90s, and that period, you can see it's not all Trump.
00:47:23.519 --> 00:47:28.800
You can't go into a scenario and say, oh, it's a person in here.
00:47:29.199 --> 00:47:38.719
I think he is a byproduct of something that's been building for some time, dividing us, dividing us, dividing us.
00:47:38.960 --> 00:47:45.280
And I think the only antidote to division is finding common ground.
00:47:45.760 --> 00:47:59.280
It's it's I I get very curious about this because I think it it it may be a hard pitch to some Americans to give up one more thing, which is retribution, give up the receipts.
00:47:59.679 --> 00:48:13.360
You know, the uh I think there are many people right now who are counting down the days until there is a different administration or a different source of you know policy making, and then we can start going after, right?
00:48:13.679 --> 00:48:18.800
And and the idea that empathy can be more rewarding than that retribution?
00:48:19.679 --> 00:48:28.159
Yeah, I and I I had discussions just last night at this party about that, where that's exactly what someone said to me.
00:48:28.400 --> 00:48:36.800
How do you feel about should Trump be prosecuted for his crimes, or will that help heal the nation, or is that going to cause more division?
00:48:37.199 --> 00:48:45.679
And I think that uh I liked what the South Africans did around accountability and truth and maybe making amends.
00:48:46.079 --> 00:48:58.800
Yeah, and maybe it is less about prison uh and and punishment in that sense, but it's about responsibility and accountability, and what does that entail?
00:48:59.039 --> 00:49:01.360
And and so it has to go hand in hand.
00:49:01.519 --> 00:49:07.760
We don't just forget forgive and turn the cheek and look away.
00:49:08.159 --> 00:49:17.840
The issue is um forgive and be right there, be present, be naming, be dialoguing.
00:49:18.079 --> 00:49:22.400
But we've lost the ability to dialogue in a lot of ways.
00:49:22.639 --> 00:49:31.039
We've lost it becomes shouting, it becomes name-calling, it becomes uh uh, you know, that they're the fascists.
00:49:31.360 --> 00:49:39.199
We have to stop the fascists, and therefore um and the alarm bells go off.
00:49:39.440 --> 00:49:42.239
And I'm not sure that leads to dialogue.
00:49:42.400 --> 00:49:52.719
I tell um I I used to tell people um that uh, you know, I and I'm guilty of this too.
00:49:52.800 --> 00:49:57.119
I mean, I write employers' letters and say, you know, this is how it looks to me.
00:49:57.199 --> 00:50:00.880
You've been discriminatory, you've been retaliatory, you've done whatever.
00:50:01.039 --> 00:50:04.320
And I still uh, you know, I'm still in a learning curve.
00:50:04.559 --> 00:50:14.400
But the when I was in my best space about all this, I would I would say, okay, um, do I write a letter to starting off with?
00:50:14.960 --> 00:50:17.039
So it's how you start sometimes.
00:50:17.360 --> 00:50:18.559
Dear bigot.
00:50:18.880 --> 00:50:20.559
Do you want to talk?
00:50:21.599 --> 00:50:26.320
Uh it does not lead to as much at me.
00:50:26.559 --> 00:50:36.079
You know, and if you know, you're you're, you know, dear fascists, do you want to amend your ways and stop uh uh torturing people?
00:50:36.480 --> 00:50:54.239
Um but if you start with common ground, if you start with um I know that you have a conflict, that's obvious why I'm writing you and you fired this person or whatever it might be, and um certain things you understood and may not have understood, not known.
00:50:54.400 --> 00:50:58.559
I have some information that might help your perspective.
00:50:58.800 --> 00:51:03.119
You probably have some information that will help mine, so I'm not all right.
00:51:03.679 --> 00:51:13.199
And so learning how to dialogue in a way that invites listening uh changes the way we deal with conflict.
00:51:13.840 --> 00:51:22.639
I'm reminded of that um classic iconic photo of Tiananmen Square with the that one protester with a flower in front of a tank.
00:51:23.360 --> 00:51:25.760
You know, I mean that was his intent.
00:51:25.920 --> 00:51:29.840
You know, it wasn't, you know, you you need you need a reciprocal response.
00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:43.440
Um but you know that that is that is always to me like how do you how do you face force, you know, and how do you um express your opinion like you know with dropping food on uh you know instead of bombs?
00:51:44.079 --> 00:51:44.400
Yeah.
00:51:44.559 --> 00:51:50.800
Uh how you stand up to these issues without being consumed by them.
00:51:51.760 --> 00:51:52.400
That's important.
00:51:53.840 --> 00:51:54.880
Because you get burnt out.
00:51:54.960 --> 00:51:56.559
People, activists get burnt out.
00:51:56.639 --> 00:52:03.280
We know how it is, you know, you're doing the good work, you're doing nonprofit work like Anna does or other people do.
00:52:03.440 --> 00:52:23.119
You're you're you you know, you do it and you work, and you're and at a certain point there uh it feels like a tsunami almost the problems sometimes that are coming at you, and and how to not be consumed by that is is a real training, I think.
00:52:23.360 --> 00:52:33.360
And I think that you how you maintain, you know, I'm not a Buddhist, but you know, your your mindfulness, your space, your, you know, yeah.
00:52:33.519 --> 00:52:41.440
I I love I love the idea that somehow thinking of ten things is a form of self-therapy or form of solace in the face of that tsunami.
00:52:41.760 --> 00:52:46.400
Yeah, I mean, uh anybody listening when you get off, at least write yours down.
00:52:46.480 --> 00:52:53.360
You don't have to put them online, but putting them online helps us and it helps you because you'll interface with other people.
00:52:53.519 --> 00:52:55.119
But do it in your kitchen.
00:52:55.280 --> 00:53:00.639
Do it uh um yeah when you're on the toilet, we were saying.
00:53:00.800 --> 00:53:03.679
So since we've brought up the uh the pooping analogy.
00:53:04.079 --> 00:53:04.800
Everybody poops.
00:53:05.039 --> 00:53:05.119
Yeah.
00:53:05.280 --> 00:53:14.320
What what's the uh URL for uh uh it's commonground101.org, and you can get to the Ubuntu Works site from there.
00:53:14.639 --> 00:53:19.599
Uh that's the nonprofit that's but Eric, I'm dying to ask.
00:53:19.760 --> 00:53:22.239
What give us a few of your 10?
00:53:22.400 --> 00:53:26.960
And I'm sure you've you've seen so many responses come in on the website.
00:53:27.199 --> 00:53:30.400
Are there a couple that you see over and over again?
00:53:31.119 --> 00:53:37.679
Yeah, I I think a couple that I see over again are uh wanting good health.
00:53:39.280 --> 00:53:55.039
You know, we may disagree on how we get there and what insurance and what whatever, but wanting to be healthy, wanting our um our children to um not only survive but thrive.
00:53:55.840 --> 00:54:31.599
Uh I think wanting um uh to have um peaceful moments, it's wanting just a moment with um less anxiety, wanting to be um uh cared for, it's wanting to um to uh breathe clean air, it's wanting to um to be where to be heard, to be listened to.
00:54:33.119 --> 00:54:38.159
When you pick something, you're picking something that it's kind of hard to argue against.
00:54:38.719 --> 00:54:46.000
And and then you probably know you're keying into something that's uh highly human.
00:54:47.280 --> 00:54:51.599
Well, Eric, I can't believe the uh we've almost run out of our time.
00:54:51.840 --> 00:54:54.159
But this has been a fascinating discussion.
00:54:54.320 --> 00:54:57.119
I I really appreciate you for coming on to the show.
00:54:57.360 --> 00:55:08.800
And I think that uh I know I'm gonna uh I think I've done it already, but I'm gonna go revisit uh Common Ground 101 and see if my original answers were uh sustainable to me.
00:55:09.360 --> 00:55:13.920
Michael has 10 on there, so uh you can uh you can look up his.
00:55:14.079 --> 00:55:16.719
So you can look up other people's if you need a jump start.
00:55:17.119 --> 00:55:17.920
Uh oh, okay.
00:55:18.400 --> 00:55:23.280
So it's uh when you're stumbling on number seven, just peek at the website and you're fine.
00:55:23.599 --> 00:55:25.039
Or just get AI to do it for you.
00:55:25.280 --> 00:55:25.679
You know.
00:55:27.440 --> 00:55:31.840
Oh wait, the the AI show is later in the pick.
00:55:33.760 --> 00:55:38.880
Um is is Eric, is there anything that we haven't brought up that you were hoping to share today?
00:55:41.920 --> 00:56:05.280
I think that finding the in along with your theme of doing good and people doing good and and and all of that, it's uh I I feel that we try there's something innately, and maybe that's one of the ten common grounds, is is doing good, whatever that means.
00:56:05.840 --> 00:56:42.320
And I think that if you could find the small things um just quickly as uh a congressman once said to me that uh if you um do an act of courage every day, even a small act of courage, that you build up that muscle and that when something big and important comes on and requires you to be courageous, you you you've created that groove by doing the smaller things.
00:56:42.639 --> 00:56:47.519
So I would say don't be consumed by I have to change the world tomorrow.
00:56:47.920 --> 00:56:55.199
Be you remember the starfish story or the woman, the story um of the village in South Africa.
00:56:55.360 --> 00:57:07.840
Those kind of things always remind me that small acts of courage uh cumulatively can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression, if you would.
00:57:08.079 --> 00:57:09.599
So that's a beautiful thought.
00:57:10.480 --> 00:57:11.679
Well, thank you, Eric.
00:57:13.119 --> 00:57:13.599
Thank you.
00:57:13.760 --> 00:57:15.039
Thank you for having me on.
00:57:15.679 --> 00:57:19.920
It was it was an honor to sit with you for this last bit of time.
00:57:20.079 --> 00:57:20.320
Thank you.
00:57:20.800 --> 00:57:31.280
Yeah, it's a it's special for me to uh I I always go deeper just being able to hear your questions and to hear your thoughts about all this.
00:57:31.440 --> 00:57:32.159
So thank you all.
00:57:32.480 --> 00:57:32.880
Thank you.
00:57:33.039 --> 00:57:33.360
Thank you.
00:57:33.599 --> 00:57:34.000
Thank you.
00:57:34.239 --> 00:57:34.880
All right.
00:57:39.679 --> 00:57:49.519
Interested in learning more or to join in the conversation or to share a story about someone you know who is doing good, visit us online at doinggood.fm.
00:57:49.679 --> 00:57:51.920
That's doinggood.fm.
00:57:53.039 --> 00:58:06.159
This episode of Doing Good is a production of Docky Films, a three time Emmy Award winning production company based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, dedicated to the power of documentary film as a force for change.
00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:12.080
Welcome to Doing Good, a podcast about the people, organizations, and companies creating positive change.
00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:29.519
Co-hosted by Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Campbell, Anna Ferrier with over 20 years in the nonprofit world of northern New Mexico, and myself, Gabriella Marks, photographer and visual storyteller with a focus on people doing good things.
00:00:30.239 --> 00:00:38.719
Today's guest is Eric Sarotkin, a civil rights attorney, mediator, educator, and founder of the Mbutu Works Project.
00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:54.399
His experiences in South Africa, including work connected to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and an encounter with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, introduced him to Mbutu, the recognition that our humanity exists through our relationships with others.
00:00:54.719 --> 00:01:02.960
Now, through Common Ground 101, Eric is asking people around the world to name ten things that human beings share.
00:01:03.200 --> 00:01:10.319
Today we'll explore whether recognizing what connects us can actually help us cross the division between us.
00:01:14.239 --> 00:01:16.239
All right, well, welcome to Doing Good.
00:01:16.400 --> 00:01:18.719
Today's guest, Eric Sirotkin.
00:01:18.959 --> 00:01:19.200
Welcome.
00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:20.079
Thank you.
00:01:20.959 --> 00:01:25.200
I'll just begin with the fact that you're a lawyer here in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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And lawyers are actually not considered.
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They're those who generate conflict more often than they resolve it, as a part of the work.
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So we're we're curious how did your work as a lawyer and your experiences in life bring you to conflict resolution?
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I came out of law school with the same training most lawyers go through, which is win at any cost your case.
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It has ethical parameters, but in reality, it's your doing good was not what the training was.
00:02:04.719 --> 00:02:12.240
The training was how to do best for one side versus the other side.
00:02:12.479 --> 00:02:26.400
And I I came from a progressive background, and I think I came out with a kind of rah-rah, revolutionary law kind of approach to changing the world.
00:02:26.719 --> 00:02:37.199
And uh there were those people over there who were wrong, and there were certain principles that were just right.
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And it was uh uh in the 80s, it was a time of uh Ronald Reagan's uh rise to influence in our politics, and it was a beginning of really separation emerging more and more uh through the moral majority and the things that were happening in the 80s.
00:03:02.719 --> 00:03:21.439
And I just jumped in and took on corporations and uh individuals who were abusing other people, and but took it with a kind of let's go, let's win uh you know, power for the people idea.
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And then I remember distinctly in the 80s the wars that were going on in Central America, and we would have demonstrations and we would be very active in that vein.
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And I remember the uh courageous people I met as we began to defend sanctuary workers, people who stood up against the policies of our mercenary wars in Central America.
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And those people uh were given shelter within churches, synagogues, with uh other places where people took in people, and people were charged with aiding and abetting uh at that time uh these people who were seeking refuge here from the wars we were perpetrating.
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And I remember the eyes of the children.
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I remember the power of uh a particular uh nun I represented who who took courageous stance, who put their liberty on the line.
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And I began to see that they did it with such heart and consciousness that that was very moving to me.
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It was a good reminder for me that it isn't about rights and right and wrong, but it was really about making um a difference in the lives of these people just by keeping them safe.
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And and I was like pretty blown away by that.
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And it had a big impact uh on me at that time, and then that led to some international work around uh in the early 90s, a group of us got asked to go to South Africa to work on the constitution uh that was emerging, it was 1991, and Mandela had been out of prison about six months, and there was a lot of uncertainty what would happen, that would there be a bloodbath, and how to avoid that.
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And the constitutional focus in South Africa, which remains one of the most unique constitutions in the world, was so based on uh uplifting people, and it was a contemporary uh constitution, and we worked on that, and the people we met, and the all of those kinds of experiences led me to do work in South Africa to be an election observer when Mandela was elected in small villages, to go with mediators into the countryside who were working not just on having a free and fair election, but diffusing conflict so that an atmosphere for a free and fair election could take place.
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And we'd go to a village and and uh two sides that had been fighting between the village and the township, and and the mediator would explore and listen to their needs and what went on there.
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And by the end of the session, they all stood up and sang a prayer song together.
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And then uh, as we know, historically in South Africa, when the elections were held for those over three days of elections, there was not uh an act of violence reported in the country for the first time in so long, and it's that people found some common ground.
00:07:06.319 --> 00:07:08.639
So those experiences really helped me.
00:07:08.720 --> 00:07:08.879
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
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What was what was the magic behind that?
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That I mean it was the force of Mandela, I think.
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But uh how how did that on a countrywide basis, how can you basically diffuse what would have been people would have thought, well, you know, out goes the you know the the white regime, and then all of a sudden these people who are being suppressed.
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I mean, how does how do you scale that, you know, that that sort of attitude?
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Yeah, I I I I really think it's a it's a notion of common ground.
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In South Africa, I would learn it later, and we can talk about I did some work with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the TRC in South Africa, and and there's a concept in South Africa called Ubuntu.
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And Ubuntu is I it's there's no definition in Western terms, uh, Archbishop Tutu used to say to me.
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And he when I tried to get him to pin, what is this Ubuntu?
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Because the statute said there shall be Ubuntu rather than victimization.
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And I said, Well, what does that mean?
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You know, that's in the law, that's in the interim constitution at the time.
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And I said, What what is this term Ubuntu?
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And a little smile came over his face, and we were at a breakfast uh little table in the back of the restaurant there where the first commission hearings were happening, and he said there he said there's no definition of Western terms, he said, but he said, I am human through my relationship with other humans.
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What I do to you, I'm doing to myself.
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He said, the solitary individual is a contradiction in terms that we are corporate.
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And he said that um and he said that's why people could come before this commission after suffering such horrendous tragedies and circumstance and say, I forgive.
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And so it all of these experiences, and I between those years in the early 90s, I'm an active trial lawyer, but I was just, you know, this was a side sort of gig.
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It's not paid, you just kind of you get paid in ways that that's what doing good does, I think.
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You get paid in ways that are beyond the the money in that.
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And and in South Africa, it was uh uh a flood of those things to me.
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And I think that um it was not about forgetting.
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It was we the the expression was we we forgive, but we don't forget.
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And so all of these kind of principles, here I am an active trial lawyer and doing all these things, and then how do I how do I integrate these things into my practice, into my state of being, my mind, and how do I uh how do you like you say, Michael, how do you institutionalize this in one way or another?
00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:40.720
And because they philosophy in in South Africa have had this philosophy of Ubuntu, and they're not a country devoid of violence and other conflict, but but there is a a deep understanding uh from that angle, what I call an angle of vision, that we are more connected.
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There's more that connects us than divides us.
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Is is Ubuntu uniquely um low, you know, is it is it unique to uh South Africa, or have you experienced it in other other other nations?
00:10:56.159 --> 00:11:04.879
Aaron Powell It's it's not only not unique to South Africa, it's actually all over the world, but generally in non-dominant cultures.
00:11:05.200 --> 00:11:18.159
Uh it's been the Navajos here in New have uh a term called K, K-E, and it uh it essentially uh is the same as Ubuntu.
00:11:18.480 --> 00:11:22.559
Uh met Navos who've gone to South Africa and talked about that.
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Um the Navajo Peacemaker Court model here uh has elements of that.
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Um the uh the the Buddhists, the the certain aboriginal groups in Australia.
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Uh the there are these terms uh in uh Native Hawaiians and generally in indigenous communities, but it they all have this concept that we haven't had in the Western world so much because we've been taught to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, and we've been taught that uh you know, us and them a little more.
00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:11.039
There's the good and evil of that.
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And uh maybe later we can talk about I've been to s North Korea four times, and I've met people with that I was taught were good or evil, and and um and I think we have a long way to go to break down the separation where we try to put people in boxes, and so I look forward to in my life continuing to expand that, and that's leading up to Common Ground 101 and some of the work of Ubuntu works, uh, what we do or uh work on.
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How do you um apply that in your your your current practice um you know into into conflict resolution and mediation?
00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:07.120
Well, people uh I'm I do uh I'm a civil rights lawyer, human rights lawyer.
00:13:07.200 --> 00:13:14.000
I people come to me generally, uh mostly employment cases over the years, because that's what I've focused on.
00:13:14.240 --> 00:13:24.720
Whistleblowers, discrimination cases, retaliation type cases, and and those kind of cases, um people come with a lot of pain.
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They come in having, they come in afraid, they come in scared.
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And I think for me, uh learning to listen to truths to the person there, but also bringing my client around.
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I I I don't for in any way try to uh and I tell the client this, I don't try to shoot anybody.
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I don't because they come and I want to kill them, I want to do this, and you know, it's that Ellis, Ellis' restaurant, if you know that old uh musical thing, you know, he you know, he comes into the therapist and to try to get out of the war, and soon the therapist is saying, jumping up and down, yelling kill, kill, and he's jumping up and then he says, You're our boy.
00:14:11.919 --> 00:14:21.200
And it's uh lawyers aren't there to be cheerleaders, they're not there to be increasing the divisiveness.
00:14:21.519 --> 00:14:25.519
Law um is a healing art and can be.
00:14:25.919 --> 00:14:33.759
And so in that vein, how it impacts my work is that uh I'll talk to that client.
00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:38.240
Uh, how do you see the w in the shoes of the other person who's harmed you?
00:14:38.720 --> 00:14:39.840
And that's a big thing.
00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:41.919
How do you walk in their shoes?
00:14:42.080 --> 00:14:45.600
How do you the expressions walk in their moccasins and other things?
00:14:46.159 --> 00:15:06.960
Well, that I I wanted to ask if there is a uh a standout moment that comes back to you most often, a moment of forgiveness that you saw in one of these situations where you were helping to mediate that that really stands out for you as as sort of that iconic moment that you remember when you think about the work that you do.
00:15:08.799 --> 00:15:09.360
Yeah.
00:15:12.559 --> 00:15:28.080
There there are so many in in a lot of ways, but uh certainly in uh in South Africa, the these hearings that um went on around the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:36.320
I got involved because of our connections that we're building in South Africa, and they wanted an international monitoring project of the TRC.
00:15:36.480 --> 00:15:44.720
Because there were people there concerned that they're giving away this, you know, these people need accountability too, because there was an amnesty side of it.
00:15:44.879 --> 00:15:54.080
In South Africa was interesting because the amnesty side of that, where you got off, is that you had to tell everything you did in order to get amnesty.
00:15:54.159 --> 00:15:54.320
Wow.
00:15:54.480 --> 00:16:00.080
It was not blanket amnesty, so it was a truth telling from your side also.
00:16:00.559 --> 00:16:04.399
And so just that whole process was was super meaningful.
00:16:04.480 --> 00:16:06.799
I think certain things stand out.
00:16:06.960 --> 00:16:34.720
I mean a hearing where um there was horrific torture going on that was being described, and and this was the the beginning of the hearings, they're televised all over the world, and and the archbishop just stopped at one point and started weeping, and he put his head down on the table and just wept, and the whole hall went silent.
00:16:35.360 --> 00:16:38.879
And and that moment was super powerful to me.
00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:48.559
And I talked to him after, and I I you know and I asked him you know about that a little bit, or actually he brought it up.
00:16:48.639 --> 00:16:54.240
He said, he said, oh, he said, Eric, I shouldn't have lost my composure, you know, something like that.
00:16:54.799 --> 00:17:02.799
And I was like, oh no, please, you you did just what he did there, and he wept for everyone.
00:17:03.120 --> 00:17:16.720
He wept for everyone, and he um uh he demonstrated that you don't have to close your heart to deal with difficult things.
00:17:17.039 --> 00:17:31.680
And as a lawyer, we're taught something called detached objectivity, that you're supposed to be detached and not, you know, don't get involved, don't get emotional, don't, you know, in other words, don't be human.
00:17:32.079 --> 00:17:36.720
And uh that does not help the legal profession or the process really.
00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:43.839
Uh you have to know that you can be vulnerable and and be able to demonstrate that.
00:17:44.079 --> 00:17:45.920
So so I'm a big weeper.
00:17:46.079 --> 00:17:50.240
So my eyes got a little moist hearing that story.
00:17:50.720 --> 00:17:52.000
Yeah, it's uh beautiful.
00:17:52.400 --> 00:17:57.759
Yeah, there and and there were you know more things, you know, like that.
00:17:57.920 --> 00:18:06.400
Um, you know, when when I met him and talked about Ubuntu and such, and he said, and I sat down and I was recording a thing.
00:18:06.480 --> 00:18:13.440
I because I had said it to him, I said, I want to get a recording to encourage people to come over and be monitors and that kind of thing.
00:18:13.519 --> 00:18:15.519
And he said, sure, sure, meet me here.
00:18:15.599 --> 00:18:17.359
And we met in the back of the restaurant.
00:18:17.519 --> 00:18:22.240
And the first, this was the first hearings of the Truth Commission.
00:18:22.400 --> 00:18:22.960
Big thing.
00:18:23.119 --> 00:18:27.680
He's central focus, and he's taken time with me, which I thought was wonderful.
00:18:27.759 --> 00:18:29.839
But I didn't want to use up too much of his time.
00:18:29.920 --> 00:18:31.440
He's a busy guy at this point.
00:18:31.599 --> 00:18:39.839
So I sat down, I put on the tape recorder, and I said, Archbishop, um, I wanted to record a statement for people wanting to come over.
00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:41.519
And he said, Yes, yes, yes.
00:18:41.599 --> 00:18:43.039
And he put his hand over on mine.
00:18:43.279 --> 00:18:46.319
He said, Yes, but first, let's say hi.
00:18:48.160 --> 00:18:53.119
And I was like, uh I always remember that.
00:18:53.279 --> 00:18:59.039
It's um it's the lawyers go into a situation and they have their legal pad and okay, let's sit down.
00:18:59.200 --> 00:19:00.799
Okay, tell me what happened.
00:19:00.960 --> 00:19:02.000
And they went there.
00:19:02.079 --> 00:19:04.240
And and you miss the human exchange.
00:19:04.400 --> 00:19:05.599
You miss that moment.
00:19:05.920 --> 00:19:07.680
And and so I said hi.
00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:15.599
And then all of a sudden, when he was up here, hi, and I I was down here, all of a sudden we were on the same level.
00:19:16.079 --> 00:19:16.640
People to people.
00:19:16.960 --> 00:19:18.240
Just in that moment.
00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:21.200
And and that was so so.
00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:22.799
It was a gift to you.
00:19:23.039 --> 00:19:24.319
What a gift he gave you.
00:19:24.480 --> 00:19:24.640
Yeah.
00:19:24.799 --> 00:19:24.960
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
00:19:25.200 --> 00:19:28.000
It's a gift to me in in that kind of ways.
00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:32.319
Um, if I mean I mean uh what I just want to say one thing.
00:19:32.480 --> 00:19:38.240
I mean, the whole this whole process was uh an act of faith.
00:19:38.640 --> 00:19:55.119
Because, you know, if you had a specific constitution that laid out, you know, what what one part you know party A is responsible to party B, I mean, the there probably I mean, was was there an uncertainty whether or not this is going to work out?
00:19:55.839 --> 00:19:57.039
With the Truth Commission?
00:19:57.279 --> 00:19:57.440
Yeah.
00:19:57.839 --> 00:19:58.400
Oh, sure.
00:19:58.559 --> 00:19:58.799
Yeah.
00:19:59.039 --> 00:20:13.519
I mean, there were people who thought that uh you know, having people tell their stories, which were horrendous sometimes, and just speaking, they weren't being grilled, they weren't being questioned deeper, and that kind of thing.
00:20:13.680 --> 00:20:19.680
Uh, and there was a question of, you know, will this be successful kind of notion?
00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:45.200
And the best story around that is this hearing in um KwaZulu-Natal, and there was an individual testifying that he had ordered a shooting at a bus stop, and he had gone ahead and um and he said we were at war, we were trying to show the country wasn't governable, we were trying to overcome apartheid, and I ordered this.
00:20:45.359 --> 00:20:52.559
And there's a woman in the front row in a wheelchair who had been paralyzed by the shooting.
00:20:52.880 --> 00:21:03.759
He said, I could never go back to my community, I know that, and I don't expect people to forgive me, but this is what was about, what it was about.
00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:20.319
And a whole group of people got up and they left the hall and they were gone a couple hours, and then they came back um in while that testimony was still going further, and they came back in and they one of them stood up and said, I want to address the commission.
00:21:20.720 --> 00:21:23.759
And the commissioner said, Well, about what?
00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:37.440
And he said, I want to say that we're from his community, and we just met, and we wanted to say that we forgive him and he can come home.
00:21:37.759 --> 00:21:38.799
That's beautiful.
00:21:39.039 --> 00:21:49.759
At which point, um he broke down crying, the commissioners are crying, the the he embraces the woman in the wheelchair because he had said, I've known her my whole life.
00:21:49.920 --> 00:21:52.720
I didn't know she would be at the bus stop that day.
00:21:52.960 --> 00:21:56.319
And he so he had testified about that kind of pain.
00:21:56.640 --> 00:21:59.759
And um and so my lesson to the question.
00:22:00.640 --> 00:22:13.599
Is uh what I learned was uh it's like the starfish story, all the ones on the beach, and the someone says, How to this little boy, how can you do anything?
00:22:13.680 --> 00:22:20.960
There's like 10,000 of them, and the boy picks up a starfish, throws it in the water, and says, It matters to that one.
00:22:21.519 --> 00:22:25.279
And it's the same with that situation.
00:22:25.599 --> 00:22:27.039
How do you quantify it?
00:22:27.119 --> 00:22:28.160
Say this worked.
00:22:28.319 --> 00:22:32.799
Oh my God, it healed for that community, that moment in time.
00:22:33.279 --> 00:22:39.200
And so the TRC was filled with moments of healing that can make a difference.
00:22:39.359 --> 00:22:49.920
And we too often evaluate things in winning, losing, or quantitatively that this is uh a success or not.
00:22:50.240 --> 00:22:53.440
And in the end, it it it mattered to that one.
00:22:54.240 --> 00:23:13.200
It I mean, in in its abstract form, it makes sense, but in the practical application, I gotta imagine that by having two such powerful and moving personalities, Mandela and Tutu, that you know that was that that that had to have been the secret sauce, right?
00:23:13.839 --> 00:23:14.319
I don't know.
00:23:14.400 --> 00:23:22.240
I I would like my hope would be that what was allowed to happen was what we as humans deeply want to happen.
00:23:22.640 --> 00:23:25.599
And there was permission for that, you know.
00:23:25.920 --> 00:24:03.759
And um I I think what Eric's talking about that uh at a deep level, I think we're all looking for justice and and uh thinking about a uh interview we just did or a podcast we just did around Navajo culture and the balance and rather than a legal, like we have legal systems and those require certain outcomes, but uh when you're focused on justice and allowing people to be fully human, I I wonder uh I don't I don't know.
00:24:03.839 --> 00:24:06.079
I'm interested in what you think, Eric.
00:24:06.240 --> 00:24:11.680
Is it is I mean it got obviously you need leadership and you need to at the top.
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:14.400
I don't know if you need like a a leader though.
00:24:14.880 --> 00:24:15.359
I don't know.
00:24:15.519 --> 00:24:19.920
I mean did you did you feel like it was coming from the from the ground up, Eric?
00:24:20.079 --> 00:24:35.519
Or was it Oh absolutely the the creative people in the ANC and other groups in South Africa were so impressive and were meeting people all the time who have a vision for the world that's that's different now.
00:24:35.920 --> 00:24:55.519
It helped to have focused on Mandela and his release and his uh his element of forgiveness, yeah uh or I think Tutu provided a kind of moral framework for this to take place and had a certain stature.
00:24:55.680 --> 00:24:57.759
And I I think those things help.
00:24:57.839 --> 00:25:28.640
You can't underestimate that, but the the uh the amount of people working and organizing, I was recently in Minneapolis in February, and it was you know a complicated time to be in Minneapolis, but it was uh the the the organizing effort that they did on the ground, they trained 30,000 people to be these observers, to follow the ice vehicles, to help a community.
00:25:28.880 --> 00:25:34.960
And and I mean it's a very people-driven defense, if you would, there.
00:25:35.359 --> 00:25:52.640
And and so I I don't want to underestimate uh the amount of people, the independent electoral commission, all these mediators going in the countryside, working, working, working to resolve conflict in in other ways.
00:25:52.799 --> 00:26:05.359
And if you have a philosophical basis of Ubuntu that at least gives you that understanding that um we're in this soup together, what does that mean?
00:26:05.599 --> 00:26:11.920
And and so I think it helps that people are raised with a notion like that also.
00:26:12.160 --> 00:26:23.920
But it's a very simple notion, like you said, it's it's a uh it's not something that is, I mean, it is something that is innately human.
00:26:24.480 --> 00:26:27.839
It's there's something we're tapping into when we do that.
00:26:28.079 --> 00:26:48.400
We're tapping into a a kind of remembrance of what it means to be a human being, and there's so much coming at us, and so many layers over that that try to tell us otherwise, and tries to tell us that we're your enemies, your it's us and them, and those kinds of things.
00:26:48.720 --> 00:27:01.759
And people on a deep level, when they they know it's different, whether you're at a World Cup game and you're shouting and and the guy next to you or the woman next to you is shouting and you're there.
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:10.559
I mean, your position on abortion is pretty irrelevant at that moment as you're hugging around the goal that was just scored.
00:27:10.880 --> 00:27:25.920
And so that to me is uh helps us remember that there's almost been a conscious effort to divide us over many years right now.
00:27:27.279 --> 00:27:34.480
It's um it's interesting the way that memory is um coming up again and again in these conversations that we're having.
00:27:35.039 --> 00:27:40.160
And that the importance that memory plays in identity and in keeping a moral compass.
00:27:41.039 --> 00:27:41.279
Yeah.
00:27:41.599 --> 00:28:01.519
You know, um we we we we had the honor of uh interviewing uh Zachariah Ben, who is a Navajo farmer, uh, who essentially you know grew up on the reservation and and uh through circumstances, they f he and his wife felt that that it was time to move off the reservation and get their own farm.
00:28:01.920 --> 00:28:14.240
And so they you know, they they they set up uh they they they identified a property, were able to purchase it, but it's in in what would be considered one of the most red territories in New Mexico.
00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:39.200
And you know, he said that you know they had apprehension about moving there, but uh in reality, you know, uh he he's one of one of his best uh you know neighbors, um, although they are completely you know diametrically opposed in terms of a lot of policy and and who they follow, you know, that um the common ground, so to speak, is is that they're both farmers.
00:28:39.440 --> 00:28:51.839
And so this this these these two people who really would not have a conversation like the the uh the the football uh analogy are actually you know liking each other and working together.
00:28:52.079 --> 00:29:04.880
And and I think m it's probably has to do a lot with Ben uh Zach's uh you know growing up in terms of you know the Navajo uh way of dealing with conflict and and those who you know oppose you.
00:29:05.039 --> 00:29:07.599
And it's it's it was it's it's very successful.
00:29:08.160 --> 00:29:13.440
Yeah, it it becomes uh uh magical in in many ways.
00:29:13.599 --> 00:29:24.640
And I've seen it in collaborative law sessions where the in the field of law there's something called collaborative law, and there's thousands of lawyers who've been trained in it across the country.
00:29:24.960 --> 00:29:35.039
That if in a primarily divorce case you each pick someone trained in collaborative law, they agree in contract with you not to go to court.
00:29:35.519 --> 00:29:47.119
So they can't like uh you know puff up and then bill and bill and bill and things that go on, but they they're their goal is to collaborate on a resolution for the whole.
00:29:47.519 --> 00:29:58.319
And you sit at a table and Stu Webb, who you uh you helped found this type of this area of the law, used to say that's where the magic happens at that table.
00:29:58.559 --> 00:30:00.880
And you know, it's the kitchen table notion.
00:30:00.960 --> 00:30:13.440
It's uh it's a way in which you you is your goal winning or is your goal collaboration that changes it, you know, make it better for win-win in some way.
00:30:13.599 --> 00:30:17.680
If you can interject those concepts, it does begin to make a difference.
00:30:18.160 --> 00:30:22.319
Which I think is a natural lead into discussing common ground 101.
00:30:22.720 --> 00:30:23.200
Yeah.
00:30:23.440 --> 00:30:25.519
Uh common ground 101.
00:30:25.680 --> 00:30:56.960
Um I you know, I'm continually at the point in my career, having been a lawyer for 45 years, I guess, uh that I am always looking for a way, and have been for a while, but even more and more lately, to uh take the little bit of things I've learned, the little wisdoms along the way, and how to um open more doors and hearts in some way.
00:30:57.279 --> 00:31:08.480
And so I started out with uh I there's a a JFK quote about there's more that unites us than divides us.
00:31:08.960 --> 00:31:24.480
And there's it and and I I I come I I believe that I I traveled, as I mentioned, to North Korea trying to build relations, to go to Washington, go to South Korea, tried to get people dialoguing and talking who weren't talking.
00:31:24.720 --> 00:31:41.279
And that to me was always like, but and by being there, I I learned uh, you know, I I found common ground with people in the most unique and complicated and often traumatized situation.
00:31:42.240 --> 00:31:52.640
And so it was a uh a learning experience there as well.
00:31:53.039 --> 00:31:58.559
And I felt that uh wow, we have so much more in common, and we forget that.
00:31:58.720 --> 00:32:14.559
We used to, it would be Bush calling the uh North Koreans the access of evil and Iraq and Iran, and North Korea sees what's happened in Iraq and Iran, and they're they're not um blind to that.
00:32:14.640 --> 00:32:22.240
So if you put yourself in shoes, I mean you have lots of learning experiences in that experience, in those experiences over a number of years.
00:32:22.480 --> 00:32:30.480
But uh I think that so what I did is I started working on 101 things that we all have in common.
00:32:30.640 --> 00:32:34.079
And I I worked until I had 101 things.
00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:38.720
And then I thought 101 is an introductory course, right?
00:32:38.799 --> 00:32:43.680
You know, we take a course called 101, it's generally the intro to something.
00:32:43.920 --> 00:32:48.240
And I said, this is kind of uh intro to remembering our common ground.
00:32:48.559 --> 00:32:49.279
Wait, I have a question.
00:32:49.440 --> 00:32:51.359
How long did it take you to get to 101?
00:32:51.680 --> 00:32:56.400
Oh, it's it's I mean, if I just put pen to paper, it probably wouldn't have taken so long.
00:32:56.480 --> 00:32:58.000
But how long did you work on it?
00:32:58.319 --> 00:33:00.319
I worked on it for probably six months.
00:33:01.920 --> 00:33:04.000
And uh, you know, off and on.
00:33:04.400 --> 00:33:07.039
But then I would add to the list and that kind of thing.
00:33:07.119 --> 00:33:11.039
And I was real bent on um Oh, I bet that was on um fulfilling.
00:33:11.599 --> 00:33:26.640
Well, when you do this, I mean it's it's earth-shattering, really, because it's a remember, it's like, yes, yes, we we want to drink clean water, we don't object in that way.
00:33:26.799 --> 00:33:29.839
If we're farmers, we want a good crop.
00:33:30.079 --> 00:33:51.039
If we're um uh individuals who are um, you know, if we're watching a sunset, you know, any certain experiential things we have in common that that is beautiful, or the sound of uh a creek going by, or uh different things.
00:33:51.200 --> 00:34:00.160
I'd always very early on, I was moved by the analogy, because I grew up in Michigan and I was around lakes, and there's boats on lakes, right?
00:34:00.240 --> 00:34:09.039
And it's power boats go by or somebody goes by, and the person out on the boat waves, and you on the shore, you wave back.
00:34:09.679 --> 00:34:19.760
If you can viscerally feel that moment, all of a sudden you're like connecting for no reason really, but I see you, you see me.
00:34:20.159 --> 00:34:28.079
And and from the boat, that always stuck with me as okay, there's there's some kind of connection thing going on.
00:34:28.159 --> 00:34:32.000
And this is before learning about Ubuntu and those kind of things.
00:34:32.159 --> 00:34:42.480
And so what I've set up in Common Ground 101 through our Ubuntu Works project is I've set up uh a website.
00:34:42.639 --> 00:34:46.800
You can go to commonground101.org.
00:34:47.280 --> 00:34:55.760
And at common ground101.org, it asks you to put in ten things you realize we have in common with everybody.
00:34:56.079 --> 00:34:58.079
Just come up with 10 things.
00:34:58.159 --> 00:35:01.280
And um, I mean, let's popcorn some here.
00:35:01.440 --> 00:35:04.480
What do what do you think people have in common?
00:35:05.119 --> 00:35:07.039
Oh, we love our families and our children.
00:35:10.800 --> 00:35:17.039
We love beauty and lack of anxiety.
00:35:19.280 --> 00:35:23.920
I I I I don't mean to bring this all down, but I keep thinking about the children's book, Everyone Poops.
00:35:26.480 --> 00:35:29.280
That's what they used to train us in the hospital life.
00:35:30.480 --> 00:35:43.440
My my professor said when you get angst about the judge up there, just think of him, you know, sitting on the like bringing it down.
00:35:45.679 --> 00:35:46.159
It's true.
00:35:46.320 --> 00:35:46.719
It's true.
00:35:46.880 --> 00:35:52.079
I mean, you you go on with these things to where you, I mean, that good night sleep.
00:35:52.239 --> 00:35:55.440
Yeah, oh my god, who I hate a good night sleep.
00:35:55.599 --> 00:35:57.039
I want to be on my bone.
00:35:57.760 --> 00:35:58.400
Oh yeah.
00:35:58.880 --> 00:36:00.719
I hate anybody who likes good night's sleep.
00:36:01.360 --> 00:36:02.559
It's like and that kind of thing.
00:36:02.639 --> 00:36:10.639
But if I say to you, man, I slept really good last night, and the person next to me said, Oh, you're so lucky, or the person says, Me too.
00:36:10.800 --> 00:36:15.360
And then you're like, you know just what that person is talking about.
00:36:15.599 --> 00:36:19.840
And there are hundreds of these things, and I want to build up those.
00:36:20.079 --> 00:36:32.400
I want to get classrooms to fill out you can reduce bullying, I think it can have an impact on schools, is to see that person through the eyes of our common ground.
00:36:32.639 --> 00:36:32.719
Right.
00:36:33.039 --> 00:36:34.079
I'm I'm very curious.
00:36:34.239 --> 00:36:48.639
I'd love to pressure test the concept uh by visiting, revisiting something you said at the very beginning of this conversation, which was when you uh were just a baby lawyer and just going out into the world and you had been infused by your family with a sense of right.
00:36:50.320 --> 00:36:55.840
Two folks who have different senses of right, how do they find common ground with this?
00:36:56.480 --> 00:37:12.880
Well, generally, like i when I do a mediation uh and uh I do them not overly frequently because sometimes they if you're an active trial lawyer, they don't think you're impartial or something.
00:37:13.199 --> 00:37:20.000
But I actually, when I do mediation, I start out with not going to the issue.
00:37:20.400 --> 00:37:24.000
I start out with the common ground type approach.
00:37:24.159 --> 00:37:27.760
I say, well, let's talk about what you have in common first.
00:37:28.400 --> 00:37:31.599
Let's just talk a few things, let's see what we're about.
00:37:31.920 --> 00:37:33.360
Uh how do you feel about this?
00:37:33.519 --> 00:37:44.639
Or if I have to lead, or or I just say, write down things you think the other side, you know, the other, have in common with you.
00:37:45.679 --> 00:37:47.440
Well, that's a mind twist.
00:37:47.519 --> 00:37:48.320
You're not expecting.
00:37:48.480 --> 00:37:52.559
I'm going in there to settle this, I'm going in there to raise my grievance, I'm going in there.
00:37:52.960 --> 00:37:54.880
Okay, ratchet it down.
00:37:54.960 --> 00:37:58.480
It's like the archbishop's hand coming over and saying, hi.
00:37:59.039 --> 00:38:05.280
I'm going in and saying, okay, that's how you can relate as a human being to one another.
00:38:05.519 --> 00:38:08.000
And let's let's talk about that first.
00:38:08.320 --> 00:38:15.280
And it has a big impact on reaching a resolution because of that recognition.
00:38:15.440 --> 00:38:17.840
And I wish peace talks would do that more.
00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:20.079
I wish um that's what I tried to do.
00:38:20.159 --> 00:38:27.039
I go meet with the State Department or meet with congressional committees and or testify about uh North Korea.
00:38:27.199 --> 00:38:47.039
And I was always trying to um talk about dialogue and common ground and and take that approach with them because they even lacked language to deal with them as an equal or as uh uh on common ground.
00:38:47.119 --> 00:38:49.440
They there it was all demonization.
00:38:49.840 --> 00:39:02.159
I I even said it to Michael Moore once, the filmmaker, and I said, Michael, you know, um I was just in North Korea and this, and it's not everything we're told, it's not so black and white.
00:39:02.239 --> 00:39:29.280
And and all he could do is make a joke about uh, oh, you mean that that drug-running president who um who uh is into porn or something, and he's just pulling the talking lines and he did that, and he missed an opportunity to, with good-sized crowd we were in, to make a point that is different from that and different from the usual.
00:39:29.599 --> 00:39:32.639
But I found that people don't have the languaging of it.
00:39:32.800 --> 00:39:51.440
I mean, as a I say it as a guy, I mean, I had to go through um feelings training, um, I would call it, which is um we we had a group called the International Alliance of Holistic Lawyers, and we would get meet with people from all over the world and who had a more holistic view of law.
00:39:51.599 --> 00:40:01.280
And one session that had such an impact on me was a session on feelings, because I I grew up thinking good and bad were feelings.
00:40:01.679 --> 00:40:03.840
And, you know, how are you today?
00:40:03.920 --> 00:40:04.800
Oh, good, how are you?
00:40:04.880 --> 00:40:06.079
How are you feeling today?
00:40:06.400 --> 00:40:10.480
Good, okay, you know, and I thought these were feelings.
00:40:10.639 --> 00:40:29.280
And in reality, we went over the list of feelings, which is joyful, sad, happy, otherwise, and I don't mean to just diss on the guys, but it's the women I have found have been a little more emotionally developed that way to understand those are feelings.
00:40:29.519 --> 00:40:33.920
And and really, I've I I had to learn that.
00:40:34.159 --> 00:40:45.199
But then integrating that into my work and my practice with a client, we could go so much deeper when I could say, that must that must be make you really scared.
00:40:45.440 --> 00:40:48.639
That must that must have made you really angry.
00:40:48.960 --> 00:40:54.000
That must, you know, instead of um, oh, that felt bad, didn't it?
00:40:54.719 --> 00:41:00.159
It's almost like you're you're you're you're building a um process for empathy.
00:41:00.719 --> 00:41:13.760
You know, that that I mean, if if you can't empathize with somebody's life story, you know, life life situation, then you really aren't going to move any further because you're just gonna be stuck in that image of who they are.
00:41:13.920 --> 00:41:24.320
But once you once you get to that empathetic level, I think I think that's where it it starts to really open up so that people can you know see the other person's point of view.
00:41:24.800 --> 00:41:27.760
Yes, I think empathy plays a huge role in that.
00:41:27.840 --> 00:41:37.199
I think we're naturally empathetic in on the micro level, and when we hit our politics and otherwise, we we we often shed a lot of that.
00:41:37.519 --> 00:41:37.679
Sure.
00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:42.239
Um Jeremy Rifkin wrote the book Empathic Civilization.
00:41:42.639 --> 00:41:56.880
Uh and he's um uh Rifkin's books are always like predicting the future of what could come, and otherwise, but he doesn't The End of Work was a great book that had a big impact on me by him.
00:41:56.960 --> 00:42:01.679
But we obviously haven't ended work, but uh as I know it.
00:42:01.840 --> 00:42:22.639
But it's uh The Empathic Civilization, uh which uh there's a great, it's a huge, thick book, but there's a great one of those comic strips that like animated whiteboards that tells the whole book in like five minutes on on the um of Rifkin's theories.
00:42:22.719 --> 00:42:23.440
It's on the internet.
00:42:23.679 --> 00:42:27.039
You could check it out because it's mind-blowing.
00:42:27.119 --> 00:42:28.639
And I would use those with lawyers.
00:42:28.719 --> 00:42:33.920
I would go do training sessions on on surviving and thriving in the legal profession.
00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:35.760
I go around to law schools and such.
00:42:35.920 --> 00:42:44.719
And that was always a uh I would show that because these are the tools in our toolbox as lawyers.
00:42:44.880 --> 00:42:52.239
We have not had around the feelings, around empathy, around uh other types of things.
00:42:52.559 --> 00:43:04.239
And yet um as human beings, unfortunately, here we've we've maxed over a lot of what it means to be human.
00:43:04.880 --> 00:43:05.599
That's great.
00:43:05.840 --> 00:43:08.559
We'll be uh you have another question?
00:43:08.800 --> 00:43:10.559
Okay, we'll be right back.
00:43:13.280 --> 00:43:15.599
Want to learn more about today's guest?
00:43:15.840 --> 00:43:25.119
Visit doinggood.fm to explore this episode, listen to more stories, or tell us about someone you know who's doing good.
00:43:25.440 --> 00:43:28.320
That's doinggood.fm.
00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:32.719
So uh we're back.
00:43:32.800 --> 00:43:38.320
And um uh one question I wanted to do is in terms of the Common Ground 101.
00:43:38.480 --> 00:43:46.880
I mean, how what what's your pitch for people going on and and and and giving their 10 bests and or you know, 10 things that are common?
00:43:47.039 --> 00:43:52.800
Aaron Ross Powell I think my pitch is that you will suddenly feel hopeful about the world.
00:43:53.360 --> 00:44:01.840
And when you do this very simple exercise, a lot of us feel hopeless sometimes about the Visive world that we're in.
00:44:02.159 --> 00:44:14.639
And doing that says, aha, uh, it begins a light bulb going off, and you might read other people's their uh entries there, and you you might begin to say, oh, that's right, that's right.
00:44:14.719 --> 00:44:16.800
And so what can we do with this?
00:44:17.039 --> 00:44:27.119
And then we're um uh of course you can donate or help get it out there because what we're trying to do is get it into, as I mentioned, schools.
00:44:27.280 --> 00:44:31.840
What I want to do um is billboards all around.
00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:34.079
It's because to me it's about remembrance.
00:44:34.239 --> 00:44:46.000
It strikes in it the people I've talked about where I have very diverse political views with, get it when we say, when I say, well, do we have this in common, this, this, this, this, this.
00:44:46.159 --> 00:44:48.719
And then it's harder to demonize.
00:44:48.880 --> 00:45:06.159
It's harder to uh, like it was said in the Iraq War, I remember, and probably in wars for eternity, it said, if you um if if we bombed with food, that's what a lot of us were saying when the Afghan reaction to September 11th happened.
00:45:06.239 --> 00:45:27.039
And let's say you start dropping bushels and bushels of food uh down on and on and on, and all of a sudden, on the ground, they want to rally their neighbor against the evil American whatever who's just fed his whole their whole family.
00:45:27.679 --> 00:45:32.559
Uh it's it's like you you have a different take on things.
00:45:32.719 --> 00:45:47.280
So how you react to something, do you react out of violence, do you react out of uh retribution, or do you do you react out of empathy, compassion, and demonstrate your best as a human being?
00:45:47.760 --> 00:45:56.320
Which which the outcome is a reciprocal uh feeling towards the person who should have been uh aggrieved.
00:45:56.880 --> 00:46:04.559
Yeah, and it isolates the other person who is trying to use divisiveness in a way that hurts people.
00:46:04.719 --> 00:46:12.639
Um I'm in the middle of editing a film that I did 20 years ago that I produced called Committing Poetry in Times of War.
00:46:12.960 --> 00:46:17.840
And it it's amazing because it's about critical thinking within schools.
00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:40.639
It was I was representing uh uh Bill Nevins who got fired because his kids were speaking out with slam poetry against the war in Iraq, and he got fired from Rio Rancho schools, and we'd organized the community, and we had all this great slam poetry footage, and so we did this film, and now we're doing a more manageable cut of the film and re-releasing it.
00:46:40.800 --> 00:46:43.920
But in doing that, I'm like, oh my God, the same issues.
00:46:44.079 --> 00:46:45.280
We're dealing with the same thing.
00:46:45.360 --> 00:47:01.519
But looking back at the Bush administration and Cheney and the war then and the falsehoods, and the and in the film, George Bush is before Congress saying, either you're with us or you're with the terrorists.
00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:12.400
And and then um, and then it says people, this press secretary uh is saying, people better watch what they say, watch what they do.
00:47:12.639 --> 00:47:23.360
And you look at the roots of divisiveness that have arisen from the 80s, 90s, and that period, you can see it's not all Trump.
00:47:23.519 --> 00:47:28.800
You can't go into a scenario and say, oh, it's a person in here.
00:47:29.199 --> 00:47:38.719
I think he is a byproduct of something that's been building for some time, dividing us, dividing us, dividing us.
00:47:38.960 --> 00:47:45.280
And I think the only antidote to division is finding common ground.
00:47:45.760 --> 00:47:59.280
It's it's I I get very curious about this because I think it it it may be a hard pitch to some Americans to give up one more thing, which is retribution, give up the receipts.
00:47:59.679 --> 00:48:13.360
You know, the uh I think there are many people right now who are counting down the days until there is a different administration or a different source of you know policy making, and then we can start going after, right?
00:48:13.679 --> 00:48:18.800
And and the idea that empathy can be more rewarding than that retribution?
00:48:19.679 --> 00:48:28.159
Yeah, I and I I had discussions just last night at this party about that, where that's exactly what someone said to me.
00:48:28.400 --> 00:48:36.800
How do you feel about should Trump be prosecuted for his crimes, or will that help heal the nation, or is that going to cause more division?
00:48:37.199 --> 00:48:45.679
And I think that uh I liked what the South Africans did around accountability and truth and maybe making amends.
00:48:46.079 --> 00:48:58.800
Yeah, and maybe it is less about prison uh and and punishment in that sense, but it's about responsibility and accountability, and what does that entail?
00:48:59.039 --> 00:49:01.360
And and so it has to go hand in hand.
00:49:01.519 --> 00:49:07.760
We don't just forget forgive and turn the cheek and look away.
00:49:08.159 --> 00:49:17.840
The issue is um forgive and be right there, be present, be naming, be dialoguing.
00:49:18.079 --> 00:49:22.400
But we've lost the ability to dialogue in a lot of ways.
00:49:22.639 --> 00:49:31.039
We've lost it becomes shouting, it becomes name-calling, it becomes uh uh, you know, that they're the fascists.
00:49:31.360 --> 00:49:39.199
We have to stop the fascists, and therefore um and the alarm bells go off.
00:49:39.440 --> 00:49:42.239
And I'm not sure that leads to dialogue.
00:49:42.400 --> 00:49:52.719
I tell um I I used to tell people um that uh, you know, I and I'm guilty of this too.
00:49:52.800 --> 00:49:57.119
I mean, I write employers' letters and say, you know, this is how it looks to me.
00:49:57.199 --> 00:50:00.880
You've been discriminatory, you've been retaliatory, you've done whatever.
00:50:01.039 --> 00:50:04.320
And I still uh, you know, I'm still in a learning curve.
00:50:04.559 --> 00:50:14.400
But the when I was in my best space about all this, I would I would say, okay, um, do I write a letter to starting off with?
00:50:14.960 --> 00:50:17.039
So it's how you start sometimes.
00:50:17.360 --> 00:50:18.559
Dear bigot.
00:50:18.880 --> 00:50:20.559
Do you want to talk?
00:50:21.599 --> 00:50:26.320
Uh it does not lead to as much at me.
00:50:26.559 --> 00:50:36.079
You know, and if you know, you're you're, you know, dear fascists, do you want to amend your ways and stop uh uh torturing people?
00:50:36.480 --> 00:50:54.239
Um but if you start with common ground, if you start with um I know that you have a conflict, that's obvious why I'm writing you and you fired this person or whatever it might be, and um certain things you understood and may not have understood, not known.
00:50:54.400 --> 00:50:58.559
I have some information that might help your perspective.
00:50:58.800 --> 00:51:03.119
You probably have some information that will help mine, so I'm not all right.
00:51:03.679 --> 00:51:13.199
And so learning how to dialogue in a way that invites listening uh changes the way we deal with conflict.
00:51:13.840 --> 00:51:22.639
I'm reminded of that um classic iconic photo of Tiananmen Square with the that one protester with a flower in front of a tank.
00:51:23.360 --> 00:51:25.760
You know, I mean that was his intent.
00:51:25.920 --> 00:51:29.840
You know, it wasn't, you know, you you need you need a reciprocal response.
00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:43.440
Um but you know that that is that is always to me like how do you how do you face force, you know, and how do you um express your opinion like you know with dropping food on uh you know instead of bombs?
00:51:44.079 --> 00:51:44.400
Yeah.
00:51:44.559 --> 00:51:50.800
Uh how you stand up to these issues without being consumed by them.
00:51:51.760 --> 00:51:52.400
That's important.
00:51:53.840 --> 00:51:54.880
Because you get burnt out.
00:51:54.960 --> 00:51:56.559
People, activists get burnt out.
00:51:56.639 --> 00:52:03.280
We know how it is, you know, you're doing the good work, you're doing nonprofit work like Anna does or other people do.
00:52:03.440 --> 00:52:23.119
You're you're you you know, you do it and you work, and you're and at a certain point there uh it feels like a tsunami almost the problems sometimes that are coming at you, and and how to not be consumed by that is is a real training, I think.
00:52:23.360 --> 00:52:33.360
And I think that you how you maintain, you know, I'm not a Buddhist, but you know, your your mindfulness, your space, your, you know, yeah.
00:52:33.519 --> 00:52:41.440
I I love I love the idea that somehow thinking of ten things is a form of self-therapy or form of solace in the face of that tsunami.
00:52:41.760 --> 00:52:46.400
Yeah, I mean, uh anybody listening when you get off, at least write yours down.
00:52:46.480 --> 00:52:53.360
You don't have to put them online, but putting them online helps us and it helps you because you'll interface with other people.
00:52:53.519 --> 00:52:55.119
But do it in your kitchen.
00:52:55.280 --> 00:53:00.639
Do it uh um yeah when you're on the toilet, we were saying.
00:53:00.800 --> 00:53:03.679
So since we've brought up the uh the pooping analogy.
00:53:04.079 --> 00:53:04.800
Everybody poops.
00:53:05.039 --> 00:53:05.119
Yeah.
00:53:05.280 --> 00:53:14.320
What what's the uh URL for uh uh it's commonground101.org, and you can get to the Ubuntu Works site from there.
00:53:14.639 --> 00:53:19.599
Uh that's the nonprofit that's but Eric, I'm dying to ask.
00:53:19.760 --> 00:53:22.239
What give us a few of your 10?
00:53:22.400 --> 00:53:26.960
And I'm sure you've you've seen so many responses come in on the website.
00:53:27.199 --> 00:53:30.400
Are there a couple that you see over and over again?
00:53:31.119 --> 00:53:37.679
Yeah, I I think a couple that I see over again are uh wanting good health.
00:53:39.280 --> 00:53:55.039
You know, we may disagree on how we get there and what insurance and what whatever, but wanting to be healthy, wanting our um our children to um not only survive but thrive.
00:53:55.840 --> 00:54:31.599
Uh I think wanting um uh to have um peaceful moments, it's wanting just a moment with um less anxiety, wanting to be um uh cared for, it's wanting to um to uh breathe clean air, it's wanting to um to be where to be heard, to be listened to.
00:54:33.119 --> 00:54:38.159
When you pick something, you're picking something that it's kind of hard to argue against.
00:54:38.719 --> 00:54:46.000
And and then you probably know you're keying into something that's uh highly human.
00:54:47.280 --> 00:54:51.599
Well, Eric, I can't believe the uh we've almost run out of our time.
00:54:51.840 --> 00:54:54.159
But this has been a fascinating discussion.
00:54:54.320 --> 00:54:57.119
I I really appreciate you for coming on to the show.
00:54:57.360 --> 00:55:08.800
And I think that uh I know I'm gonna uh I think I've done it already, but I'm gonna go revisit uh Common Ground 101 and see if my original answers were uh sustainable to me.
00:55:09.360 --> 00:55:13.920
Michael has 10 on there, so uh you can uh you can look up his.
00:55:14.079 --> 00:55:16.719
So you can look up other people's if you need a jump start.
00:55:17.119 --> 00:55:17.920
Uh oh, okay.
00:55:18.400 --> 00:55:23.280
So it's uh when you're stumbling on number seven, just peek at the website and you're fine.
00:55:23.599 --> 00:55:25.039
Or just get AI to do it for you.
00:55:25.280 --> 00:55:25.679
You know.
00:55:27.440 --> 00:55:31.840
Oh wait, the the AI show is later in the pick.
00:55:33.760 --> 00:55:38.880
Um is is Eric, is there anything that we haven't brought up that you were hoping to share today?
00:55:41.920 --> 00:56:05.280
I think that finding the in along with your theme of doing good and people doing good and and and all of that, it's uh I I feel that we try there's something innately, and maybe that's one of the ten common grounds, is is doing good, whatever that means.
00:56:05.840 --> 00:56:42.320
And I think that if you could find the small things um just quickly as uh a congressman once said to me that uh if you um do an act of courage every day, even a small act of courage, that you build up that muscle and that when something big and important comes on and requires you to be courageous, you you you've created that groove by doing the smaller things.
00:56:42.639 --> 00:56:47.519
So I would say don't be consumed by I have to change the world tomorrow.
00:56:47.920 --> 00:56:55.199
Be you remember the starfish story or the woman, the story um of the village in South Africa.
00:56:55.360 --> 00:57:07.840
Those kind of things always remind me that small acts of courage uh cumulatively can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression, if you would.
00:57:08.079 --> 00:57:09.599
So that's a beautiful thought.
00:57:10.480 --> 00:57:11.679
Well, thank you, Eric.
00:57:13.119 --> 00:57:13.599
Thank you.
00:57:13.760 --> 00:57:15.039
Thank you for having me on.
00:57:15.679 --> 00:57:19.920
It was it was an honor to sit with you for this last bit of time.
00:57:20.079 --> 00:57:20.320
Thank you.
00:57:20.800 --> 00:57:31.280
Yeah, it's a it's special for me to uh I I always go deeper just being able to hear your questions and to hear your thoughts about all this.
00:57:31.440 --> 00:57:32.159
So thank you all.
00:57:32.480 --> 00:57:32.880
Thank you.
00:57:33.039 --> 00:57:33.360
Thank you.
00:57:33.599 --> 00:57:34.000
Thank you.
00:57:34.239 --> 00:57:34.880
All right.
00:57:39.679 --> 00:57:49.519
Interested in learning more or to join in the conversation or to share a story about someone you know who is doing good, visit us online at doinggood.fm.
00:57:49.679 --> 00:57:51.920
That's doinggood.fm.
00:57:53.039 --> 00:58:06.159
This episode of Doing Good is a production of Docky Films, a three time Emmy Award winning production company based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, dedicated to the power of documentary film as a force for change.
