Newsletter:
Vol. 4. Iss. 1
21 February 2003
Christian Witness and Effective
Communication
Ken White
7) Humility and grace are more compelling than pride. Despite the coarsened state of public debate on television, face-to-face communication still favors restraint and courtesy. Although you probably know more than most Americans, acknowledge that you do not know everything. Owning up to deficiencies, and offering doubters and critics the possibility of participation and redemption, encourages everyone participating in the discussion to take chances. Cutting people off or down makes your audience less likely to listen and unlikely to move from their present opinions to better understanding.
Bobby Kennedy offered an outstanding example of this kind of public advocacy when he tried to enlist middle-class Americans in the fight against poverty:
“There are millions of Americans living in hidden places, whose faces and names we never know. But I have seen children starving in Mississippi, idling their lives away in the ghetto, living without hope or future amid the despair of Indian reservations, with no jobs and little hope. I have seen proud men in the hills of Appalachia, who wish only to work in dignity—but the mines are closed, and the jobs are gone, and no one, neither industry or labor or government, has cared enough to help. Those conditions will change, those children will live, only if we dissent. So I dissent, and I know you do, too.”
Kennedy first offered his listeners grace, calling poverty “hidden,” and acknowledging that they may not have been aware of the magnitude of the problem. He then put a human face on the situation, allowing his listeners to empathize with those in need. He appealed to their better nature by citing the desire of poor people to work. He listed all of the institutions that cannot solve the situation, making his listeners the only hope. And then, with compassion and the possibility of success, he invited his audience to join him in caring.
Ken White is a political consultant for The Society for Biblical Studies who has engaged in non-profit organizing and citizen advocacy for the past twenty years. He is trained at the Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University.
