Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Ask Joe: Ideas for bridge building when the relationship is brand new

Ask Joe: Ideas for bridge building when the relationship is brand new

Weston is executive director of the Fierce Civility Project and the author of "Mastering Respectful Confrontation."

Joe, thanks for your column.

I've just moved to a new area, and by the looks of the yard signs around here I'm guessing it's pretty "red" overall.

Since I'm a democratic socialist, but also a person who wants to respect others and build bridges, my outreach idea with the neighbors was to go with the classic "bring a baked good to their house and introduce myself" thing. From there, I was just going to focus on common values if polarized topics come up, and hope for the best.

Do you see a more proactive approach? Or got any ideas for bridge building when the relationship is brand new?

Thanks again,

New-to-Rural B.


Hello New-to-Rural B.,

Thanks for your letter. And thanks for sharing your strategy for introducing yourself to your neighbors. I think you have a pretty good proactive approach that certainly starts the process of building relationships with your neighbors — especially if you go with homemade baked goods! ☺

Honestly, that could be the end of my response and advice based on the information you have presented. Remember the days when a pie and a pleasant "hello" really was enough to proactively build the foundation for an amical, neighborly relationship?

But I am going to assume, based on the questions that you ask, that you are anticipating a problem with your neighbors. I often find that if you are looking for a problem, you will find a problem. Perhaps focus on relationship building, and wait on bridge building until that circumstance presents itself? Bottom line: Build trust.

From a neuroscience lens, while you will all be exchanging niceties with smiles, small talk and pie, the fight-flight-freeze survival part of their brain will be sensing on a non-verbal, unconscious level the vibe and attitude you are giving off — detecting if you are "safe" or not. Why? I would imagine that the most important priority for measuring someone new to the neighborhood is not who they voted for, but if they will feel safe in their home with you nearby. Remember, you are the "outsider" and the one who could be perceived as different.

If you are open and inviting, that part of their brain will register that you are "safe," setting up a deeper opportunity for a friendly relationship based on trust, and making the difficult conversations that may come in the future less reactive and easier to navigate. Imagine how the relationship will unfold if you step into the first engagement with them with any sense of opposition or righteous judgment. That would lock in an unconscious feeling that you are "unsafe." This feeling will be very difficult to alter moving forward.

It sounds like you haven't met your neighbors yet and you are basing your viewpoints of them on their yard signs. Perhaps the proactive strategy is to get to know them before you draw your conclusions, and give them the benefit of the doubt. From the perspective of Fierce Civility, the problem begins the moment you give yourself only two options in any given situation and then, unnecessarily, pit those two options against each other — like red and blue. Remember that in most elections, there are really only two choices, even though the viewpoints and beliefs of members of one political party may perhaps need 12 candidates to cover the spectrum of where they all stand politically. In other words, there are many shades of red and blue.

We are all more than who we vote for and our political beliefs. Think of the multitude of ways you can engage and find common ground with your neighbors. Your instinct is a healthy one — base your relationship on common values. However, instead of stating your values, simply "be" them. Initiating contact and bringing a gift already says a lot about who you are and what you value most! Perhaps, for this first encounter, let that be enough, and continue to come up with ways in the future to demonstrate your values.

I share over and over again that the No. 1 priority of our time is to seek out and build alliances in surprising places. The more we engage with those who hold different views, the quicker we soften the rigidity of the current state of extreme polarization. By moving to a new area with many of "them," you have set yourself up for doing the noble work of our time, whether you like it or not.

Stay courageous and generous,

Joe

"Ask Joe" is dedicated to exploring the best ways to transform tensions and bridge divides. Our resident advice columnist and conflict resolution specialist, Joe Weston, is here to answer your questions in order to resolve tension, polarization, or conflict.

Learn more about Joe Weston and his work here. Make sure to c heck out Joe’s bestselling book Fierce Civility: Transforming our Global Culture from Polarization to Lasting Peace, published March 2023.

To Ask Joe, please submit questions to: AskJoe@Fulcrum.us.

Read More

Iguanas on the Tombstones: A Poet's Metaphor for Colonialism​
Photo illustration by Yunuen Bonaparte for palabra

Iguanas on the Tombstones: A Poet's Metaphor for Colonialism​

Iguanas may seem like an unconventional subject for verse. Yet their ubiquitous presence caught the attention of Puerto Rican poet Martín Espada when he visited a historic cemetery in Old San Juan, the burial place of pro-independence voices from political leader Pedro Albizu Campos to poet and political activist José de Diego.

“It was quite a sight to witness these iguanas sunning themselves on a wall of that cemetery, or slithering from one tomb to the next, or squatting on the tomb of Albizu Campos, or staring up at the bust of José de Diego, with a total lack of comprehension, being iguanas,” Espada told palabra from his home in the western Massachusetts town of Shelburne Falls.

Keep ReadingShow less
Does One Battle After Another Speak to Latino Resistance?

Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio del Toro, Chase Infiniti, and Paul Thomas Anderson pose during the fan event for the movie 'One Battle After Another' at Plaza Toreo Parque Central on September 18, 2025 in Naucalpan de Juarez, Mexico.

(Photo by Eloisa Sanchez/Getty Images)

Does One Battle After Another Speak to Latino Resistance?

After decades of work, Angeleno director P.T. Anderson has scored his highest-grossing film with his recent One Battle After Another. Having opened on the weekend of September 26, the film follows the fanatical, even surrealistic, journey of washed-up revolutionary Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio), who lives in hiding with his teenage daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), some fifteen years after his militant group, French 75, went underground. When their nemesis Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn) resurfaces, Bob and Wila again find themselves running from the law. When Wila goes AWOL, her karate teacher, Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro), is enlisted to help Bob find his daughter. Although ambitious, edgy, and fun, the political message of the hit film is generally muddled. The immensely talented director did not make a film matching the Leftist rigor of, say, Battleship Potemkin. Nor can the film be grouped among a veritable cavalcade of fictional and non-fictional films produced during the last twenty years that deal with immigrant issues along the U.S.-Mexico Border. Sleep Dealer, El Norte, and Who is Dayani Cristal? are but a few of the stronger offerings of a genre of filmmaking that, for both good and bad, may constitute a true cinematic cottage industry.

Nevertheless, the film leans heavily into Latino culture in terms of themes, setting, and characters. Filmed largely in the U.S.’s Bordertown par excellence—El Paso, Texas—we meet the martial arts teacher Sergio, who describes his work helping migrants cross the border as a “Latino Harriet Tubman situation.” We learn that the fugitive revolutionary, Bob, is known by several aliases, including “The Gringo Coyote.” His savior, Sensei Sergio, explains to him outrightly that he’s “a bad hombre”—cheekily invoking the hurtful bon mots used by then-candidate Donald Trump in a 2016 debate with Hilary Clinton. The epithet is repeated later on in the film when Bob, under police surveillance in the hospital, is tipped off to an exit route by a member of the French 75 disguised as a nurse: “Are you diabetic? You’re a bad hombre, Bob. You know, if you’re a bad hombre, you make sure you take your insulin on a daily basis, right?” All this, plus the fact that the film’s denouement begins with a raid on a Mexican Restaurant in Northern California.

Keep ReadingShow less
​Jimmy Kimmel onstage during the 67th GRAMMY Awards

Jimmy Kimmel onstage during the 67th GRAMMY Awards on February 01, 2025, in Los Angeles, California

Getty Images, Johnny Nunez

Why the Fight Over Jimmy Kimmel Matters for Us All

There are moments in a nation’s cultural life that feel, at first, like passing storms—brief, noisy, and soon forgotten. But every so often, what begins as a squall reveals itself as a warning: a sign that something far bigger is at stake. The initial cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel by Disney, along with the coordinated blackout from network affiliates like Nexstar and Sinclair, is one of those moments. It’s not merely another skirmish in the endless culture wars. Actually, it is a test of whether we, as a society, can distinguish between the discomfort of being challenged and the danger of being silenced.

The irony is rich, almost to the point of being absurd. Here is a late-night comedian, a man whose job is to puncture the pompous and needle the powerful, finding himself at the center of a controversy. A controversy bigger than anything he’d ever lampooned. Satire that, depending on your perspective, was either too pointed or simply pointed in the wrong direction. Yet, that was not the ostensible reason.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bad Bunny preforming on stage alongside two other people.

Bad Bunny performs live during "No Me Quiero Ir De Aquí; Una Más" Residencia at Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot on September 20, 2025 in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Getty Images, Gladys Vega

From Woodstock to Super Bowl: Bad Bunny and the Legacy of Musical Protest

As Bad Bunny prepares to take the Super Bowl stage in February 2026—and grassroots rallies in his honor unfold across U.S. cities this October—we are witnessing a cultural moment that echoes the artist-led protests of the 1960s and 70s. His decision to exclude U.S. tour dates over fears of ICE raids is generating considerable anger amongst his following, as well as support from MAGA supporters. The Trump administration views his lyrics and his fashion as threats. As the story unfolds, it is increasingly becoming a political narrative rather than just entertainment news.

Music has long been a part of the American political scene. In 1969, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released “Ohio,” a response to the Kent State shootings that galvanized antiwar sentiment.

Keep ReadingShow less