Are San Jose's redistricting follies a sign of municipal dysfunction? D3 Council Candidate (and Psychology PhD) Irene Smith diagnoses

If you've ever thought "this is too divisive" while listening to arguments and comments in city politics, you've got company with Irene Smith, candidate for San Jose's D3 council seat. Smith has a masters in Family and Child Counseling and a PhD in Psychology. At the Santa Clara County small claims court, she has heard over 2,000 cases. Smith sits down with Opp Now's Christopher Escher for a discussion about what the redistricting kerfuffle says about the city's mental health and the hope for cooperative problem-solving.

Christopher Escher: I suppose we should be used to it by now, but I was floored by the extremity of the behavior, the violence of language, the baselessness of the argumentation on display last Tuesday at the redistricting meeting. For example, charges of racism and discrimination and suppression were thrown around like colored beads at a Mardis Gras parade.

Irene Smith: We have Conflict Entrepreneurs who benefit financially by raising the emotional aspects of any issue in order to gain attention and traction. They are not interested in problem solving or creativity. They are interested in polarization. They want an 'us' versus 'them' tribal emotion which can lead to trouble.

CE: The language is really loaded. But the funny thing is, it's increasingly losing its punch. The first couple of times somebody hurls outrageous insults at you--it kind of stings. But then you get used to it and it becomes farcical.

IS: Name calling, which we left behind in kindergarten, is no longer taboo and in fact is encouraged to sustain a point of view. There are those who feel extreme conflict is an irresistible attraction, like watching a car accident in slow motion. There is a misperception of moral high ground, personal belief and deep meaning, and a sense of belonging that enables a feeling to "defend at all costs"; especially when there is a fight between 'us' vs 'them'. However, there is only us. The fight between good-us and evil-them is imaginary; there is only us. And the value tags of good vs evil do not help us solve problems. Isn't that our true goal?

CE: I would hope that's our goal, but sometimes I wonder if problem solving really is the goal of the extreme behavior. I always remember last year when Liccardo's home was trashed and activists put up a guillotine--a guillotine!--in front of City Hall. Lenin famously said: "worse is better." I wonder if the end game is just chaos and disruption. Which is why some of the arguments make little sense. For example, a lot of activists were trying to link redistricting to redlining. It's a baseless argument.

IS: Redlining was a travesty - it is illegal, unethical and placed barriers between 'us' and 'them'. The banks which decided which neighborhoods to invest in and which to not, were not focused on people. Now is not the time to repeat any of the behavior which emotionally separates us from each other. In order to create solutions, we must be creative; and high conflict which involves an 'us' vs 'them' mentality will only make any difficulty substantially worse and leave us without solutions.

Redlining did not create districts and redistricting cannot repair the economic injustice of redlining. But if we fight each other mercilessly then we can certainly make the" us" vs "them" divide much greater and our emotional lives much worse. With the viciousness, many moderate folks have checked out. They do not want to be a bystander to the fight and don't want to participate. We are losing voices because we insist on the extreme conflict. We are losing creative approaches because the conflict itself has become more important than redistricting.

CE: But creative problem solving requires open-ness to new ideas, flexibility, a certain joy and embrace of fun in expanding your mindset. I often only see the opposite of that in local debate. I spent twenty years doing marketing, and it's clear that many people are following a strategy that is the direct opposite of creative problem solving: it's bullying, it's closed-minded, it's nasty.

IS: We now have cataclysmic emotional cliffs. If we side with the Unity Map we disenfranchise 159,000 people forced to leave their neighborhood district of origin. If we side with the Community Map we are called racists holding on to historical privilege that no longer moves with the current times. Two solid emotional, staunchly held camps. The leaders of these camps have met with constituents and had several successful compromises. However, the callers within each group are ferocious and angry that something is being taken from them without consideration of their voices. And because no one feels that they are being heard, creativity is nowhere to be found. Only anger and name calling. Only more of the same human behavior that we fought against before in redlining and must still maintain our vigilance. We've worked hard to be neighbors and friends; color coding us into race boxes just makes more 'us' vs 'them'. To progress, our society can no longer have space for 'us' vs 'them'. We stand together or we fall apart.

CE: So put on your legal hat now for a second. Is there something in our legal structure or political structure which invites this nasty form of debate?

IS: Traditionally through law we have an adversarial model. It is not a great model for leadership nor for problem solving. Prosecution vs defense. Someone will win and someone will lose. Let's change the dialogue and better emotionally support one another where we can all mostly win. When I heard small claims cases I would strongly encourage opposing parties to go out in the hallway before I heard the case to discuss how they could solve their own problem. Was this easy? Did they really want to? Was it just easier to hand the problem over to someone else and have them decide? I would encourage them with these last words. Once you turn your problem over to someone else to decide, it's taken out of your hands. As soon as I hear the case it will be my decision. You came here because you both believe you are right. But despite your strong belief that you are right, someone will win and someone will lose. Wouldn't it be better to creatively solve your own problem rather than having it addressed by a third party who must apply the strict letter of the law and does not know your situation as much as you. The law is not creative, it's a very narrow path applied strictly to unique human behaviors as a last resort. A compromise where you are slightly satisfied is better than someone deciding for you and being completely dissatisfied.

CE: One of the things Hayek and von Mises talk about is how free markets are about constant creation and re-creation, how the game is never over, how there is always the promise of a new idea and a reimagining of how things get done and how people interact with each other. Markets require cooperation and tolerance.

IS: It begs the question of how will this redistricting struggle end? Do the teams work together? Do they listen, so each is carefully heard? Or for whatever decision is made, will people use the final decision to merely validate their position? The Unity Map lost, so everyone is a racist. The Community Map lost, and no one cares about neighbors and neighborhoods. Or can we re-write our future? In 100 years when folks look back will they look at how we did our redistricting as we now look at redlining, discrimination, and reverse discrimination? Or will they look back and see that we pulled together and instead of fighting each other we fought the "us" vs "them" mentality. That we found a way to listen and also a way to be heard.

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Photo taken by Jeff Hitchcock.