“What about those illegals?” A comment heard at a recent gathering.
“And now they can vote.” Another says.
“No, they cannot vote.” A third person says.
The second person comes back with, “Well, that’s not what I heard.”
We live in an age of so much information and misinformation, that hearsay has become facts. Facts become debatable.
In the 1950’s 75% of Americans trusted government on all levels to do the right thing most of the time. Today, less than 25% do.
Recently a team of NPR reporters and editors reviewed the transcript of former President Trump’s 64-minute news conference and found 162 misstatements, exaggerations and outright lies.
This contributes to 64% of adults saying it is hard to tell the difference between what’s true and what’s not true when listening to elected officials.
So we are finding out what it is like to live in a post-truth or a post-fact world, and it is scary.
When truth or facts leave fear fills the vacant space.
A community is a system of relationships. If there is not a foundation of trust, if there is no sense of what is real, no shared agreement on facts, then the community will fall apart.
In future perspectives I will be writing about a group forming in DeKalb County to hold Community Unity Meals to close these gaps and to build bridges.
I’m Dan Kenney and this is my perspective.
