Donnie McKinney and Matt Deegan

00:01 Hi, my name is Donnie I am 20 years old, and today's date is September 24, 2022. I am recording from Charlottesville, Virginia. My dorm room and my partner's name is Matt

00:15 Hi, my name is Matt Deegan I am 38 years old, and today's date is September 24, 2022. Thank you, Donnie I wasn't sure about that. I'm recording from Charlottesville, Virginia, in Woolen Mills neighborhood, and my partner's name is Don. Donnie

00:33 Okay, and why did you both want to do this interview today? I joined it because of our class. One of my class, the professor, asked everyone to sign up for this because it's a class on political dialogues, and this is a very good example of a political dialogue, and also because I have some interest in it. If I didn't, I probably wouldn't be taking a class about political dialogues, but I'm just really interested in sort of what they can do and sort of how they work. And I think it's a really good experience just being in One and also just a good experience to sort of open my mind and just get to know the Charlottesville community a bit better, too.

01:21 That's great. It's a great reason I learned about this. I think I saw a news article about it and it sounded really interesting. And I certainly support the spirit of talking to people who have different life experiences because I think that's how we get better as a society. I'm a high school history teacher, so that kind of idea is near and dear to my heart. I have students from all different backgrounds, and Charlottesville High School is a. A school that is 40% black, 40% white, about 15% Hispanic. So it's very diverse. And I encounter students every day who have different ideas for me. And I'm hoping maybe once I go through this interview, I might bring this to Charlottesville High School as well, with students. But like I said, it's just. It's so crucial to listen. To listen to people, not just to talk and not just to post anonymously online or, you know, social media, but to actually face to face listen to people who are different than you or who are younger or older. And I. There's a great quote from Mr. Rogers. So I was. I'm a 90s child, so Mr. Rogers is very much a part of my childhood. And he actually had a quote that he put in his wallet that said, frankly, there isn't anyone you couldn't learn to love once you've heard their story. And I think I try to take that to heart. And I think this is the spirit of One Small Step So that's why I'm here.

02:58 Absolutely. And I'm glad that you both are here to just be able to share your stories with me, with One another. And Donnie if you could read Matt's bio and you know, just ask any questions that might come to mind. If there's any, you know, points of.

03:15 Curiosity, clarity that you'd like, feel free to do that.

03:21 Of course. So I'm a high school history teacher at Charlottesville High and have been for the past 10 years. Oh, am I supposed to read out loud or silently? I'm sorry, no, out loud. Out loud. Okay, okay. Have been for the past 10 years. I grew up in suburban New Jersey and strongly identify with being from the New York area, even though I've lived in Charlottesville for 15 years now. I have a 4 year old son and a 2 year old daughter and their arrivals have definitely transformed the way I see the world. I would also say that 9, 11, I was a senior in high school, 30 minutes from New York City. And my study abroad semester in Germany and college have also shaped how I see the world. And my Christian faith is what anchors me and helps connect me to ideas and forces bigger than myself. I really like your bio. I think it's a bit better written than mine. I did not. I should have written a bit better bio.

04:06 But just to revise, my children are now five and three. I think I wrote that, I don't know, months ago.

04:16 So mask about that. How have these things changed how you see the world specifically? I know there's not much space in the bio to flesh things out a bit. So how have some things like just changed how you've seen the world?

04:30 What do you want me to focus on?

04:33 Any of them, I guess. How has having children changed how you see the world?

04:42 A friend put it, it's like your heart has jumped outside of your body and it's running around in front of you or in this case like, you know, at school when you're at your job. And so it has, I think, made me more empathetic. It has expanded my capacity to love in different dimensions that I was not anticipating. And it's, I think it's drawn me closer to my faith because there are so many things in this world that you just can't control and you want to control them because you want to protect your children, but you know, you can't be with them 24 7, so you have to, you know, deal with that. And the way that I deal with that is my faith. Um, so that's, that's my answer to the children question.

05:37 That's a really beautiful answer. Um, and then also, sorry if I cough a bit during this. I am a little bit sick.

05:45 I am too, Donnie

05:46 I don't know, something's going around. Um, uh, how also have uh, the events of 911 and uh, your semester abroad in Germany. You might want tackle those separately, I guess. But how have those also changed how you've seen the world?

06:03 Sure, I'll talk about, I'll go chronologically, talk about 9 11. I was a senior at a high school in New Jersey. And if you drove like 10 minutes from my high school in an overlook called Washington Rock, you could actually see this New York skyline. So I had a lot of classmates, friends whose know, parents worked in New York City. My dad is from Brooklyn, my mom is from the Bronx. So you know, we always identified with New York City. Visited often, like every holiday, going to see the Rockefeller tree, going to catch a Broadway play. So, you know, New York was home. And to see the terrorist attacks, you know, really up close and to feel it like have someone you knew or related to who was in harm's way. Luckily I didn't have anyone directly like related to me who passed. It's certainly, you know, when you're in high school, when you're growing up, you feel a little insulated from the world and you don't realize that. I think, Donnie actually until you go to college and you expand, you know, your worldview and you meet different kinds of people. But for me, 911 was just a wake up call to say, like, we're not as insulated from the outside world as I was growing up in suburban New Jersey. I had, I was fortunate enough to have a really awesome childhood and my parents, you know, would. Were really supportive of me and my brother, my brother's three years younger than me. But 911 also I think was a point of unity. Like I just remember everyone feeling so patriotic. Like some of my friends wanted to go on the train and go into New York and help like give water out to like first responders. I didn't end up doing that, but I think that just that that spirit was so strong, that patriotism and it kind of faded away. Like after, I don't know, a couple months, it. I didn't feel it as strongly. But I think those moments kind of can inform how it can be if you bottle it up. And so it's always a reminder to me every September 11th of the Unity that I felt among my classmates, among my community and my country, which today, in 2022, our country is very divided. And 911 reminds me there are some shared values that can have. So that's that. My semester in Germany. So I was a junior in college. I went to the University of Richmond. And Richmond has a great study abroad program. Like 80% of students from ur study abroad, whether it's the summer or it's a full semester. So I studied abroad my spring. No, yeah, my spring semester of junior year. And I went with about 8 other UR students to a town in Germany called Constance in South West Germany by the Swiss border. And it wasn't Berlin, it wasn't Munich. So you couldn't really get by with English. You had to practice your German, but just to go to the grocery store and get basic things. And so I was a fish out of water. I was an American in a country that was different than what I was used to. And it really was humbling to me, taking courses in German. I took a couple in German and then I took some at the language institute that just helped you learn German better. But I prided myself on being a pretty good student. But like, there are times in those courses that I just didn't know what was going on because the language was so advanced. But it was humbling and it helped me to see the world in a wider way. Like there's different folks who have different opinions and they were really curious about me as an American. I lived in an international dorm, so I had people on my floor, students from all over Sweden and Serbia and Ireland and Australia. So just having those late night conversations was as much as a learning experience as being in a classroom. I think you can't really recreate that in a classroom where someone's lecturing at you. It's those late night experiences that just conversations about what you're used to that really opened my worldview and helped me be more empathetic. And it was hard coming back to the United States after my semester. And some of my friends who didn't study abroad, they didn't have the same experience. So it was hard for me to communicate to them how I had changed because they didn't. They were still in Virginia. But I always take that. It was about seven months. I did some traveling around Europe too, after the semester, but I always take that with me. I met a lot of really amazing people who, you know, kind of lost touch with, but they still. Those conversations I sometimes go back to.

11:39 That'S a really Inspiring answer. Wow.

11:41 Yeah. Study abroad, Donnie if you can.

11:45 Okay, so at this point, I'm just.

11:47 Going to ask Matt if you could.

11:49 Do the same thing.

11:50 Just read out Donnie's bio, ask any questions that come to mind, and then.

11:54 I will also add the conversation prompt.

11:58 That I emailed you both so that you could feel free to go down that list and ask some of those questions.

12:03 But please don't feel like you're just limited to those. Of course.

12:07 Sure. Okay, so here we go. Hi. Donnie is from Chester, Virginia, a Small town right around Richmond in a slightly ruralish area. The strongest sense of belonging that Donnie has felt when he went to a language program in high school. Because there was such diversity of people and experiences, everyone had complete freedom of expression. Expression. And felt like I could truly be myself. The past two years, I have also substitute taught at an elementary school in my hometown. Hometown. Because of this, equity and education are very important to me. Awesome. Let's start there. Donnie let's start with your experience as a substitute teacher. What motivated you to want to be a substitute teacher? Which is a hard job, by the way, because you're not the regular classroom teacher. So you, you have to put a little bit more effort into, you know, building relationships with students. But what motivated you to want to go into the elementary school classroom?

13:05 Right. Oh, no, I can. I can talk about this the whole time. I gotta watch the time. Sure.

13:10 You have a lot of stories.

13:11 Yeah, it was so fun. I also. I didn't have space to write it here. I figured it would come up. I didn't have space to write in the bio. I actually. Not this past summer, but the summer before. Excuse me. I actually didn't just substitute teach, you know, it was coming out of COVID Well, not fully Covid, but coming out of a lot of the restrictions based on Covid. My, like, home county, Chesterfield County, Virginia, was opening up. And my school needed people so badly for summer school because all the teachers the year before hadn't been able to really enjoy their summer at all. So no One wanted to do summer school. And they asked me if I wanted to teach second grade, which is a little bit scary that they let me teach second grade because I was 18 at the time. But they did get special permission. And because I had subsidy taught before, it was okay, but so I actually was able to teach second grade. And that was really fun. What got me really interested in it was, I don't know, I've always been sort of interested in education, even just as a kid. The little times in Class. I guess when you help your friends to learn something. I thought that was always really fun and certainly doesn't hurt that. My mom works at an elementary school. She works at the. Like the front desk secretary at the elementary school I usually substitute teach at And that was also really good, especially because when I first started, it was, I believe, 2021. There were still some concerns about COVID and like, both of my parents are immunocompromised. And so it was definitely a job that I could do not have to worry about compromising anyone any more than they already are because interacting with the same people, same place. So. And it was just. I really just loved it so much. I can't even. I'm sure you understand. I don't really know how to describe it, but I just felt like I was drawn to it. It was just a whole lot of fun. I had some wild experiences, especially what.

15:21 Was your wildest, like, with students in the classroom, where you're just like, whoa, these kids are. This is different.

15:30 I don't know a lot of. So I have a few ones. One funny One is One time I had two kids have an accident on purpose to spite me. I think when I was the music teacher, they had just gone to the bathroom before class. I didn't know this. And then the teacher had to rule One kid at a time to the bathroom. That didn't work out very well. So I slashed that rule and sent almost like half a class of kindergartners to the bathroom. But probably the most impactful stories are probably just. Some kids will just tell you some really difficult life events, especially because they're like little kids. As soon as they feel safe or secure, they'll just. One time. It happened to me twice in a day. A child told me about, like, the loss of a, like, immediate family member, like two children. Because I was in two different places in the school building and I was just like, wow. And it was also a bit, like, shocking just because the kids were very. So resilient. They'd tell you about something like that and clearly be, like, struggling from it. But as soon as recess came around, they'd. They have a big smile on their face, be playing with everyone. And it was just really inspiring, that sort of resilience, I think.

16:47 Yeah. And it's. I taught my first year teaching. I taught fourth grade, actually. Then I've since taught high school. Teenagers are very different than elementary students. Elementary students, there's a level of like. They don't have a filter. And there's a level of trust that they have for adults, especially teachers. So they share these really intimate and serious things with you, and you feel like you're like, a keeper, a steward of these ideas and these. And you want to, like, help them, like, process what's going on. And I think that's a really special thing that many professions don't have. It's unique to teaching, and that's not, you know, and that's why I think I've been a teacher for 11 years.

17:29 And I.

17:29 You know, that's the part of teaching that keeps me alive, is those relationships with students and the trust that they give you. And you want to help them as much as you can, knowing that you have that information, whether it's something happened with family, some kind of mental health issues they're going through. Coming out of COVID here, there's so many teenagers who are struggling with mental health, and I feel like us teachers are kind of on the front lines of hearing their stories and figuring out the resources and the people to connect them, to be able to help them through some really heavy things.

18:07 So I think of summer school. I remember being a bit worried if the kids were learning some stuff. So I'd go to, like, especially because I don't have much experience teaching, I'd be a bit worried. I'd say, it turns out my kids were all right. They were where they were supposed to be. They were getting some of the help they needed. But I wanted to double check and just say, hey, is this. Is this enough? Like, where should they be at by the end of this? What should my goal be? And I remember being taught by or told by the administration. Everyone was like, that doesn't really matter much this year. It's just giving the kids some sort of socialization, some sort of place where they can see other kids. Just especially because Covid was so difficult for a lot of kids and also, like, their development, too. They didn't get to be around other kids. They didn't get to see other people. And I know that's a lot of, like, a lot different. I think Covid very much highlights a lot of the different worlds a lot of the kids come from and a lot of people live in. And also the reactions to it. I just remember hearing my mom at the school talk about how some teachers would sort of break guidelines a bit for Covid, but the school is really serious about, you know, contact tracing and telling people they can't come to school if they were exposed. So she remembers sort of having to, like, go in and yell at teachers say, hey, this. If you don't actually follow the guidelines we have to say that a kid can't come to school, their parents have to watch them. That's two weeks they can't work. And that was a really difficult thing. But no, I remember it was really important, just giving a kid some place to socialize, someplace to sort of be out of the house, have fun, be with other kids so they don't go quite as crazy. One class I was in, like a education class last semester, and the professor said, all the teachers say just the kids are going. Farrell was the word she used to describe it. And I thought that was kind of funny.

20:08 Farrell, yeah, I've heard that word. I think your observations are dead on about the impact, though, of even just One year of being online and trying to learn in that environment. Because, you know, a public school is meant for just that, to interact and socialize with your peers and people who are different than you and to have a community. And we like the schoolhouse is like the like is community. It's kind of like the baseline of community for so many students. Even if my teenagers don't want to admit that they like school, they do. They like being with their friends. Let's be honest. Yeah. And just let me actually ask you if we could switch and ask you another question.

20:54 Sorry, I went on a bit of a tangent there.

20:55 Yeah, we could probably talk about school for the whole time because it sounds like you're passionate about it and so am I. But let me just share this One thing where this is kind of a political dialogue, I guess, or it can be that way. I think that when we were online for a year, parents were going nuts because their kids were at home and they were also trying to do work. If they were fortunate enough to have a job that was able to go online or they had to somehow find out how to get some childcare while they were going to their job out in the community or wherever. And I think that there is the residue, the aftermath of that has been teachers are getting blamed for that. It's not our fault that we had to go on lockdown and we had to learn online. And I think some parents just wanted a place for their students to go, and they're blaming teachers in schools for that loss of learning for a year. And I don't think that's fair. I understand where it's coming from, but I don't. I mean, we, at the end of the day, want to keep students safe, and we weren't sure about COVID at the beginning of it. And we learned more about it once, you know science in an amazing way, like came up with these vaccines, like quickly, like historically quickly. So I think there's rhetoric going on in our country about education that is divisive. And I think it's coming from this kind of resentment, leftover resentment from having a year of online school. So I just wanted to point that out. I don't, I don't know if you've talked to any teachers, even your mom, about that.

22:53 I definitely have. No, definitely. A lot of parents were sort of. I don't know. I mean, my mom talks with parents in the community and a lot of the times when just about everything was online, she didn't really have much interaction with them, which is, it's. It's really tough. But I really do think schools did everything they could put it in good faith. If there's a place I feel like you can put good faith in, it would probably be just people in education you can assume they probably hopefully have very good intentions. And so I definitely know, just talking to teachers, they were especially among special education, because that's where I'd be a lot of times during COVID because I was the only teachers in the building the whole first year that I substitute taught. So there wasn't. It was just so difficult to get kids to engage online because there's no real good way to do that. I completely agree with you. If the parents have stuff to do, then they can't completely. They can't watch over their kids and, you know, go through the seven hour school day with their kids like sitting beside them the whole time. So there's no real thing that teachers can do to make kids pay attention in that sort of environment, in that sort of like online environment. So I definitely, like agree with you with that. And I haven't heard anyone really talking about that being the sort of foundation for a lot of the rhetoric for divisiveness. That's a really interesting idea.

24:27 Yeah, I think it's the only thing, but I think a lot of it is kind of stirred up ideas that are misinterpreted or ill defined. But that's just my hot take. But I want to go back to your experience living up in a rural kind of setting. I grew up in suburban New Jersey. My town had a train that was connected to New York City, so it was like a 30 minute train ride into Penn Station in New York. So. And you know, my parents both were from New York, so it kind of identifies a suburban urban Kind of person. So what was your experience growing up in a more rural setting? That's kind of vague, but we can start there.

25:20 I don't know. It's a weird sort of setting. I feel like just because it's such a Small town, it's in a much bigger county. Like Chesterfield county is a pretty big county and it's mostly just suburbs in that area. But I feel like the One tiny part that isn't fully. That you can't really in good faith call suburbs because there's just not. It doesn't look like suburbs. It's more just sort of Small town, you know, close to fine. It's a weird spot. Sorry. That's why I said like rural. Ish. It's hard to describe because it's 30 minute drive to Richmond City. But also when I did my, you know, I remember like years ago now when I had to get my license, driving past like farmland, driving like just on like a straight country road, just going so. But definitely like the part of the reason I say relish is because it has a lot of that, like areas around where I live, sort of in between sort of, I guess suburbs. And then past the suburbs, the city and then on the other, the other direction definitely like rural sort of farmland, like seahorses a lot. And I feel like with that. Oh, sorry, go ahead. I was finally going to get to the, I guess political part about that. So that definitely changed. I feel like that is very characteristic of a lot of. Not always, but a lot of times, like rural and like conservative values, at least in my hometown it was definitely that way. And so that was the way I was sort of brought up and definitely like changed since then. But like I was brought up in sort of like conservative values with that all surrounding me. And not just me, but I guess my community as well. Like it was sort of not taken for granted, but almost a certain level of like conservative beliefs were sort of taken for granted just growing up in that sort of environment. And so I guess like I have since like I'm not. I don't hold conservative beliefs now, but I think that it was like just really interesting that I grew up that way.

27:43 Was there a period of time when you, like usually when you have, you know, political views, you kind of absorb what is, you know, normal like around your community, your neighborhood, your family. Right. So was there a moment when you, you kind of were switching views or you're kind of, your views were evolving to be different than, you know, your surroundings, your family?

28:10 Definitely. I think in some Ways just. I feel like a lot of it has to do sort of like with generational things as well, somewhat just. Cause the area might have had a lot of like conservative beliefs like that. That sort of thing was very much like taken for granted. But I definitely started to absorb it. Sort of like a sponge, I guess, just taking that in. And also the Internet, I feel like that's a bit of a scary thing growing up on the Internet. I don't know how that was for me, but it definitely wasn't good for a while, I think, because there's just a lot of scary stuff on the Internet, just period. And also, I'm sure it's the same on the other side to some extent. But I just know like a lot of sort of like pipelines on the conservative side just on YouTube and stuff like that. I started to go down like that sort of thing, just having that, you know, Internet access. That's. That's sort of just how it sort of worked, especially back then in the days that I was growing up. Hopefully. I think they're doing stuff now, so it's not quite the same way. But like, I just remember those sort of like videos online, like debates. But they wouldn't be like actual debates, you know, exactly what I'm talking about. I think like that's sort of.

29:34 Yeah, they're. Yeah, they're exaggerated or.

29:38 Yeah, yeah, definitely. Like misinformation.

29:40 Misinformation, like that type of stuff blown.

29:42 Up for a huge effect. But I started to get out of that. I think this is gonna sound kind of bad, but I guess by like talking to real life people. Yeah. And I think a lot of my friends sort of grounded me and got me out of that. That was just for a bit all the way back in middle school, I think talking with real life people, making friends just with people who were slightly different than me. Right. You know, making.

30:11 What type of ideas are you talking about, Donnie Like, what type of ideas did you have that you got from these videos? Like what but specifically.

30:17 Oh, so certain things, I guess certain characterizations of things more typically associated with the left. Right. Like certain things like feminism. I remember there would be all these videos about like people arguing with like feminists and stuff, but. And I started to sort of absorb that for a little bit. And then I talked again. I sort of talked to real life people. I talked to my friends who were women and. And were also feminists. And they sort of helped just sort of conversations almost sort of like this. They helped like take away the antagonism like the like almost sort of like villainy that those videos sort of try to portray. I was like, wait a minute, it's not like that at all. That's. That actually makes a lot of sense. Like, you know, I like that actually. Wow. And so then I didn't really think about it a bit just because, because you know, when you're a kid, you don't want to have too much. Like it's weird to break from your parents. It's not like a bad thing. Like my parents are very, very nice, but it's just a weird. It's just difficult and a weird thing to sort of break away from their ideas. And then, you know, in high school a lot of people, like the high school I went to was definitely like predominantly left because it wasn't quite in my area. I went to sort of like magnet school that was in Richmond. The drive was not fun, but everything else is very nice. But no, so that like just being exposed to a lot of things that I guess my area to some extent, yeah, definitely. Like my area to some extent had sort of villainized, I guess or had like a lot of antagonism or just sort of just thrown out. Right. Like before anyone even gets to say anything for a lot of certain ideas, like, even ideas I might not necessarily like completely like agree with certain things, like just like Marxism, stuff like that. Like even just far ideas sort of. You mention anything like that, it's completely thrown out, like not even looking at it. No One will talk to you. In like my hometown in high school, I guess it was a bit different. It would be like, okay, like, wait, what sort of thing? Or I don't know, like the whole atmosphere was very different. A lot of my friends were left leaning. And at that point, like before I described myself by like, like socially liberal, like fiscally conservative. And in high school I was like, I don't really know anymore what I am. I have no clue. I'm surrounded by a lot of different things that are competing in different ways. And I didn't really have a chance to sort of, I guess discover for myself where really I think I purposefully sort of didn't really think about things myself just because, you know, you don't want to have any sort of antagonism with the family. After 2016, my freshman year of high school, no big elections. So it's also sort of like people weren't really talking about it as much. I could sort of get away with not really having to think about it for a while. And then 20, 20 came around the protests in the summer really made me, like, think about just everything going on in the world and, like, sort of look outside myself, definitely. And this is getting into One of the. I think, like, the questions anyways. But no talking about your first.

33:41 Like, your first memories of politics and how you're kind of evolving.

33:45 Oh, sorry. I feel like you should talk some. I've gone.

33:48 That's okay. I'm listening. Like I said, listening. Very important.

33:51 All right, I'll try to hurry up so you can go. But no. Summer of 2022. Just sort of looked around at the world around me, I guess. Finally, I had to say, just because at One moment, this is a bit bad, probably probably goes out a little bit bad, but not much else to do, I guess. You know, locked in, not much else to do. So much going on. I decided to say, hey, what's. What's this all about? And then also the sort of language program, like I said, that I went to in high school, that was really fun. It was three weeks over the summer with a bunch of different people and diverse experiences, so diverse that I think I was One of, if not the only, for the first and probably only time in my life, straight white man there. And so it was really nice. Sort of just, I don't know, meeting so many different people, engaging in so many different things, and also, like, helping me. I don't know. It was also a very good sense of community, and that very much changed my values. And that coupled with, like, I guess, sort of just looking around myself, like, looking around, trying to broaden my horizons during the pandemic, look at things that I had been trying to ignore for so long. Definitely made. I don't sort of know what happened in that, I guess, like, political machine. I just know what the input was, and I came out very much on the left, so.

35:20 Okay, so you said in high school you were, like, socially liberal, fiscally conservative, but now you're more liberal than you were.

35:27 Yes. So now I'd probably say both liberal.

35:31 Gotcha. Okay, thanks for sharing.

35:35 Oh, what about you? I guess. Sorry, that was so long. I didn't mean to go on a tangent. I'm so sorry.

35:40 No, that's okay. This is what this is for.

35:42 Your turn for a tangent.

35:45 Well, I guess we can, like, focus on. Excuse me, number four, what's your first memory of politics and, like, how you've evolved, which I guess is number five, and then we can go from there. I didn't really realize this until I was older, but my parents were very like engaged in current events. Like they would always. Friday night they would hold themselves in the basement and watch PBS NewsHour and like Washington Week. And they were really up on national and politics and like just what's going on in the world, not just in America. I didn't really know that or appreciate that probably till much later on. And like Sunday after church, they would, my dad especially would get the newspaper and just kind of sprawl it out with his coffee. And he would like spend, you know, an hour plus just reading the news. And my parents would talk about it without us kids. It just something that was. Became kind of a ritual for them, I guess. So I kind of grew up within that and didn't. And so I used to be. Before I was a teacher, I was a journalist. So I was. I think that comes from my parents interest in current events too. But so I remember, I think it was third grade, second grade. I wrote a poem about the 1992 presidential election. Ross Perot, I don't know if you if that name means anything, but he was an independent candidate who ran. He was a Texas oil guy. And so I wrote a poem about Ross's boss. We clearly know I had knew nothing about his policy or politics, but I was. You know, there was a presidential election that was important. So I decided to focus on it. And I was kind of absorbing probably what other people, like my parents were saying about the presidential election. So that was an early memory of like, not activism, but just like cluing into what's going on, I'll say. So I graduated from college in 2006, and summer of 2007, I canvassed for Barack Obama. And I was back home for a little bit before I got another job. And so I canvassed in Plainfield, New Jersey, which is a predominantly black town. And I walked around with this elderly black man who had this like, cane. And we walked from like door to door. And I was helping him up steps and sometimes. But it was a really, I think, formative experience for me, like doing something like acting on my beliefs. And it helped me to because people had questions like, why did you do this? Like, what do you. And it helped me to better like, devote myself to like, what do I believe? So that was fun and kind of informative in 2008. And I very much supported Barack Obama just as someone who is more obviously diverse than any other president before. And just that whole worldview that he brought where he wanted to make. He had a more global perspective on things. And he was going to Berlin, he was going to Cairo and giving speeches and, and that was something that I thought was important. Maybe it's informed by my study abroad experience. So that was a good experience for me. I would characterize myself as like a moderate Democrat. I think I. But here's the thing. We have so many labels and like, Democrat, Republican, like, I agree with some things Republicans say, I agree with some things Democrats say. So I think this two party system we have in our country is not great. It's not. I don't think it's capturing the views of most citizens, but we have to pick a side, I guess. So it would be great if we could have like a legitimate third party like they do in Britain and other countries. Because I think, you know, sometimes I'm like libertarian. Ish. Like, so who's that? Ron, like what was his name? Paul. Like he had some good ideas when he ran. Some not so good ideas that were kind of found out later. But anyway, so my political identity is very much issue by issue. Like climate change is causing harm and really important and we need to devote a lot of time and energy and money to that cause so that my children can grow up in a sustainable earth. So that's. And that's pretty liberal, I guess. But it's, it's important on issues like, like abortion, like, I think I'm more conservative with that. I think my faith informs my view of abortion. I don't know that we should allow like every case for their. Well, I think there should be exceptions, but I think abortion should be. There's a life and we should think about that. What else? You know, other issues, like, I think I'm probably fiscally moderate. Like we should have a balanced budget. Like in our household we try to like have a, you know, you should treat a country's economy like you treat your family's budget. And so I'm probably fiscally moderate there. So I'm kind of a miss, you know, hodgepodge of different views and I think that's okay. But our political system says you really have to be this or you have to be that. And also what's getting attention is the extreme ideas. There's so much noise that you have to be more extreme in order to get your voice heard. And that's something. It wasn't always like that, Donnie It's just growing up. And even like when Obama ran in 2008, like it was, you know, McCain and Obama I think had a pretty like, tame, dignified way of talking. And I remember when someone, an older woman at One of McCain's rallies, stood up and called Obama a Muslim and that she ruined America. And McCain stood up for Obama and said, no, he's a family man. Like, that's. That's not. You're not coming. You're not being accurate. You're not coming from a good place with that comment. And I don't know if a candidate would do that today, would like, actually defend their opponent. So I think we've lost that a little bit. And that's troubling to me because I'm a world history teacher, and so I study empires, and my students study empires of the world and rising and falling of them. And what you find is the empires that are the most successful are the ones that have the most tolerance of different ideas. And when empires start to become intolerant, that is when they're on that downward trajectory, you know, Roman Empire, like this empire in India called the Mughal Empire, the Ottoman Empire. It's the same kind of pattern. So I just, I worry that we're. America is like, following that pattern. I don't know. What do you think about that?

43:09 Yeah, I definitely think that it's a weird spot because I don't have, I guess, memories of at least very defined memories of a less, I guess, if you want to use the word divisive or just polarized time. I don't really have much of a memory of that at all. I think, at least in political memory, like, certainly, like, I have a bit of a memory. Like, my first actual political memory is arguing with One of my friends about whether or not Obama should be president in first grade. And all I could say was, my mom said, it was just my mom said versus my mom said. So once I got involved in politics, I guess at all, you know, it was very much like the election I remember, like, very clearly and talking about with my friends, the first One was the 2016 election. And like, oh, my goodness gracious. You know, like, it's very. So coming from, I guess, like, that perspective, it's. I don't know. I think also, though, there's been a lot of diversity of thought because at least to some extent, maybe not accepted. And I think this is the sort of problem. But I also feel like there's been a lot more stuff, I guess, available. Like, seeing so much brought out has definitely, like, allowed people, I feel like, some sort of intellectual freedom to bring about, like, any sort of ideas with that they might hold. Like, not just like, moderate, but bring about, like, different issues, call attention to different things. Like the protests in 2020, I think, like, that very much, like, called out a lot of practices from the nation's founding and before. And so with a legacy all the way up till there. And so I think that to some extent, that's good. But I definitely agree that that sort of, like, polarization, it makes it hard to get anything done, you know, I think it's also hard, though, because I'm not. I like the mission of One Small Step to sort of try to bridge that gap and end that. It's also sort of. I feel like, just strange for me, though, a bit, because I just don't have anything to compare it to, you know?

45:30 Yeah. I mean, you're 20, and when I was 20, I was still figuring out my political views, and I think I'm, you know, I'm also evolving, and I'm 38. You mentioned 2020 as being, like, important to you, and it was important to me, too. I think in some ways, some of my politics became more socially liberal. You know, many of my students are minority students, Black, Hispanic. And so what came to the fore was, wow, America has some, you know, systemic issues with race that we really haven't fully confronted yet. And in order to be the best country, we need to confront them. Otherwise, they're just going to always be there kind of in the. In the background, and it's. It's. It's never going to fully, like, repair and heal. So I think just thinking of marginalized people in our country and thinking of, you know, black and brown people that like 2020 and what happened, you know, with George Floyd, really, it really resonated with me that we need to do more and we're not doing enough. And we can't just, like, we can't just say this, you know, this will pass. We have to confront it. And that way, I mean, I went to a couple Black Lives Matter protests, and I was thinking of my students when I did so, like, One of my former students actually, like, led the protest at UVA so I just wanted to show my support in that way. And so, I mean, I don't know, 10 years ago, I don't know if I would have done that. But, you know, 2020 was so important to me.

47:21 Definitely. Definitely.

47:25 Let's see. Let's go with some of these questions. Do you ever feel misunderstood by people with different beliefs than you?

47:35 I think sometimes you'll probably have a better answer than I do. I think just sometimes, especially now. One if there's One good thing I feel like about polarization, it's shown that people, like, live in different worlds and also experience and relate to the world very differently. And that's not the same. And I don't. I don't think that's always such a bad thing, relating to the world differently because it has such different ideas. But. But I think that that's a. Something that's often misunderstood, I feel like, about a lot of, I guess, basic assumptions, I feel like, are very different for certain things on the left. And I guess it depends how far you go. I still don't personally quite know how far I go on. Like, the left, I know I'm somewhere there. Don't quite know how far. I feel like, probably a bit beyond moderate, but where exactly that is, what label? I don't quite know, but I feel like definitely a lot of some. I don't know, some basic understandings and ways of relating, sort of, like you said, like, relating to the country. A lot of people just talking with a lot of my friends, a lot of people relate to the country differently, like, because this country has had, you know, structural and systemic racism from before its founding. And that's a. Relating to it in that way is a very different sort of way of relating to the country in a sort of, I guess, like. I guess the way I learned in school. And I think that was something I misunderstood for a while. And I think a lot of people probably misunderstand. Just, you know, like, it's not the sort of, like. Like pledge of allegiance sort of sort of thing. I feel like, at least for me, I feel like that's a very big, like, misunderstood part of, like, what I believe. Like, it's not just that. It's also like, a whole lot of other things. But I don't know. What about you? You might have a better way of articulating something.

49:40 Well, I was just picking up on what you said. No, I struggle with. Still, yes, our country has some systemic issues that have been there since our founding and before 1619 project, I think, has brought that up in such a compelling and passionate way. But how can you also love something that has issues like. And that's my struggle. Like, I. America's great. Like, it's not perfect. No One person is perfect. You or I aren't perfect. So how can we hold those two balls up at the same time and say, what are some things we are proud of as a country that can glue us together? But also, what are some things that we know we need to fix in a constructive way rather than just tearing people down, Tearing people we don't agree with down to the point where there's so much noise that nothing gets done, like you just said. And I struggle with that because it just seems like we're in two different corners and no One wants to, like, compromise or like. And so, I don't know. Like, my uncle served in Vietnam, and he has some very racist views about Asians because he would. He was being shot at by, you know, the North Vietnamese. So how do you. But. But he served his country. And so how do you.

51:03 You know, that's been a very difficult thing for me as well. My dad served in Vietnam.

51:09 Really?

51:10 Yeah, he flew helicopters. And also, like, again, a lot of, like, my area 2020 really sort of made me open my eyes. People I've known, like, like friends, parents and everything that I've known, and I know they're good people, but they hold very racist views. And it's been a very difficult thing to sort of come together. I feel like. And I feel like that's something to sort of like, hold in One hand that they hold very racist views and hold on the other hand that I know these people and care about these people. You know what I mean? It's a very. I still haven't figured that out either. Struggling with the same sort of thing. I think I definitely struggled a lot in 2020. I just couldn't make sense of it. I think.

51:57 Yeah, I think it's a lifetime journey, Donnie I don't think, like, there's One Maybe there are moments like 2020 that are clarity, but there's still the struggle. So just to have ever felt misunderstood. I, you know, I grew up Catholic, I'm a Christian, and I think when I say that to people, everyone, you know, you're in lockstep with everything like the Pope says or that, you know, so there's so many different views out there that there's so much nuance that it's. People paint you in this box, right? It's your. You have to follow exactly what the church like line is. And I find myself sometimes disagreeing maybe, and I think that's okay. But that's kind of when I saw that question. That was what came up with me, People assuming my views on things just because I say that I'm Christian when I might, you know, have a more nuanced view.

53:07 Right? It's. I feel like that's a very big misunderstanding probably among my generation as well. I feel like a lot, because I also describe myself as Christian. You know, I grew up, you know, going to church, going to a Methodist church, very nice, relaxed, sort of, like, worship environment. A lot of, like, it was in, like, a. A place with a lot of elderly people. And we went to the later sermon because my family didn't like getting up early. So it was mostly just us and then, like, elderly people all around us and then elderly preacher just preaching, you know, love and acceptance. And I was like, wow, that's. That's really awesome. But the sort of. And I like that. And that's a very big part of me and part of, like, how I relate to the world, I think, and probably in some way also how I relate to politics, I think. But it's weird, though, because I feel like living like, in the US Right now, it's very much like certain ideas and, you know, maybe there's reasons for why people have certain boxes and stuff. I've talked to some of my friends about it, and some of their experiences have really made me sort of sad. I feel like, with, like, their church experience experiences, particularly talking to some of my friends who are gay and. I know, and I know it's. Yeah, yeah, I know it's not like, all like that. Like, my own experience sort of serves to show, you know, it. It doesn't have to be like that. It's not all like that. But there's a very common. I feel like misunderstanding about that sort of thing where, like, sort of when you want to. When I. at least I do this, like, when I want to tell someone I am Christian, I say, like, it's sort of two breaths. I feel like, like what I believe politically on the One hand, like, and what I believe, like, what some of my values are that they might misunderstand in One breath. And with the other breath, I am. I am Christian. So I sort of say both, you know, I'm almost like, wary to just say, like, I'm Christian and let people build their own boxes. I'm like, wait, wait, don't, don't, don't finish that box yet. Yeah.

55:14 There's a stereotype that is, you know, immediately comes to mind for some people. And I do think, unfortunately, last, I don't know, several years, religion has been politicized. And that's unfortunate how, you know, some pastors, preachers are using the pulpit for political reasons that are outside of Jesus Christ. And that's really unfortunate. And it doesn't. For those who are, like, considering to deepen their faith, it certainly rubs them the wrong way, and that's really unfortunate.