Chats In A Park With Strangers: Chauncey Williams

Pick a controversial topic. Whether it’s immigration, race, climate change, the role of religion, or the economy, many of our assumptions that we view as completely reasonable can seem whacky or wrong to others. This may well include very smart, thoughtful people, who’ve had very different life experiences than our own.

Our guest for this episode is Chauncey Williams, a Democratic-leaning Braver Angels volunteer in Denver.

He was shocked when Donald Trump was first elected President in 2016. But instead of retreating into his political silo, Chauncey began a unique project. On different occasions he set up a table with two chairs in local parks, and invited total strangers to have conversations about important public matters. 

“One of the important things I came to realize is that I walk into a lot of those conversations with a host of assumptions about folks that aren’t always true,” Chauncey told us. 

“I’ve often been fascinated and humbled by realizing my own limitations in knowledge, and having that revealed,” he said. “I’ve had this happen on more than one occasion… As uncomfortable as it is, I also welcome it.”

In our revealing interview Chauncey shares what he learned from his “chats in a park” project. We hear two audio extracts from his nuanced conversations— one with an outspoken conservative who challenged Chauncey on his views of drop boxes during elections, and another with a recent immigrant from Ecuador who explained what diversity meant to him and his family.

Chauncey Williams lives in Colorado where he is involved with the Southern Front Range and Denver Alliances. This year, he helped launch a "Share Your Story" event to learn how others came to their views on specific political topics and on politics, generally. He is a member of Braver Angels Denver Alliance.

“How Do We Fix It?” reports on the people, projects and ideas of Braver Angels, the cross-partisan citizen's movement that brings red, blue, and other Americans together in a working alliance. Braver Angels is building new ways for Americans to talk to one another, and act as courageous citizens.

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