Resilience in a Divided World: Confronting Political Violence with Human Dignity - Resilience & Relationships (R&R) - Stephanie Olson and Rebecca Saunders

In this episode of Resilience and Relationships (R&R), Stephanie Olson and Rebecca Saunders have a candid, heartfelt conversation about political violence and the growing culture of dehumanization. From high-profile assassinations to everyday online attacks, they discuss how public and private lives are being invaded, boundaries are crossed, and respectful disagreement is fading.

Together, they call for a return to active listening, peaceful dialogue, and the recognition that every person has intrinsic value that cannot be changed. Through personal reflections, survivor insight, and cultural analysis, this episode challenges listeners to resist hatred, rethink how we engage across differences, and reclaim kindness and dignity in our communities.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Foreign.

Stephanie Olson: 0:17

Hello and welcome to resilience and relationships R and R. I am Stephanie Olson, here with Rebecca Saunders, yes, and we are so glad to be with you today. We're going to talk about not a very light topic today, right? We're going to talk about political violence. And although I hate talking about this. I think it's part of something we do, as far as you know, our work in in essay and and HT and all of that stuff. And so I think it, it fits appropriately in, in some of what we're going to talk about,

Unknown: 0:58

it does. And before we really get started in the conversation. I think it's important to note too, that as an organization, we don't take a hard political stance, and we have varying opinions within our organization. Absolutely, we are not about to say this is how you should feel, or we support this view or this view. Yeah. What is happening when those views are expressed wrong

Stephanie Olson: 1:21

in a wrong, violent way, right? Pause, plug this in.

Unknown: 1:31

Okay, there we go, one of those things,

Stephanie Olson: 1:35

yes, and, yeah, no, I agree 100% and, and I'm sorry, but there is just a right and wrong in this for sure. So we are coming off of so many political whether, well, assassinations, certainly. And we just want to talk about that, because recently, Charlie Kirk, who is a very was a very public conservative spokesperson, was shot and killed at a an event in Utah, and so that that was really striking thing at the same time, almost simultaneously, there was a shooting at one of the Denver Public Schools that was happening at the same time. We also are kind of on the heels that in August, there was a man who just stood up and stabbed a woman and killed her on a bus in Charlotte. And we also have recently, Democratic State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed by a tragic shooting, and Senator John Hoffman and his wife were wounded in a targeted political violent act. And I think we just want to address that. Because regardless of what side you are on, right or left, white or black, all the things, I mean, I could say all the things that have brought division in our country lately. Violence against a human being is wrong. It's never the answer. It's never the answer. And you know, I think it's so important, because one of the things that we teach, and the foundation of everything we teach is you have an intrinsic value that can't be changed, that it doesn't matter who you are, what you look like, where you live, how much money you have or don't have you haven't Yes, your beliefs, yeah, you have an intrinsic value that cannot be changed. And I was speaking at a conference yesterday, and I said, so, you know, we all know that, and look to your right, look to your left. Everybody has an intrinsic value. But then I asked, does, and this was a multi disciplinary group, so there were a lot of forensic interviewers, law enforcement advocates, people who work on the front lines. These are same nurses. These were amazing people who do great work. And one of the things that I asked them was, what about the perpetrators that we're dealing with. And one of the law enforcement officers said, no, they do not and, and he was being facetious, but the reality is, and we all agreed, everybody has an intrinsic value that can't be changed. Everyone has human dignity. Everybody has worth. And. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that everybody is doing the right thing, right. It doesn't mean that we don't have consequences to our actions, or if we're doing something wrong, it's not an evil thing that we've done. I mean, I'm not saying any of that, but the fact that we are human beings gives us that human dignity. And I think we're in this season where we're just dehumanizing people because of what they believe or what they look like even.

Unknown: 5:33

And I yeah, I think that's the root of the issue. Is just we're not seeing that value in people. Because if you were to look at everyone as people with that value, then you can't go on to do some of these things that we're seeing.

Stephanie Olson: 5:48

No, no human life is, is precious and and we look at, for example, Charlie Kirk, who was shot in public, and Irina zaruska. I'm not sure if I'm saying her name correctly, but was stabbed on public transit. We have video of those things, and so because of that, we have seen, and I think that's one of the the changes today in in our world, is that, you know, even with school shootings were not a thing when I was going to school, we didn't have school shooting drills. Those were not something that happened. And even though schools typically don't have or do have cameras, and you can see maybe the shooter enter. Or, you know, we had that shooting at von Mar in Omaha several, several years ago. You can see the shooter entering, but they have not shown anyone getting shot until recently, and I think that makes it extra difficult, because in in the case of the two I just mentioned, Charlie Kirk and Irina zarutska, those family members have that have to see that

Unknown: 7:23

I can't imagine. I mean, it's hard enough Losing Someone You Love, but then to have that, not just on video to see once, but on every news station and playing over and over. I mean, yeah, that's traumatic in itself,

Stephanie Olson: 7:39

right? It really is. And so, you know, one of the things that we were saying before we talked about this is we're not even going to talk about the circumstances around it, or the, you know, whether you agree with people or don't agree. We're talking about people who are conservative, people who are liberal, and people we don't know really anything about, but a woman who is from Ukraine, and it really isn't about what we believe it it really is about We have got to be able to have conversations and have dialog and not respond with this violence.

Unknown: 8:32

And I think that we're seeing, especially through these things, that we have video footage of some of these things that have happened, right? And we're seeing just how desensitized a lot of us are to that violence. When you can take a video of someone being killed and then make light of it,

Stephanie Olson: 8:54

it's horrifying, actually. You know what is really interesting was my sister saw it on social media, and her first response was, Geez, that is a sick thing to do with AI. That's that's what she thought. And then realized that, nope, this is real and happening in real time and and then people celebrate it. People are celebrating violence and celebrating and I just, uh, it hurts my heart. It really does. It hurts my heart. And so we've got people on both sides of the aisle, people who don't deserve to die, and who are doing what they believe is right. And here's the thing, and this is, you know, I was thinking about this the other day, we cannot be. Uh, you know, I come from a Jewish family, and when I think about the Holocaust and what was perpetrated on the Jewish people, we can't go back there. And I really think that there is so much that you know because you believe this, or because you do this, or you look like this, or whatever it may be, we are dangerously close to repeating some of those actions.

Unknown: 10:41

I completely agree with you. I think some might take that statement of comparing, you know, some of the things we're seeing to the Holocaust as dramatic, but I don't think so. It may not look exactly the same, but a lot of those elements are there, that devaluing of people who are different from you. We're seeing that time and time again from people on both sides of the political spectrum.

Stephanie Olson: 11:01

Well, Hitler didn't start with gas chambers, right? We know that. Yeah, hit it's a slow fade. And Hitler started to poison the minds of people who aren't like what he wanted, and that, that is the slow fade that happens, and I certainly hope it never gets to that ever, ever Again, but that's how it starts, this dehumanizing human beings, and frankly, I'm sorry that goes on both sides, both parties are at fault for those things, and all races can be for at fault for those things. And I just think we have to be so careful to really not dehumanize people. Bottom line,

Unknown: 12:15

yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, I'm I'm glad that you mentioned too that it can be both sides, because it is. And I think right now, especially in the light of Charlie Kirk's passing, a lot of conservatives pointing fingers, you know, what you're seeing in one moment can be totally opposite the next moment, right? We can look at one situation and we can say, Oh, well, it's this group of people. But in reality, I mean, if we just even take the last year, we'll look at what else every group is at fault here. Yes, it's a human problem. It's a that's a great way, it is a human problem.

Stephanie Olson: 13:03

I had the opportunity to meet with a couple of our staff members because I was speaking at a conference, and we are all over the place, nationally, and so we don't get to see each other very often, and I was speaking at a conference in the same state that they were in, so I got to have dinner with them, and we were talking about this, and I said, I think there were, like, literally, three political parties at the table. There were three of us at the table. There were three political parties at the table. I believe. I don't even know that for a fact, because I don't know, but one of the staff members was asking about Charlie Kirk, and she said, I don't agree with a thing that he says, but what happened to him was horrific and should have never happened. And that's I think, you know, when we look at like Gavin Newsom came out and said, This is Obama and Bernie Sanders coming out against the violence, like we don't get to do that. We don't get to take people out because they don't agree with us. That's not, should not be a thing. And I think what we're seeing is there are, you know, I'm

Unknown: 14:25

seeing it more with younger voters, but I think it's across the board, but becoming so passionate about politics, which in itself, is not a bad thing, yeah, but we cannot forget basic human decency in that, yeah. And so, I mean, there are lesser offenses too, that I've seen of like, you know, doxing people on social media. That's not appropriate. That's, I mean, taking physical violence, doing things, you know, what's

Stephanie Olson: 14:51

Doxxing people? Do you want to define that for anybody who's older than 30? So.

Unknown: 15:00

Putting public, putting private information public, like where you live, where your family might frequent, where your kids could go to school, all of that personal information that could allow someone to find you, right? And so we'll see that sometimes of you know, I'm going to make all of that information about you public so people who disagree with you can come and threaten you or harm you and like that's that is so crossing a line, and I think we've lost sight of what appropriate boundaries are, that it is okay to respectfully disagree with someone, yeah, and in fact, it's good. It's healthy for our society to have differing beliefs and debates.

Stephanie Olson: 15:35

It's very healthy. And, you know, I think, and that we've removed active listening, for sure, I think that we don't even want to listen to somebody who disagrees with us. And you know, one of the things that I think is really important is that we have these dialogs with people in a peaceful way. And here's what I will say about Charlie Kirk, regardless of what you believe about what he believes. He was a good dialog er and a great debater, and he didn't raise his voice. I mean, at least, I mean, yeah, I don't know. And so disagreed, but respectfully. And I think that that's you know, again, whether you agree or disagree, I do think that we have to be able to dialog and have those conversations, and if I say something that you disagree with, maybe learn how to respond in a way that's not out of anger, because I know it is frustrating when somebody completely disagrees with you. It is frustrating, and that's why I've always said that you are not ready to educate people about some difficult topics if you're still really healing through those things, because you get to be angry, right? You get to heal and people ask questions that are hard could be very In fact, I think I've talked about this before, but I was on a forum, like a social media forum, there was an article written about essay and the person was talking about their experience, and it was a well known person with a well known person, and somebody in the forum legitimately asked a question, Can I ask why people don't name their abusers? And there was just this flood of, how dare you ask that question, what are you and legitimate someone who stands it really is. I just want to understand. I don't understand. So I jumped in and I said, you know, I just want to share that I am a survivor of sexual and domestic violence, and I understand anger, and you have the right to be angry when you've been treated like that, and that is, you know that no shame there. What we can't do out of that anger is educate people. Yeah, and that doesn't mean that. I mean not everybody should educate people, not everybody should be educators, right? And I think that if you're not ready to have a conversation or not ready to debate, that that's okay. Yes, but if you are trying to educate somebody, and that includes, I mean, that includes, like, sit standing in front of somebody, just one on one, or whatever, I think, be mindful that learn how to regulate and how to, you know, because it's not fair of me to just to start. I think when it gets bad, I don't think there's any problem with getting heated and like, Okay, I'm gonna raise my voice a little. I think when it gets inappropriate is when we start name calling, because now we've just lost the argument. Like, once you resort to name calling, consulting, yeah, yeah, you've just lost the argument. And so that's a big deal. But also, the hotter it gets, the more it can lead to violence, like we've seen. With the representatives, and then Charlie Kirk and even arena, who was not a known person, and this person didn't know her from Iota, she got on a bus and happened to sit in front of this person. That's all she did wrong. I mean, so nothing that that's not wrong, right? Yeah, but we, I don't even know what I was saying. It's just so disheartening. I I'm it's disheartening well,

Unknown: 20:35

and I think sometimes what we're seeing with that anger too, is maybe you had an experience with a certain person or a group of people, and then you assume, I mean, right or wrong. You assume that this other person who looks somewhat similar, maybe it's the color of their skin, maybe it's an activity they're involved in, whatever it is, and you assume that you know everything about them. You know the way they believe. And you have this anger toward them that is so unfounded because you've not even stopped to have a conversation? Yeah, absolutely. Because if you start to humanize that person, you'll find out things about them that aren't horrible, right? I mean, that's the whole point of humanizing and and I am not hard to care about people. It is and you can't take your anger out on them. I know you have to find a way to manage those negative emotions on your own. It's a lot easier to take it out on somebody else.

Stephanie Olson: 21:32

Yeah, yeah. And sometimes, let's be honest, it feels good when you're wronged and you want to lash out at some somebody that might feel good in that moment. It is not something that will create change. And you know, one of the things I was talking about at this conference was, how do we create change in a world of essay and HT and domestic violence. How do we create change and make it so it's foundational, like we're not going to live in a world where violence is something that is an option, so essay is not optional. And so how do we create that change culturally and make a difference that way. I know that this is not how to create that change, that violence isn't going to do it. And I it's

Unknown: 22:37

it's really challenging, and if anything, it makes things worse. Yeah, right. I mean, like, at at best, it's ineffective. At worst, it creates more tension, right? And whoever you're trying to stop, whoever supported that person, they are now even more so going to fight against you. I mean, it's, it's, it's not a solution.

Stephanie Olson: 23:01

So I was saying earlier about, you know, like I never had to experience school drills where we had to leave a building because of an active shooter. Active shooter school drill

Unknown: 23:11

to me, because I don't remember ever not doing them. Wow, wow.

Stephanie Olson: 23:15

Yeah, there were just no school shootings when I was in school. It wasn't a thing, and that's a whole other conversation, right? But I think what is hard for me because I never feared going to school, like, were there school bullies? And, I mean, I had people pick on me too, and I, you know, all those things, but I didn't have a fear that somebody would come in and shoot out my school. That was never a fear of mine. We had fire drills, we had tornado drills. But the trauma that we are putting our kids through is horrifying that they have no safe place to go. It's awful.

Unknown: 24:10

Even in the last month, I personally have had two people in my family that their schools have been locked down. So my I have a cousin who's in college, and he is in a different state from where I am, but his college was locked down because of the threats, and I believe they found someone, but nothing had happened. They caught it early enough, right? Well, then my little sister, in a completely different state from that cousin, also, just this last week, there was a threat. Someone had called and said, I've got to get him and start shooting. And they didn't find any weapons. They didn't find anyone. But like, obviously that's going to send everyone. The whole school was locked. Out. All the parents are freaking out, right? Because, you know, if it's serious or not, and I think, like, there's even an increase of people pretending like, right? A fun thing to do to get everyone freaked out about this. It's so sad to see. Like, when did this become a joke? But also, when did this become real life, right?

Stephanie Olson: 25:23

Yeah, you know, I'm just looking up school shootings prior to the year, 2000 and there were incidents where their shootings, like with gang members. And so it's not, it's not that it didn't happen like, I'm looking specifically in the 50s. And there were certainly things there. Most of these were one person targeted. Interestingly enough, there was the Kent State shooting that happened in the 70s, and that was awful, and that was a mass shooting. What I'm not seeing are a lot of mass shootings in schools back in the day. So I, you know, I said it's not a thing. It wasn't a thing when I was a kid. And so that's not necessarily the case, but we certainly did not have, you know, not to the degree, not not to the not to the it's like, I mean, oh my gosh. It's almost like, every other day you see a shooting, and something's going on so well.

Unknown: 26:40

And I think another component to that is that social media piece, you know, of like we are aware of things happening in completely different parts of the country that may have never known about before. That's a great point. Going back to the anxiety on our kids. I mean, that is too much. Sometimes I as an adult, just feel like I don't want to be informed of what's going on today, because too much. It's a heavy weight. And so looking at, you know, teenagers who are getting news on their phones, and they're seeing all these things on social media, they're constantly inundated with the violence going on in our country and in the world at large, and I think that that plays a role in becoming desensitized to that violence, like shootings are just a thing that happens exactly, just happen, but in in that process, I think part of what's happened is it's made it feel more acceptable. You know, I've seen however other many people violently attack someone they disagree with, so now that's an option in my brain, and it's scary.

Stephanie Olson: 27:43

It is scary. And when you actually see it, that's the other thing. Like we are witnessing it on social media. It's not that we're just hearing about it on social media. It's not that we're just we're literally witnessing it. And I do think that changes things. The other thing I will say about social media is when, when somebody posts something that's kind of hot topic, and you read the comments and people are agreeing, just even when people agree, I swear the anger comes out in their comments. And so this becomes normalized. Like you say something, I can call you a name because you're not in front of me, or I can say you're an idiot, or I can whatever, and it becomes very normalized. And so that does lead to the desensitization of human beings, even political figures. You know, you think about, certainly, we had news. Back in the day, news was very I used to watch news with my grandma and grandpa. I know you can't even imagine this, but you know, we had one TV, and you had to get up and turn the channel. And we had like three channels, and I lived in the Chicago area, but news was like, I'm gonna deliver the facts. I don't, as a journalist, have an opinion. I'm going to deliver the facts. That's how news was, and so I can't even picture that either. Yeah, and so did you so the President of the United States, for example. You may completely disagree with the President of the United States, but your conversations about that are with family and with friends and with people. So it's just a I don't know. It's just a different time. And so when you see all of these conversations coming and just having opinions, and this is what I think, and this is you're wrong. And this is, there's nothing wrong with dialog, but it is becoming so it's almost abusive dialog because we're fighting all the time.

Unknown: 30:12

It gets intense. Yeah. I mean, I so if there's a new story happening that I want to know more about, I go to like, four or five different places to try to piece the whole story together without opinion.

Stephanie Olson: 30:24

That's what I was, yes, yeah. Well, okay, so I, I have a news it's a news website, social, whatever. It's called, ground news, and I haven't used it. It is unbelievable, because they give and I am really big on looking at both sides of a topic and really studying both sides. Now what we have to remember is that if we're looking at our news on social media, the algorithm is going to guide that, right? So if you are a liberal person and these are your beliefs, your algorithm is going to bring stories to you that you agree with. If you're a conservative person and these are your beliefs, your algorithm is going to bring stories that you agree with and so what happens is, we start looking at the news, going, we'll see everybody agrees with me, or see everybody agrees with me. So I'm not doing a commercial for ground news, but if you do want to sponsor us, by all means. But the the great thing about it is it gives actually three sides. It says your and it talks about being having a blind spot. So if you are on the right, you're not going to see this. If you're on the left, you're not going to see this. If you're in the center. And so it tells like the percentage of this story was for the right, this story was for the left, this story was for center. It's amazing. And so you can read articles that are all the same, are all the same topic, but with the slant to the right, slant to the left center. And it is great, because then you can start to really piece together what is accurate. Yes, yes. And it's I have really found it very effective. There is a cost, but I have found it an effective way to find news, instead of turning on channels or, you know, searching for it, reading a certain it's just great because it gives you all sides, and that's what we need. It would be great to get the news without opinions. Personally, that's how it used to be. Everyone's lovely. It really was, yeah, just give me the My dad used to always say, just the facts. Ma'am. I think that was from dreadnet or something. But yes, that's all I want. Give me the facts. Give me the facts. I will then make an opinion based on those things with my value system, that'd be great well, and

Unknown: 33:28

I think that's something we've lost sight of too, is it's okay to have your own opinion? Yes, you can weird, weird. And I think that, like so often it's like, okay, well, I have these political views, so whatever this person's opinion is, is now my opinion? Right? No, like, That's ridiculous. It is ridiculous in the world, and we should all have slightly different opinions, because we're different people with different

Stephanie Olson: 33:55

experiences, yes, yes. And I think that's extremely important, and it's hard for people, but critically important, yeah, I agree with you 100% I think we're just in a rough time right now, and it's scary out there, and it's disheartening, and it's, I mean, there's just so much going on in our world that's Not good. So I think bottom line is, for us, you have an intrinsic value that cannot be changed. Doesn't matter who you are, where you live, how much money you have, how much don't have, your gender, what color skin you have, it doesn't matter you have an intrinsic value that cannot be changed, and it's precious that human dignity, that you are human, and this is a human problem, and so let's respect each other as human beings. That doesn't mean we agree with people. That doesn't even mean we might think like that person is not a good person, or, gosh, I just I don't like that person. Whatever. That's fine, but, but that doesn't mean that we should be calling them names and we should be violent towards them or whatever. So everyone

Unknown: 35:12

deserves that basic level of respect. Yeah,

Stephanie Olson: 35:16

basic level, right? And then you earn or lose it, right, but as human beings, that we walk around with these total strangers that we don't know, and it's okay to just be kind, I see, you know, there's all those shirts that are just be kind, and I think that's a really important thing. That doesn't mean you approve of things that are wrong. That doesn't mean just be kind. And can we stop the violence we are? We are human being. Oh, yeah, it's disheartening. So anything else to add?

Unknown: 35:53

No, I think that covers it,

Stephanie Olson: 35:56

all right. Well, on that note,

Unknown: 36:00

we'll have a lighter podcast next time, I'm sure

Stephanie Olson: 36:02

too let's do so go out and do amazing things, but get some R and R and we will see you next time. Thank you. You.