Can people change?
A tiger does not change its stripes. A leopard does not change its spots. It is what it is. It’s not going to change.
Daryl Davis had heard these things all his life in reference to people who believed differently than he did. In particular, being that Daryl is a black man, he heard it about racists — white people who hated black people because of the color of their skin and the underlying threat posed to white societal power and control.
“Once a racist, always a racist,” or so the saying goes.
But something didn’t sit right with Daryl when he heard these assessments levied against other human beings.
You see, even at a young age, Daryl understood an important detail many often overlook: A tiger and leopard are born with their stripes and spots. A racist is not born a racist.
With this truth guiding his thoughts, Daryl decided to do some exploring.
As Daryl detailed to me in episode 77 of The Follow-Up Question, he started connecting with members of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups, to better understand why they harbor such hatred for him and people who look like him — people they don’t even know.
Daryl never specifically set out to change anyone’s mind. He simply wanted to ask questions and have conversations to see if he could better understand how a person could choose to join a group that actively practices hating other people.
Through this conversational approach, Daryl has been the driving force for more than 200 people to leave the KKK and white supremacist groups like it over the last few decades.
You see, Daryl did not see the people he connected with as permanently and forever marked with racism tattooed on their hearts.
He believed that people could change, but they had to come to it on their own terms.
“It doesn’t surprise me so much anymore when racists — either black or white — change, because I know that racism is a learned behavior, and what can be learned can be unlearned,” Daryl told me. “To this day, I will say I never converted anybody. Yes, I am the impetus for over 200 white supremacists to convert themselves and leave that ideology, but I did not set out to convert them and I did not facilitate that, I just influenced them to think about different things — ideas to think about — and they came to the conclusion, ‘Hey, you know, maybe I am going down the wrong way. Maybe I need to change my direction.’”
We believe change is possible
Do you believe people can change?
I’ve been asking myself this question a lot these days and reflecting on the ramifications of what it would mean if someone answered this question with a “yes” or a “no.”
How different would a person show up in the world depending on their answer?
How might their answer shape their views of other people, especially those with whom they disagree?
As it turns out, I’m beginning to believe that a person’s answer to this seemingly harmless question holds the key to whether or not finding common ground is achievable.
It is fascinating and encouraging that, when directly asked the question of whether or not people can change, the answers I hear are almost unanimously positive.
I asked the question, “Do you believe people can change, or will they always be who they always were?” on my Instagram Stories recently, and every answer I received stated in some form or fashion the belief that yes, people can change.
But what piqued my interest more was how many people included nuance and detail far beyond a simple “yes” or “no.” response. I received feedback like:
“I believe how people approach life changes. Does this mean the person ‘changes’ too?”
“Technically, we can do nothing BUT change.”
“Yes!! Taking personal responsibility takes a courageous individual.”
“We’re constantly changing but always ourselves. That makes the change harder to perceive.”
Is change a moral issue? Is it possible to separate the outward expression of who we are from our mind, our character, our soul? Is change a human responsibility?
More and more questions like these kept piling up in my mind, none of which have a simple or straightforward answer.
But one question started to push its way past the others: If it is true that people can and do change, then how? How do people change?
Jeff Schoep’s story is one where we can begin to find some answers.
Planting seeds
Jeff is the former leader of the largest neo-Nazi organization in the United States, the National Socialist Movement. As the group’s leader for 25 years, Jeff led efforts to spread propaganda, hatred, and fear, and his extremist views caused pain, anguish, and suffering for many.
And then, in 2019, Jeff got out. He left the NSM.
This was no split-second decision. No one yelled at him enough or threw enough facts in his face to get him to suddenly change his mind.
It was the culmination of a multi-year process that began when several people approached Jeff not with judgment or disdain, but with curiosity and a desire to understand how he saw the world.
“It’s about planting seeds. In my own deradicalization process, which I didn’t even realize was happening at the time — most people don’t — is it was seeds that were planted,” Jeff told me in episode 57 of my podcast. “And later on, you start reflecting on that stuff, and when it finally clicks, that’s when lives change.”
And wouldn’t you know it, one of those people who planted some of those seeds was, you guessed it, Daryl Davis.
As Daryl and Jeff began interacting and talking, Daryl presented Jeff with information that deeply conflicted with Jeff’s view of the world — a view that, as Jeff is quick to point out, never started from a place of hate.
“Almost nobody joins these movements based on hate. Hate is developed there,” Jeff said. “… Most of the people that are in, myself included, I believed that I was doing something noble, something honorable, something good.”
Little by little the conversations between the two revealed to each man the other’s humanity, to the point where Jeff could no longer align himself with the worldview he had championed for so long. He found common ground in the most extreme of circumstances, and it changed him.
Now, Jeff’s example is an extreme one. Most of us are not involved in radical organizations.
But that doesn’t mean our feelings about certain topics are any less convicting. Take any issue du jour — immigration, election security, COVID-19, abortion, religion, healthcare, homelessness, food insecurity, foreign wars. Most of us have taken a side or stance (which often is an issue in itself because so few of us are informed enough to hold educated opinions, which I wrote about that here) and can’t seem to comprehend why “the other side” can’t see it our way.
We often think it’s because our opponents don’t have all the facts. So our conversations and arguments are laced with oft-repeated statistics and one-liners that attempt to prove beyond all doubt that we are right and the other side is wrong.
But we’re not in a courtroom. No jury will decide anyone’s fate.
Instead, change happens when curiosity becomes more important than condemnation and when the decision to change is given the space required to consider all of the ramifications of such a shift in perspective and belief.
But there’s a final piece that needs to find its place.
The change equation
If we truly want to understand the unlock to change, the next question that must be asked, then, is “Why?” If people can change, and if change happens because we’re given the space to reflect on other peoples’ experiences and not just our own, then why do we ultimately decide to change direction?
The answer might seem a bit off-putting at first but stick with me.
We change our minds, our actions, our habits, our opinions because we are self-serving individuals — all of us — and we weigh new information and new ways of looking at the world against our current state of comfort.
Whether consciously or not, we calculate in our heads the costs of change versus the costs of staying as we are, always measuring what we stand to gain against what we might lose.
And it is only when the cost of staying the same becomes more uncomfortable than the cost of switching that we conclude that we must change.
This discomfort can show up in so many ways. It can be the discomfort of realizing your actions don’t align with your values. It can be the discomfort of being “found out.” It can be the discomfort of disappointing someone you deeply care about.
Whatever form or shape the discomfort adopts, if it doesn’t sting our ego, our sense of worth, our emotions, our humanity enough, we don’t change.
But this isn’t a doom and gloom scenario despite how it sounds.
Consider Jeff’s story again. I’m no psychologist, but I’d be willing to bet, having interviewed both men — that when faced with the realization that Daryl contradicted everything he thought he believed in and then came to like Daryl and trust him, Jeff reasoned it would be too uncomfortable to continue to lead the National Socialist Movement when he had proof that his ideas and opinions were wrong.
Jeff had to give up a lot when he befriended Daryl and discarded his life of hate for his current life of trying to root out extremism — to work against the very thing he had identified with for so long. He had to give up a community that placed faith in what he had to say. He had to cede power, control, and authority. He had to let go of an ideology that told him he was right and others were wrong.
But Jeff determined the switching costs to be worth it because of what he gained — common ground, perspective, friendship, confidence, a greater purpose, peace.
Our individual role in creating change
If this path I’ve outlined and the questions I’ve pondered make any sort of sense, then there is one final question left to consider, and it is most uncomfortable.
The scary part for me, and perhaps you’re feeling it too, is how often I believe that people must change while not being open to the fact that I might be one of those people.
I’ve learned in all the interviews I’ve done that one of the most impactful ways to move this process of change forward in your life — to create a consistent motion toward creating a little more peace in the world through finding common ground — is to ask more questions:
first, asking questions of yourself and what it is you truly believe, and how you came to those beliefs based on your life’s experiences
then, asking questions about others by getting curious in your mind about how someone else’s lived experience might cause them to see the world differently than you
and finally, asking questions of others by going and seeking out another human being to bring about a fuller understanding of the world
Creating peace that changes all of us for the better ultimately looks like connecting with people and discussing tough questions about life and admitting that none of us have all the answers.
Yes, people can change. And yes, each of us has a role to play.
Because though the tiger and the leopard are born with their stripes and spots, we have a far greater say in who we are and who we eventually become.
