Debilyn Molineaux Transcript
SPEAKERS: Debilyn Molineaux, Omkari Williams
Omkari Williams 00:20
Hello, and welcome to Stepping Into Truth the podcast where we have conversations on social justice and how we all get free. I'm your host Omkari Williams, and I'm very happy that you're here with me today. Today, my guest Debilyn Molineaux is a long standing leader of organizations working towards American healthy self governance. In 2015, she co-founded the Bridge Alliance, where she remains President and CEO. Bridge Alliance is a coalition of over 100 member organizations bridging electoral reform, policymaking, and media. Debilyn and her full time staff helped these organizations exercise their collective power, share best practices, and uncover opportunities for collaboration. Debilyn's, deep knowledge of the healthy self governance field, extensive ties to movement leaders, and hard won field experience put her in a unique position to advise, mentor, and lead large scale healthy self governance initiatives. And I am very happy to have Debilyn on the podcast today. Hi, Debilyn. How are you today?
Debilyn Molineaux 01:31
I am so good. Omkari Thank you so much for having me on your show.
Omkari Williams 01:35
Oh, I'm really happy to have you here. It's such interesting work that you do. And I think the place I want to start is this. In my experience, when someone starts an organization, it's because they perceive a gap that needs to be filled. So what's the gap that bridge alliance is intended to address?
Debilyn Molineaux 01:56
I'm going to give you a two part answer here because it has shifted over time.
Omkari Williams 02:00
Okay.
Debilyn Molineaux 02:01
And so the gap that we saw when we first started Bridge Alliance back in 2014, or when the conception first happened was that there was an inability of people with different political ideologies to work together to solve our nation's problems. And so we were looking at it through a partisan lens thinking that trans-partisan moving above and beyond party to put our country first was going to be the solution that was needed. And so we were a place in an alliance, if you will, of organizations with that ethos of working across party lines. And what we actually see as the gap now, and this is, you know, relatively new within the last couple of years, is that we actually have much more than ideology to work on, and to bridge across. We need to live into and become and mature into a pluralistic and multicultural democracy.
So this includes a fourfold diversity, that is ideology, yes, but it is also race and ethnicity. It is also generational, it is also gender, those are the four that we can measure, I would also add, it's also faith based. And it's also kind of the urban rural divide. There's a lot of ways that we slice and dice ourselves as Americans that are separating us to try and hold on to our little piece of America, instead of recognizing that we are part of a larger tapestry.
Omkari Williams 03:29
Wow, as you were speaking, the thing that struck me was, yeah, we do divide ourselves in these ways. You know, rural and urban are an enormous divide that people don't think about very often. But it is a really critical piece, I think of our disconnect, because those are such different experiences of living in the same very large country. So you're not only talking about the chasms between certain demographics. There's also just the literal, physical geographical space that makes for differences that we don't notice everyday. But that really do impact our ability to engage with each other as citizens of the same country. Right. So that's really an interesting shift. And it's an interesting concept to consciously grapple with. So you're talking about bringing these diverse identities that we have as Americans together into what you call healthy self governance. What do you mean by healthy self governance?
Debilyn Molineaux 04:43
So we are the recipients, the descendants, we have been bequeathed with this vision of self rule, that the founders of this nation, as flawed as they were, and we continue to be as flawed as we are as individuals, we were given this aspiration of all men and women created equal under the law. And of country formed not by a religion or by a race and ethnicity group, but by agreement to a rule of law. And there's a protection a need for, if you will, the balance between individual rights and community responsibility. And so when I talk, when we talk about healthy self governance, what we're talking about is actually living into those ideals that were set forth nearly 250 years ago.
Omkari Williams 05:36
Okay, so how do we do that?
Debilyn Molineaux 05:40
Well, it's a work in progress, right.
Omkari Williams 05:43
It's certainly work. How much progress we're making, I think, is up for debate. Yeah.
Debilyn Molineaux 05:51
I think if you go back and look at the history, there's one thing to remember is that there's advancement, there's a backlash, and then there's a bigger advancement. And so just to kind of put in context, where we are right now, we're in that backlash period.
Omkari Williams 06:06
Yeah, I don't think there's any disagreement about that.
Debilyn Molineaux 06:10
But it's usually followed by a greater advancement. And I'm trying to help people stay out of their kind of panicky fight or flight mode, and just realize we're in the midst of the process. And it's the uncomfortable, icky part.
Omkari Williams 06:25
Yeah, the middle is never pleasant, squishy, and icky. And yeah.
Debilyn Molineaux 06:28
Yeah. But to get back to your question of how do we do this work. I was actually just this morning, I was writing my weekly editorial, I'm being drawn to look at the stories that we're telling ourselves because we have two major narratives in the country right now. There's the we need to be a white Christian nation narrative. And then there's the we need to be a multicultural pluralistic vision and you know, I'm obviously on the multicultural pluralistic frame, that's the one I want. But, you know, I sat next to a woman on an airplane for five hours, a couple of weeks ago, and she is conservative, she doesn't watch much TV, she's not on social media. She has this worldview, this belief system about everything that's going on right now is actually a plan by global elites to kill off half of the population. Right.
And so I'm sitting here next to her for five hours listening to how she is arrived at this worldview. And what I was struck by and what I was writing about this morning was that she is not a dumb person. But she has taken the same facts that I would take, and I would create a different story. And she has interpreted them with different meaning. And so a lot of the forces of division that are working against our nation right now are taking facts and spinning up meaning that is not healthy for any of us, and it's not healthy for our nation. So part of the work going forward, to get back to your question, is looking at how we make meaning, and finding a way to make meaning together. That's the future we want, and not the future we want to avoid.
Omkari Williams 06:43
Okay, so you just said things there that I can't get past. The first one is you talked about story. And I really appreciate that. Because I believe deeply that story is how we connect with one another. It's how we make sense of the world. And that when we try and ignore people's stories, we're doing ourselves a disservice, there's no way to connect with someone without being willing to hear their story doesn't mean you have to like it doesn't mean you have to buy into it. But you have to be willing to listen to it. And then another thing you said that really struck me is the notion of a collective story.
Basically, to rephrase what you're saying a little bit, a story that we write together for the future we want to see. And as you were speaking, I was thinking we could have a conversation with someone who holds radically different views than we do. And still be able to write a story about the future we want to see. Because unless they are straight up dedicated racist, or Nazis or something like that, they probably share a desire for many of the same things that we on the other side of the spectrum want. And so it's finding those connection points. And how do we get there rather than assuming that we don't even have connection points, which is I think where we are in a lot of places at the moment, we just feel like if you're on the right, or you're on the left, there is no place that you can find to meet. And that's really destructive to the experiment that is the United States.
Debilyn Molineaux 08:23
Absolutely. You so get me you so nailed everything I just said and what is democracy if not constructive disagreement?
Omkari Williams 10:03
You know, I don't think that most people think about it that way, for many reasons, including most of us have very, very low tolerance for conflict. So disagreement is already conflict, although it's conflict writ small, people will run 1000 miles an hour in the opposite direction to avoid it. And there's no way to do that and still create what we want. I mean, yes, as flawed as the founding fathers were, we know that they had internal disagreements, and some were very intense about what that document the Constitution was going to look like. And yet, here we are, and now we're like, “No, you have to agree with me, 100%, or I just can't even talk to you”. And that's not only getting us nowhere fast. It's actually doing significant damage, in my opinion. And I'm curious, in that kind of vein of thinking, something that I've been cognizant of for the past several years, is that most of us in the United States don't have a very good civic education. And I mean civics in the sense of the way we used to be taught civics in school. I was never taught civics in school, but I'd heard about it.
Omkari Williams 11:21
And I'm curious, because when I think about civics in schools, and I think about the way it might be used, the what I immediately think of other kids from Parkland, who went to Marjory Stoneham, Douglass school, right. And that's the school where they had that horrific mass shooting back in 2018. But those kids, they had studied civics in school. And it showed when they got out on the national stage and started advocating for gun safety. So I'd like you to talk about the importance of civic education as you perceive it, and what you think we have lost and what we have to gain by bringing that back into our school systems.
Debilyn Molineaux 12:08
So I'm gonna go back to my lady on the plane real quick, because she thinks that the lack of civics education is an intentional dumbing down of the populace, so we don't know our rights.
Omkari Williams 12:20
Interesting.
Debilyn Molineaux 12:21
My interpretation of that story is that we started focusing more on math and English and Science. And we let go of some of the arts and social studies, etc. Because of the test scores, you know, everybody got focused on test scores, because we were falling behind. And so regardless of what we believe the meaning was around that, we agree that we need more civics education. So I just want to point that out in our story making, there's a lot of common ground here. And for civics itself, there is growing awareness, to the point where there's now a coalition of both nonprofits and schools who are working to at the state level, state by state to mandate civics education be reinstated in schools. It's called the CivX now coalition, CivX coalition. And for anybody who wants more information, they should look into that. There's also a lot of information out there now for adults.
Debilyn Molineaux 13:19
And I think this is the part that also excites because we have this gap, right? Like I got good civics education. I knew my three branches of government, I was in the school government growing up, but there's a gap now and adults need to think about what I'm going to call a civic life plan. And part of the civic life plan for us to be active, engaged, healthy citizens, to support and strengthen this nation is learning about civics through adult education classes, the immigrants, people who come to this country, learn more about civics education than people who went to public schools. Find courses and sign up and learn about what the role of government is and how to get involved with it.
The second thing that I think about is we plan, you know, for most middle and upper income Americans anyway, that, you know, there's retirement planning, there's career planning, there's education planning, we need to add civic life planning to that list of things that we think about as part of our day to day lives. It is that idea of, okay, so when I'm in my 20s, and I've got kids, I'm going to be involved with the schools, because my kids are in schools. That's my civic contribution, if you will, and maybe when I'm in my 30s, I'm going to be on the homeowners association. And, you know, it doesn't have to be city council, but it's something where you're actually working in contributing back to the community and participating in this conflict, you know, disagreement place thing that is called democracy because that's how we weave our communities together.
Omkari Williams 14:51
I really appreciate that. You said that because I don't think that we think about it that way. We don't think about the homeowners association or the PTA, or any of these things as being part of the way that we weave our communities together. But they in fact are. And when we forget that, I think it's much easier to say, I'm not going to do that, you know, Netflix is calling, and just check out because yeah, we all have a lot going on in the world is very overstimulating place at the moment. And yet, I think that we would find actual peace in being engaged in those activities over the long haul, because they do build the connections that are so important to a thriving community, a thriving society. And I think we underestimate how much we probably really miss those connections, especially in our very mobile, you know, people constantly moving all the time, world.
So when you talk about that kind of civic participation, that kind of sort of making it really a normal part of your day, you're totally speaking my language, because, as you know, micro activism is my thing. And they are essentially two sides of the same coin here. So with the civic life planning and civic engagement, I think that the most sustainable way to do that is to pick your one thing at most two and commit to it. I'm curious as to how you feel that people should best approach civic life planning. I mean, you gave us a couple of examples in your 20s and your 30s. But what if you say you are a 25 year old and you're single, and you have no intention of ever having kids, and you live in New York City, so there's no homeowner's association for you to be part of because you're renting? What does someone whose life is more like that want to look at from your perspective?
Debilyn Molineaux 16:57
Well, I think that's where issue advocacy comes in, right? On our website, one of our initiatives is called CitizenConnect.us. And on the CitizenConnect.us website, you can go and say, I'm interested in something on climate change, or I'm interested on bridging divides, or I'm interested in talking about race, and ethnicity. And you can actually find organizations who are hosting events, and get informed that way on a topic that's of interest to you. At the same time, they will lead you then to more exploration with other organizations, and other ways to get involved in volunteer opportunities.
Omkari Williams 17:35
Oh, I like that. I think the hardest thing for so many people is, well, where do I begin? Right? And once you begin, there's no shortage of information out there. Once you begin, there's more information than you could possibly absorb in the entire course of your lifetime. But it's the beginning part. That's so hard.
Debilyn Molineaux 17:54
Right. Yeah. And that's what Citizen Connect is really designed to help give people that front door to see what some of the possibilities are, and then from there it takes off.
Debilyn Molineaux 18:05
So I would actually like to go back to your lady on the plane, because first off, five hours, kudos to you, because I'm not sure I would have been able to just keep it together for five hours of that kind of a conversation, I think I would have, at some point would have decided I needed a nap. But what I'm curious about is at the end of your plane trip, so you're getting off the plane, you've spent five hours talking with one another, what was your experience of that conversation? And what do you think her experience of the conversation was?
Debilyn Molineaux 18:44
So my initial thought when we got off the plane was relief. I was exhausted. Because it is really hard to listen to somebody and be present for five hours doesn't matter if you agree with them or disagree with them. For me as an introvert that is really hard.
Omkari Williams 19:02
Oh, yeah.
Debilyn Molineaux 19:03
But the second thing that I thought was, she initially ignored my noise cancelling headphones and me staring at my phone as an indicator that I didn't want to talk to her. She just kept talking, right?
Omkari Williams 19:14
Okay.
Debilyn Molineaux 19:15
So, so I surrendered. And I recognized in that moment that she had a need to connect with somebody. And by the end of the five hours, she thanked me for listening to her. Because she felt like she got to say things that she needed to say that quite frankly, the liberal members of her family just put their hand up and tell her to shut up because they don't want to hear it. And so there was this need for her I think, this is my assessment of her, that she really needed to be seen and respected for, you know, as much as I disagree with her interpretation of facts. She has done a lot of research that's led her to believe that and the fact that she probably, you know, like atheists know more about religion than people of faith often.
Omkari Williams 20:04
Yeah,
Debilyn Molineaux 20:05
She's like that, right. And she needed to be respected for the fact that she cares.
Omkari Williams 20:10
Yes, it makes me think about how it's often easier to tell a hard story to the stranger you're stuck in an elevator with, then someone that you see on the regular, because you know that you can tell the truth and walk away, and it's not going to come back and bite you. And I think that's something that, especially those of us on the left, honestly, need to be really aware of, is not taking the attitude that we're so much smarter, and we know more. And we're so much more morally centered than people on the other side of the equation. I mean, yeah, there's some terrible people out there, I'm not talking about those people. I'm talking about good people who have a different point of view and came to it from their own experience the same way we came to our points of view. And being more willing to listen, because if we don't listen to each other, we wind up where we are right now. And this is working for no one. We are in dire straits. We are on the precipice of some very ugly times if we don't shift gears pretty quickly, I think. So, with all of that in mind, what are the things that most concern you about where we are in this country right now? And what are the things you think that we should be doing to change our trajectory over the next, say, two years?
Debilyn Molineaux 21:50
Yeah, one of my biggest concerns, and I have said this in other places is there is a lot of greed that is fueling what I will call the conflict profiteers. And so these are the folks who get on their podcasts, and they get on their websites, and they make videos, and all they're doing is grifting. Number one, they're asking for money. And they're gaining influence and power over people's minds through propaganda techniques. And because we have the First Amendment and freedom of speech, there is not a legal mechanism by which to derail that. Nor necessarily would we want the state the government to do that, because that's a risk too. But we don't seem to have good discernment as people right now to know who are the conflict profiteers, and who are the outliers. Outliers are very important and valuable, extremists are not, when they initially show up in front of us with information, they look the same. And so one of the things that I'm hoping that we can do in the next two years is get really better at discerning who are the extremists that are leading us down a bad path, and just fomenting division for the sake of profit? And who are the outliers who are actually warning us that we're on the wrong path and helping us find a way through. And that, to me is like the biggest concern I have is that we don't know how to tell the difference.
Omkari Williams 23:13
So since we don't know how to tell the difference, what do we do?
Debilyn Molineaux 23:18
Well, so yeah, so all hope is not lost.
Omkari Williams 23:21
Okay, good.
Debilyn Molineaux 23:22
This is where I think we as the people need to grow up a little bit and mature. And question and self reflect on is what I'm hearing now pushing my fight or flight buttons? Am I really in physical danger? Is this a thoughtful critique? Am I using critical thinking skills? Because I think our critical thinking skills will get us out of this. The titillating fight and flight mechanisms will not. And so if I'm fearful, or if I'm angry, is that a righteous anger? Or is this a manipulative anger? I don't know about you, but I can pretty much tell when people are trying to manipulate me. I think most of us can, you know, there's an energetic about it that we can sense and even if we don't have words for it, and I think we need to hone our skills on being aware of that. We haven't even talked about both the individual and collective trauma that we've undergone as a nation.
Omkari Williams 24:16
Yeah.
Debilyn Molineaux 24:16
So part of what's happening is the conflict profiteers, those extremists are using our collective trauma to keep us in trauma.
Omkari Williams 24:26
Even when they will deny the trauma, right, because it's like, oh, you know, COVID was just a hoax.
Debilyn Molineaux 24:35
Rght.
Omkari Williams 24:36
But they're still playing on the trauma of that experience to try and make us feel like we were hoodwinked and then should have a specific response that benefits them.
Debilyn Molineaux 24:48
Right. Well, then you just pointed to something else, like who benefits if I'm feeling a certain way that I want to like be angry or take action against you know, who is going to benefit from that? What is the energetic that gets put out into the public from that action? Because if it's more anger and more division, that's not the path to get us through.
Omkari Williams 25:09
I don't think that we think about things very often in that way. You know, I think that, on the contrary, we're kind of pushed through experiences so that we, on purpose, don't have time to really reflect and think about what we're hearing, what people are trying to lead us to believe. And I think that that is one of the most dangerous things that can happen, because then we just become sheep, without realizing that we're just following along in someone else's game.
Debilyn Molineaux 25:43
Yep.
Omkari Williams 25:44
And specifically, Florida stands out as a striking example right now, because of what Ron DeSantis is trying to do across so many different fronts in that state of just taking away people's right to think for themselves, which I find completely horrifying. And I find it horrifying that people don't recognize that that is what he's trying to do. And the places in the rest of the country that are looking at that and going, Seems like a good idea. Let me try it over here. And so we are in this really precarious time. And yet the answer is really very simple. The answer is, question everything. Be curious. Don't just swallow something whole cloth because someone in authority said, so. It's challenging right now. I don't know how people keep hope all the time. Because I know that there are moments for me where I just feel like, this is not going to work out well. And I don't like that feeling because I really am at heart an optimistic person. Is that an experience that you share? Or are you someone who's able to basically see the possibilities all the time?
Debilyn Molineaux 27:04
I see the possibilities all the time. And sometimes I feel dread. And sometimes I look at the path ahead. And I'm just I just sigh, because it's like, why does it have to be so hard? Yes. I wish it didn't have to be so hard. But I was gifted with a there's nothing I can call it but a vision. About 20 years ago, I was in a meditative state and I heard a voice in my head that came in and you know, showed me this beautiful vision and infused my body with a sense of well being. And you know, that happens in a meditative state. But what came next was what's important, he said, This is what our political culture could be.
Omkari Williams 27:43
Oh,
Debilyn Molineaux 27:44
…and would you like to help bring it about?
Omkari Williams 27:47
Okay.
Debilyn Molineaux 27:48
And I said, "Yes". And so when I get to that moment of dread, and not wanting to go on, because it's so freaking hard right now, I sit down, and I remember that meditative state, and that sense of well being, and the possibility that lives in my cellular structure, that we're going to be okay.
Omkari Williams 28:09
I love that. Thank you.
Debilyn Molineaux 28:12
You're welcome.
Omkari Williams 28:13
That's a good place for me to ask you for three simple things that listeners can do to move towards that place that you just described.
Debilyn Molineaux 28:23
Okay, number one, go to citizen connect.us. And get engaged, find something to do, they'll pass you through, they'll show you events and other organizations that you can explore with the number to take time to say thank you to somebody, and to listen to their story. You know, share fully of yourself, whether it's with a family member, or with a stranger, where there's no social capital risk. Find a way to share your story, I think that would be number two. And then number three would be to make sure that whatever you put out on, especially on social media right now, but also in your relationships, that you're adding to the future you want to see in the world, and not adding to the division and the fear.
Omkari Williams 29:10
Those are so lovely, and so doable. Thank you so much. Thank you. I have enjoyed this conversation more than I can tell you. And I am feeling hopeful in a way that I wasn't when we started. So thank you for that as well. And I hope to speak with you again and see where we've come in a couple of years.
Debilyn Molineaux 29:34
Me too. Thanks so much, Omkari. I appreciate you.
Omkari Williams 29:36
You're very welcome. Thank you. One of the things that I think has happened in the United States in particular, is that we've become so accustomed to hearing that we are the beacon of democracy, that we've gotten complacent and forgotten that democracy is a system of government that needs careful attention if it's to continue. Protecting democracy from those who simply want power for themselves is an ongoing process. The saying that freedom isn't free speaks to our responsibility to protect, improve and strengthen our democracy. The founders spoke of creating a more perfect union. For that to happen. We, the citizenry, need to do our part. As Debilyn so clearly expressed to us, there is work to be done and we can do it together.
Omkari Williams 30:27
Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back with another episode of Stepping Into Truth very soon. Until then, remember that change starts with story. So keep sharing yours.
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