When people are in conflict they often begin to see all the ways they are different and those distinctions become very real barriers to reaching any agreement.

It is those moments when people begin to see one another with such negativity that I as the mediator think about the Rudyard Kipling poem “We and They.”

The poem begins, “All the people like us are We, And every one else is They” and continues with a list of how we and they are different, but ends with the lines:

All nice people, like Us, are We

And every one else is They:

But if you cross over the sea,

Instead of over the way,

You may end by (think of it!) looking on We

As only a sort of They!

There is irony in those words. Kipling was labeled a colonialist, a racist, and a right-wing warmonger. He may have been all those things, but he is much more complicated than how he was perceived as the words of that poem and his body of work reveal.

The more people in conflict see themselves as different, the more those misunderstandings grow. Win Blevins is a White man who writes books about Native Americans. His son tells the story in a recent OpEd piece of his father at a book signing reading a passage from his novel, ”Stone Song,” about Crazy Horse returning from a hunt and learning his daughter had died. Crazy Horse rode into the woods to find her body on an elevated platform wrapped in blankets in traditional Sioux fashion. According to Blevins, Crazy Horse laid beside her and sang a song to help her along the way. A member of the audience challenged Blevins by asking, “How can a White man know how a Native American feels when his child dies?” Blevins answered, “First, let’s imagine he’s a human being.” He paused, then added, “Actually, I think that’s a complete answer.”

Dispute resolution simply cannot begin until the parties recognize and appreciate what they share and set aside all the differences they create, which only serve as roadblocks, preventing a clear avenue to a settlement.

The Washington Post recently reported on the DC Peace Academy program to train mediators to address challenges facing the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods.

Capital News Service reported by April 19, 2021, all violent crime in DC numbered 961 cases, but by April 19th of this year, the number had increased almost 28% to 1,230 cases and citizens are pressuring for programs to reverse this rise. In a statement, Mayor Muriel Bowser pledged to get guns off the streets and to work to prevent crime before it happens.

One study recommended that the District train and increase the number of violence intervention workers. In response, a new academy was funded by “Peace for DC,” a nonprofit founded by restaurant owner Roger Marmet after his son was killed by a stray bullet in 2018. The first cohort of 25 people will receive 13 weeks of training for mediating conflicts and “engaging one-on-one with those most at risk of committing crimes.” The objective is to train 150 people by the end of 2023.

The training in negotiation and conflict resolution skills is being developed in large part by local community leaders. Some refer to the cohort training as learning to be “violence interrupters.” Whatever they’re called, a program developed by local communities to provide conflict resolution for their district must be supported.

Mediation programs in the courts are a benefit to the community, but so are iniatives that address conflicts within neighborhoods before they become disputes that could lead to violence.