Daryl Davis: American Hero
A little while ago, I heard the story of Daryl Davis on a podcast. Daryl Davis is an African American musician who has basically caused hundreds of KKK members to leave the Klan just by talking. This is a TEDx talk by him: https://youtu.be/fw0vS0qvYo0. And his podcast, Changing Minds: https://change.minds.com/feed.
In case you haven’t heard of him, I’ll give a little more detail, as he has a striking story that’s worth contemplating.
Davis’ Story
Davis relates the story of his first clear encounter with racism. As a boy, he was in the Cub Scouts (basically, a club that provides fun and useful activities for young boys). They were marching in a parade one time, and people started throwing bottles and rocks. Davis thought, “Wow, these people really hate the Cub Scouts!” The other scouts and the scout leader gathered around Davis to protect him; it was then that he realized that he was the only one being targeted, but he still didn’t know why. Later, he told his parents what had happened. They explained that he’d been attacked because of his skin color, because he was the only black Scout. When he heard this explanation, at first he didn’t believe it. How could those people hate him when they didn’t even know him?
Many years later, as he tells it, he still had that question. He was playing piano in a club, and after he finished, a white guy approached him to say how much he’d enjoyed Davis’ performance. The guy had never seen a black man play like Jerry Lee Lewis. Davis explained that Lewis had learned that style of playing from black musicians. The guy didn’t believe it, but they kept talking. The guy mentioned that he didn’t normally talk to black people, because he was a KKK member. Davis laughed at the apparent joke, but then the guy produced his Klan membership card.
Davis thought that this was his opportunity to find out the answer to his question: “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?” So he kept in contact with the KKK guy, letting him know each time he was playing in that club. The guy would bring other Klan members with him to listen to Davis play, etc.
Eventually, the guy left the KKK, apparently because, after his interactions with Davis, he no longer hated black people.
Davis also got the guy to give him (Davis) the contact information for the state leader of the Klan, Roger Kelly. But the guy warned Davis not to mess with Kelly because “Roger Kelly will kill you.” Davis got his secretary to schedule an interview with Roger Kelly, on the premise that Davis was writing a book about the Klan; the secretary didn’t mention that Davis was black. When Kelly showed up, there was a tense moment when Kelly first saw Davis, but he sat down and did the interview. They had many more conversations after that and as a result became friends. Kelly, too, left the Klan because he apparently had stopped hating black people.
Over something like 30 years, as Davis tells it, he has directly converted 40-60 people away from white supremacist ideology, and indirectly caused about 200 to leave the Klan. One of the keys is that he is completely unflappable, no matter what offensive thing they say. He patiently listens to people explain their beliefs, then offers his own knowledge and insights.
Davis Meets BLM
There’s a documentary about Daryl Davis, Accidental Courtesy: https://youtu.be/OunVHCbHFhI.
From about 1:15:52 - 1:23:45, Davis is meeting with members of the Black Lives Matter movement (this is a clip from a much longer conversation). Early in the clip, Davis observes that the BLM people seem to be more for segregation rather than integration. (They expressly deny it under that label but then go on to reaffirm segregationism in substance.) The conversation ends with the BLM protestors refusing to talk to Davis anymore, berating him, and storming out of the room.
Reflections
Hero
This is why I call Daryl Davis an American hero. He’s among the very few people in America who are actually trying to improve race relations and unite our society – rather than, say, trying to declare their allegiance to a tribe, or grab power for “their side”, or prove that “the other side” is evil.
His patience and courage are superhuman. If someone had suggested to me that I try reasoning with the Klan leader in my state, I would have immediately rejected the suggestion. I would have assumed that it was a waste of time. Which perhaps it would be, given that I lack the patience of Daryl Davis.
I would also have advised any black person to stay away from such people, as they are physically dangerous. This isn’t like the way cowardly Twitter bullies confront “racists” on the internet. We’re not talking about someone who used a foreign word that kind of sounds like the n-word, or some adjunct law prof who worried that black students were doing poorly in her class, or some actress who said that we shouldn’t persecute people for their ideology. We’re talking about literal, hood-wearing, cross-burning KKK members. And Davis wasn’t just tweeting at them as part of a mob from behind his keyboard. He was meeting with them privately, in person. This is how you can know that Davis is serious about combating racism.
He’s also incredibly benevolent, tolerant, and generally good. When you hear that some people hate you for no good reason, your natural reaction is probably to hate them back. Perhaps you’d like to fight them, to injure them, and to destroy their stuff. Somehow, Davis manages to overcome hate with compassion and humanity.
The power of dialogue
It might seem that I’m promoting platitudes. Compassion is better than hate. Dialogue is better than conflict. Understanding undercuts fear and hatred. Surely any well-meaning person already knows these truisms? But I think it’s worth emphasizing the platitudes, since America doesn’t seem to have absorbed them yet.
Anyway, Davis’ case shows something very non-obvious. As I say, I would have assumed that dialogue with the actual leader of the KKK would be pointless – that such a person could not be reached. Davis would have proved me wrong. So this case shows that open dialogue is much more powerful than you would think at first glance. Even some of the most extreme ideologues can be reached.
Davis’ secret weapon is tolerance, even of the intolerant. Whatever ignorant or hateful thing they have say, he hears them out and reasons with them about it. He doesn’t quickly become angry and try to shout the other person down. If you’re actually correct and you know it, then you don’t need to do that, since you know that patient examination will support your side. The story of Daryl Davis teaches us that, if you want to combat ignorance, the solution is open dialogue, not silencing the ignorant.
Why people won’t believe this
I’m just going to tell you why I think few people accept the Davis lesson. It’s because of their own flaws of character. Humans have a bias in favor of causing harm and destruction (see my previous blog post, http://fakenous.net/?p=2207). Basically, people, especially young men, want to believe that violence and other harmful behavior toward people that we don’t like is good and right. We want that to be true, because then we’ll have an excuse for doing it. So we’re always on the lookout for any reason to believe that, and any excuse for hurting our presumed enemies.
Obviously, that doesn’t mean that violence is never in fact justified. The fact that you’re biased toward A doesn’t mean that A is never right. But this is my error theory of why many people are going to keep rejecting the lessons taught by people like Daryl Davis.
BLM
I found it striking that Daryl Davis could talk a Klan leader out of his ideology, but things went totally off the rails when he talked to BLM protestors. What does that show?
One interpretation: those BLM protestors were actually less reasonable or less open-minded than the KKK Grand Dragon. Of course, this is anecdotal, and one can’t draw inferences about the whole BLM movement. But my sense is that many of today’s Social Justice Warriors would react like the people in the movie.
On the ideological point: Davis is an integrationist, and he’s working to make that integration happen (better than it has thus far). The KKK and the BLM people in the movie are segregationists – and they’re working to make that happen too. It just seems obvious to me that integrationism is correct.
Followup: Davis later became friends with one of the BLM people shown in the movie (see https://youtu.be/1JMvRoVTyq8). So that’s more evidence of the power of dialogue. One conversation doesn’t change someone. But multiple conversations can. Not that that guy has changed his political views, but he learned to understand Davis' viewpoint.