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Program
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Classic Program
Senior Focus
Crossing Borders
Volume 7, Number 2 - Spring 2009
On the
Bookshelf
by Patricia Andres
Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education, by Danielle S. Allen. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004
Talking to Strangers is an adventure in deconstructing American’s long-held distrust of differences—especially racial differences. Allen exposes the poisonous impact that “racial distrust” has on citizens of our democracy—beginning with anxiety.
Allen begins with an examination of Little Rock, Arkansas’ unsuccessful attempt to desegregate Central High School in 1957, when racial tensions prevented black and white students from talking to each other.
Allen then reflects on Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel, Invisible Man, asking, “What sacrifices does a democratic citizen need to make in order to take in account the positions of his fellow citizens who are, racially, different from himself?” How, that is, do we cease to be strangers?
We might, as Allen does in a utopian vision of the neighborhood surrounding the University of Chicago’s campus, work toward transforming homogeneous communities to include racial, ethnic and class diversity. Further, she suggests, we need to think in terms of the “whole” nation, not “one” nation, since the idea of “one” covers differences. Next, we need to undo our distrust of “others.” Only by talking to and listening to strangers, she writes, will we know their hopes, dreams, struggles and triumphs. Then we can move beyond purely selfish interests to include the interests of others, for example, when we vote. This, she concludes, is “political friendship,” a mutual gift citizens of a democracy might exchange across our differences, if we talk to one another.