We have come to a very precarious place in our body politic, one that perhaps hasn’t been seen since the '60s, left untended, could render us asunder ala the 1860s.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We are more alike than we are different, but we have to start believing that. One way to do so is to simply put down our phones and turn off our screens and go be neighborly.

How can I do that with someone who doesn’t believe that I have the same rights as they do? That’s a fair question and one I wrestle with daily. As a straight, white, American man, my rights Trump everyone else’s, uber alles, as some would say.

I have had to learn a different type of empathy. In 1994, my sister had a biracial child. A rural Virginia upbringing and my very deep Southern heritage imbued within me a certa

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