RECOGNIZING WE SHARE COMMON GROUND

I received notice this week of the passing of Sally Miller Gearhart, university professor, science fiction author, women’s and lesbian/gay activist. After her retirement Sally moved to rural Northern California.

After the move, she wrote an article in 1995 about her changing attitudes about conflict and confrontation, admitting to making obscene gestures to logging trucks loaded with redwoods. She observed that male drivers reciprocated in kind. Later she noted she was “gentler,” only glaring at the drivers and mouthing obscenities, but recognized that approach didn’t seem to be any more effective than her gesturing.

Still later, she said she stopped judging and badgering others and instead sought to find a “joining point”
or place where people can meet as human beings and share. For example, people in conflict can learn that both parties struggle to find work to feed a family.

She came to realize the lumber truckers were not her enemy and finding a joining point with them led her to say that, yes, she could love her enemies. An activist can speak out, confront, crusade, fight, and be involved in struggles without creating and maintaining adversaries.

In conflict studies we speak of superordinate goals—finding those goals that can only be achieved through cooperation. “Joining points” and superordinate goals both emphasize finding the common ground we share with those we disagree.

It was my honor to have been her student many years ago and later her colleague. She once asked me to sit in on a meeting with Harvey Milk in San Francisco. She asked my opinion. I said “he’s trying to use you.” Her response was that it’s okay to be used if the cause and outcome are important. Her comments were published in the September, 1995, issue of “Sojourner: The Women’s Forum.”