Perspective: A look at “Michigan Divided”

On Sept. 18, 2018, OU’s new Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) hosted a series of activities titled “Michigan Divided: A Day of Civic Engagement.” The Center’s mission is to create and promote opportunities for students and community members to become more engaged in our democratic society.

This can be done through a number of avenues including bringing the campus and community together as a “convener of conversations” around issues of public importance and supporting efforts to encourage and enhance civic engagement, civic literacy and civil discourse.

One of the events featured during the Day of Civic Engagement was the screening of a documentary produced by the Center for Michigan called “Michigan Divided.” The film centers on polarization and division in Michigan. It was created by following both Trump and Clinton voters from Michigan in the months after the 2016 presidential election to better understand why different people made different choices on Election Day.

Individuals from places like Flint, Harbor Springs, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids and the Upper Peninsula appear in the film and talk about their experiences, beliefs and vote choices. A key part of the film is near the end when all of these different individuals gather to meet in person to discuss issues that are important to them and our state.

An important outcome of this discussion is that those the film followed discovered that while others in the room may have made a different choice on their ballot, they shared many of the same concerns about issues and where our state is headed. They also found out that they agreed on more issues than they may have originally thought.

After the film was screened, the roughly 40 individuals from campus and the surrounding communities who watched, engaged in an interactive discussion about the film. Several of the questions posed were related to the issue of division in Michigan. In particular, the questions asked if Michigan was more or less divided today than in prior years.

A majority (56.8 percent) of attendees said that our state is just about as divided today as it was in 2017 while another third (32.4 percent) said we were more divided. The figures change dramatically when 2008 is used as the reference point – nearly two thirds (59.5 percent) see Michigan as more divided while less than 20 percent see it as the same.

Why highlight these figures? Isn’t this just more of the same? Maybe. Residents of Michigan certainly remain bitterly divided on important issues. Frankly, that is unlikely to change in the near future. However, another finding from the data collected after the film screening is important to note here.

When asked, “Did the film give you insight into a perspective different from your own?” nearly 85 percent said that it had. This should not be overlooked. One of the ways to overcoming division is conversation and realizing the those who have different points of view, in many ways, probably share similar concerns and ideas. Is there total overlap? Of course not. That’s part of a diverse society.

That a group of individuals from on campus and off came together to watch a file and got to see a different perspective than their own is a great result. They were exposed to something they may have not been familiar with and yet there was a calm, civil and productive discussion about these differing perspectives.

In part, this is what the CCE is all about–creating more opportunities for people to come together for civil, respectful dialogue about important issues. Look for more from the CCE in the weeks and months to come.