How do we talk about violent crime and the death penalty in Texas?
Sometimes we debate. We argue or give speeches, espousing one view or another. We “make good points” and people already disposed to agree with us applaud. Sometimes we explain our own moral, religious, or ideological reasons for opposing or supporting punishment, including capital punishment. Our strongly held personal beliefs, whatever they are based on, are important to us, but rarely move anyone who doesn’t share these beliefs and assumptions. Sometimes we are silent, not knowing how someone else feels, or knowing that we disagree with one another, and not wanting to get into an argument. Moving from debate to understanding When we speak from our own experiences, we offer new information. No one else has walked in our shoes. When a person shares her or his personal experience, she offers a gift: a new perspective, a different lens on the world. Speaking from our own experiences, and listening carefully to other people’s personal experiences, shifts the nature of an exchange between
