We still need persuasion
It is about respect
July 14, 2025
“What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand still a year.… In other words, we change – and must change, constantly, and keep on changing as long as we live.” (Mark Twain, 1887[i])
Ibram X. Kendi railed against the power of persuasion to effectively challenge racism and declared all historic attempts at persuading people to be less racist, or not racist, abject failures. White people in power know the truth about the fundamental equality of all peoples and refuse to do anything about the racist system that perpetuates oppression in contemporary American society.[ii] This is a convincing argument against the long-term effectiveness of persuasion and ongoing failures, from early abolitionists to W. E. B. Dubois to President Obama.
Kendi recommends instead that we enact policies and pass laws that better create a fairer society. We must rally enough support to outvote the objections of those who persist in pursuing economic exploitation of the many for the sake of the few. Kendi and Heather McGhee, among others, show clearly how racism has been used to justify an oppressive form of capitalism that impoverishes most everyone, while Isabel Wilkerson clarifies that the American caste system keeps people hoping that we will get ahead of others in an imaginary line of advancement, leading us to do little but wait while the billionaires profit at our society’s and planet’s expense.[iii] We feel more trapped by this every day under the current slipping into authoritarianism and the ever greater empowerment of the “Tech Reich”[iv] by the combination of the tech sector buying off of government and our relative inattention to the obvious enrichment of public officials through strategic purchase of Nvidia stock and so much more.
In the face of all this, I am going to cautiously optimistically side with Mark Twain and the call for personal growth and change.
Shelley Fisher Fishkin quotes Mark Twain above in the context of Twain’s growth from antisemitism as a young person to loving Jewish people as an older adult, as well as his continued moves towards becoming less racist throughout his life, admitting that he never completely succeeded in “eradicating all racist attitudes in his own life”[v]. And in this personal march of progress, we too are like Mark Twain, doing our best to become better and still limited, forcing all of us to fall short of any completion of our virtuous journeys. An ancient Jewish source reminds us that we must always do the work even if we can’t complete it[vi].
We need to respect the people with whom we disagree and believe that we can come together about some issues, even if we will never agree about everything. Universal consensus cannot be the goal, because that demeans the idea that we are all valuable individuals who hold opinions for good reasons even if we can’t all see exactly why. We must regard each other as worthwhile people, worthy not only of the rights and regard of personhood, but also, the right to hold our own differing opinions. Only by engaging with each other will we ever drag our communities into a better future together.
And we have seen so clearly how easily we can fail at this.
When we demand total agreement before making common cause with people, we cut ourselves off from essential allies. We are in a situation right now where the greatest leverage we have is the good will of most people to live in a “live and let live” world where everyone “gets a shot” and people aren’t “left behind” because of understandable misfortune. We cannot afford to squander the potential in that common vision.
And we have seen what happens when we do. Congresswoman Sarah McBride[vii] and conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan[viii], within nine days of the other in the New York Times, noted that in pushing too hard on trans inclusion issues – like insisting on indicating our pronouns and changing the way we speak about our own gender identities – we in the pro-LGBTQIA+ community destroyed the good will that led to the victory for marriage equality. What we need are trans people treated like people deserving of equal rights. We don’t need every person in the world to introduce themselves with their pronouns. We absolutely do need to respect people to treat them as they present themselves without damaging judgement or refusing them service or employment. We need to give everyone the regard of being a person like us and move forward from there.
I need to respect you enough to admit that you must hold your opinions for your own good reasons. I am going to need to learn about you, what you think is important, so that I begin to understand why you disagree with me. We are going to have to listen to one another enough so that eventually, we might be able to go forward and collaborate even though we don’t agree about everything.
Because we don’t want a world where everyone agrees.
That’s a fascist, unitary, non-pluralistic, oppressive, and boring world.
I want a world filled with unique and wonderful and different-thinking people who admit that those differences are in fact the sources of respect and love and personhood for everyone.
We need persuasion because we need to make our way towards that ideal, which is still a complex vision, through compromise.
All of us are imperfect and our progress together will be imperfect, and it will take listening and learning and acceptance of difference and disagreement, and most of all growth and evolution.
President Lincoln was not the perfect leader, but he understood the power of persuasion. He knew he couldn’t force the public to do what he thought was right until he had persuaded Americans to do so. He waited and waited and waited before declaring the Emancipation Proclamation because he knew that he needed people to go with him.[ix]
We need to be like Lincoln.
Respect one another enough to engage in the persuasive conversation.
Understand that there is no persuasion without listening and going with each other.
When we go with one another, we build solidarity, and with solidarity we can protect our freedoms, guarantee our rights, and safeguard opportunities for everyone.
[i] Quoted in Fishkin, S. F. (2025). Jim: The life and Afterlives of huckleberry Finn's comrade. Yale University Press, pp. 46-47.
[ii] Kendi, I. X. (2016). Stamped from the beginning: The definitive history of racist ideas in America. Bold Type Books, pp. 503-508
[iii] McGhee, H. (2021). The sum of us: What racism costs everyone and how we can prosper together. Profile Books, and Wilkerson, I. (2023). Caste: The origins of our discontents. Random House Trade Paperbacks.
[iv] For a terrifying discussion of the so-called “Tech Reich”, refer to: The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart. (2025, July 10). History meets galaxy with Tony Gilroy and Mike Duncan. Apple Podcasts. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/history-meets-galaxy-with-tony-gilroy-and-mike-duncan/id1583132133?i=1000716624551
[v] Fishkin (2025), p. 18
[vi] From Pirkei Avot, 2:13, here is a translation, “Rabbi Tarfon also says, you are not obligated to complete the task, nor are you free to abandon it”, Shapiro, R. (Trans.). (2006). Ethics of the sages: Pirke Avot - Annotated & explained. SkyLight Paths Publishing.
[vii] Klein, E. (2025, June 17). Sarah McBride on why the Left lost on trans rights. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-sarah-mcbride.html
[viii] Sullivan, A. (2025, June 26). How the Gay Rights Movement radicalized and lost its way. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/gay-lesbian-trans-rights.html
[ix] Goodwin, D. K. (2006). Team of rivals: The political genius of Abraham Lincoln. Simon & Schuster.