Wednesday, October 28, 2026

Why I Won't Tell My Students Who I'm Voting For – DTH Episode 339 with April Chatham-Carpenter

Send Wilk a text with your feedback! (incoming msgs only - I can't reply) (https://www.buzzsprout.com/969574/fan_mail/new) This episode opens a new Derate the Hate series built around the Braver Angels Civic Scholars Council, a cross-partisan group of scholars and practitioners writing about what courageous citizenship looks like in practice. The series came out of a suggestion from Harry Boyte, and it sits close to home for Wilk, who works at Braver Angels and helped shape the organization's courageous citizenship direction. First up is April Chatham-Carpenter, who teaches communication in Arkansas and serves as the Braver Angels state coordinator there. Her paper, Role Multiplicity in Practice: Practicing Courageous Citizenship in Contested Civic Spaces, starts from a plain observation: none of us show up as just one thing. April is a professor, a department chair, a moderator, a Christian, a mother, and a conservative—often all in the same week, sometimes in the same room. Each role carries different expectations and different risks, and she argues that the choices we make about what to say and what to hold back are where civic courage actually happens. The conversation stays personal and practical: classrooms, a public television set, a church pew, and the feedback both April and Wilk get from people convinced they're on the wrong team. Wilk has been a guest on April's show, A Braver Arkansas, and brings his own experience as a conservative who regularly gets accused of not being one. Key Themes •      Holding back isn't the same as staying neutral. When students ask who she's voting for, April doesn't answer—because once they know, that single label tends to swallow everything else they know about her. Drawing on Mónica Guzmán's work on curiosity, she wants her students to see people as more than one piece of their identity, and she models it by refusing to be reduced herself. •      A developer of people, not a shaper of clay. April describes her job as building capacity, not changing minds. She tells her students up front she isn't trying to change their opinions. And when she gets it wrong, she tells them that too—including the day they diagnosed her "lizard brain" after a conflict she didn't handle well, and they talked through what it would take to repair the relationship. •      Persuasion as an invitation. Using invitational rhetoric and Julia Minson's research on conversational receptiveness, April reframes persuasion from winning to bringing people into a conversation where you might learn something too. Her students practice it through structured one-on-one conversations, including Braver Angels' Depolarization Dojo. •      The cost of showing up in a one-party state. Two deans have advised April to keep her Braver Angels work separate from the university. One told her she'd never be conservative enough for the people who would judge her. Wilk knows the feeling: every week he's accused of being either a liberal in disguise or a conservative pandering to the left. •      Knowing who you are. How a person describes themselves matters more than how others describe them. Wilk ties it back to a core Braver Angels practice: speak freely, fully, and without fear—and treat each other with respect while you do it. Takeaways •      Everyone carries more than one role. Noticing which one you're in, and what it asks of you, is the first step to engaging well. •      Holding back your view can be a form of engagement, not avoidance. Sometimes it's what makes a real conversation possible. •      Owning your mistakes in front of others builds more trust than pretending you don't make them. •      You can't control the labels people put on you. You can stay clear on what you believe and bring your whole self to the conversation. About Dr. April Chatham-Carpenter April Chatham-Carpenter is Professor and Chair of the Department of Applied Communication at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where she teaches a course on listening and civil dialogue. She serves as Arkansas State Coordinator for Braver Angels and is a member of the Braver Angels Civic Scholars Council. With Glen White, she co-hosts the public television series A Braver Arkansas and the On the Other Hand podcast, sponsored by Braver Angels Arkansas. Learn more about and connect with April Chatham-Carpenter: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/april-chatham-carpenter/ TV Show: https://www.pbs.org/show/a-braver-arkansas/ Podcast: https://ontheotherhand.podbean.com/ Resources Mentioned April's Paper: https://www.beyondintractability.org/cic_documents/courageous-citizenship/Chatham-Carpenter.html Civic Scholars Council: https://braverangels.org/civic-scholars-council/ Full Paper Collection: https://www.beyondintractability.org/BA-CSC-papers Braver Angels: https://braverangels.org/ 📰 Allsides.com We’re all worn out by the F.O.G. that comes with the daily news, but still want to stay infor...