Bridge-builders gather in Santee to move beyond political polarization

The occasion in a Santee park Saturday afternoon had all the trimmings of a picnic with mates. The solar was out, music performed, meals was on the desk.

It was a pleasant day to speak about hate.

Setche Kwamu-Nana, a variety and fairness coach, invited about 15 folks — some liberal, some conservative; some Black, some White — so they may hear to one another and perhaps transfer past the political and racial divides that go away folks pointing fingers at one another.

“If you wish to construct bridges and assist one another domesticate empathy in our extremely polarized society, please be part of us,” she wrote within the invitation. “All opinions are welcome! We solely encourage you to come back with an open thoughts and hear and share respectfully.”

She knew all of the invitees, however she couldn’t make sure what would occur. At an identical occasion she was invited to months in the past, in a park in Lakeside, she acquired shouted at by individuals who didn’t know her or her story.

Saturday the one noise got here from the close by freeway.

The individuals stood in a circle by a gazebo in West Hills Park and mentioned time and again that what they wished most from the gathering was to be taught. To know. To be a part of the answer.

Even when their notions about what must be solved diverged, they had been well mannered and respectful.

One White lady expressed bewilderment on the younger ages of the Black Lives Issues protesters who took to the streets final 12 months. She recommended that they had been indoctrinated within the public faculties to hate their nation.

A Black man supplied a unique interpretation. The protesters had been within the streets, within the wake of the killing of George Floyd, as a result of they don’t really feel protected in their very own neighborhoods, he mentioned. “All of us wish to really feel protected,” he mentioned.

Across the circle, folks nodded.

Saturday’s occasion was timed to coincide with “Weed-Out Hate Day,” a public-awareness marketing campaign that began a number of years in the past within the Midwest.

Kwamu-Nana, who’s Black, mentioned she was moved to host it as a result of she has been on her personal journey previous polarization. A rustic music fan, she now not felt welcome in that world as cowboy hats and American flags more and more grew to become related to right-wing causes.

“I acquired scared each time I noticed them,” she mentioned. “However I didn’t need that trauma to be everlasting.”

She determined to attend conservative-oriented occasions, largely to hear however typically to converse with folks or make public feedback throughout open-mic periods. A number of of the folks at Saturday’s circle met her at a latest “Re-Open California” protest.

Throughout a BLM demonstration in Santee final 12 months, she walked by a White counter-protester who took off his coronavirus masks as she handed and mentioned, “I can’t breathe,” a remark she took to be a taunt. It’s what George Floyd had mentioned in his last moments.

Kwamu-Nana stored strolling, however returned 20 minutes later and waded into the group of counter-protesters. She instructed the person that what he’d mentioned damage and offended her.

He turned out to be Mike Forzano, an organizer of the controversial group Defend East County, who left it to kind his personal group, Exiled Patriots. Each teams counter-protested at BLM occasions over the summer time.

Forzano was at Saturday’s occasion. He mentioned Kwamu-Nana confirmed braveness coming again and confronting him. “I didn’t even understand what I had mentioned and I apologized,” he mentioned. His spouse, Robyn, known as it a turning level of their understanding that “phrases have that means, phrases have energy.”

Symbols do, too. On Saturday, as she led the circle, Kwamu-Nana wore a cowboy hat.