Comments on: Listening with Intent

By: Annie

Annie — Thu, 01 May 2014 06:39:55 +0000

I definitely agree with the quote, and I think it emphasizes one of the most frustrating moments when you’re trying to have an important conversation with someone. You might spend a lot of time preparing intelligent things to say, and ready to have a mature, respectful conversation with someone, but if all they’re doing is getting ready to come at you with stuff instead of having a thoughtful reaction to what you said to them, it causes people to get really burnt out really quickly. Anticipating moments like that are what often make me feel reluctant to strike up those kinds of conversations in the first place.

By: Tatianap

Tatianap — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 23:04:04 +0000

i agree with the quote. I think it makes sense and can definitely be applied to all conversations that talk about race and race relations. a lot of conversations about race come from a positive place but they end in a place where people are very defensive. No on wants to be wrong and no one wants to be called racist, even though people are often both. So i agree that people enter into those conversations not trying to hear that other person’s ideas but mostly to defend theirs. i am not sure how to combat it other than continuously encouraging everyone to listen and to start conversations with an open mind because you could be the one who is wrong.

By: AmandaRG

AmandaRG — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 19:14:10 +0000

I definitely agree with the quote. I can think of a handful of people who I KNOW listen to me when I speak and really hear what I’m saying, but I can think of more people who kind of pretend to or only listen some of the time. You want others to give your ideas a fair chance, but you won’t consider listening to their ideas? It’s a pretty hypocritical thing to do, if you think about it.

I think listening with intent is especially important when talking about race. Whether I’m talking about people who are the same race as me or of a different race, it’s important to listen to them because we all experience race differently. I think it’s even more important to pay attention to people who have different experiences than you because I think that’s where we can start to combat stereotypes and generalizations.