7/13/2024
My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,
It looks like you are chilling in DE today. How did you feel about your visit to Detroit? I’m sure you’ve heard MSNBC’s Chris Hayes assessment that it was “the best performance given since the State of the Union.” The G reported that you reiterated “plans for a 2nd term, including codifying abortion rights, signing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, ending medical debt, raising the minimum wage & banning assault weapons.”
I encourage you to add changing our “conflict style” to the list. I am into “conflict styles” these days as my co-housing community has some issues that are taxing relationships. Few of our folks worked in business so they aren’t familiar with the Thomas Kilmann framework which theorizes that we each have predilections for how we handle friction & developing an awareness of our personal style can help us adapt as we encounter people who have different styles from our own.
In the USA, our systems tend to take a confrontation approach involving a competitive mind-set where there are winners & losers. For our police & security people, dissonance too often leads to violence. It doesn’t have to be this way!!!
Recent examples include the killing of D'Vontaye Mitchell, 43, in a hotel in Milwaukee. He died on June 30 after being pinned down on his stomach by four security guards. The murder of Nyah Mway, 13, by the police in Utica that I told you about a few days ago is another instance of excessive use of force. These deaths did not need to happen & if the enforcers had a different mindset, they might not have resorted to violence so quickly.
I worry that we cultivate the competitive mode in this country which fosters a false win/lose, us vs. them, mentality. 45 exhibits this all the time. Unfortunately, you are exhibiting this a bit right now. Jesús Rodríguez, writing in today’s WP, thinks so, too.
I wish I had more time to commune with you & send you suggestions, but I’ve got a lot going on right now & have to fit a lot into this Saturday.
BYBS,
