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(bright music ends) - Just ahead on a special "Carolina Impact, Seeking Unity," we explore the phrase, "We the people from the US Constitution."

Join me for a great conversation with an amazing group of panelists.

It all starts right now.

(bright piano music) - [Presenter] PBS Charlotte presents a special "Carolina Impact, Seeking Unity."

- Good evening.

Thank you so much for joining us.

I'm Amy Burkett.

The first three words of the US Constitution are extraordinarily powerful.

"We, the people."

It declares that the Constitution gets its power from the people and not from a king or a Congress.

"We, the people" of the United States come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors.

And when our country was founded, people came from all over the world in search of the American dream.

People still come to the United States for that, but we're experiencing a painful time of divisiveness.

We'll break up our conversation this evening into two parts.

First, we'll work to promote understanding of different cultures, and then we'll discuss ways to bring people together and heal our divisiveness.

So let's meet our panelists right now.

We begin first with Tommy Nichols.

He is the founder of the Charlotte Black Film Festival.

Tommy, talk to us a little bit about one of your favorite family cultural events.

- Our family reunion.

Every Labor Day weekend, the family gets together across the country and we come together.

We vote on where we're gonna go, and we all come together, those we haven't seen in many, many years, and just celebrate family.

- And celebrating family.

That doesn't sound very different from any other family that you might talk about.

Is there anything unique to your black culture that you share that others might not understand?

- You know, I guess one of the things is that when I look at my grandfather, and my grandfather came to North Carolina from Virginia.

My grandfather owned a large part of Lake Norman, and someone knew that Duke Power wanted that.

And somehow my grandfather sold the land and then Duke Power bought the land from that particular individual.

So that's kind of a unique story with my family.

I probably would be heir to millions of dollars (Amy and Tommy laugh) if that had not happened.

- [Amy] Oh, Tommy, thank you for sharing.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Next up, let's meet Ruth Perez.

She's a community advocate.

And Ruth, talk to us, help us celebrate your culture, and what's special and what are one of the traditions that you so appreciate?

- We, as Latinos, we are so unique.

I don't know if you experienced that in North Carolina, but we have multiple festivals that appear and pop up in Charlotte, the Latin American Festival, the Hola festivals.

We make festivals for any reason.

FC Charlotte won, FC Charlotte lost, we make a big festival.

So we are just, love to get together, be united, have a big old blast of parties every time.

We celebrate something for good or bad, but we're always celebrating.

- Thank you so much for sharing.

Finally, let's meet Jeff Turk.

He's the chair of the Jewish Film Festival.

Jeff, please tell us about one of your favorite cultural traditions.

- Well, I have to say my favorite cultural traditions would revolve around food.

- [Amy] Mm.

- And Jewish food and Jewish holidays in particular.

And so, I can go down each holiday and think of the great food that has been celebrated with those holidays and passed down from generation to generation.

- A couple of favorites?

- Potato latkes in Hanukkah.

- Oh, my.

- Apples and honey at Rosh Hashana which is our Jewish New Year.

And Passover, while matzah is not my favorite, there's any number of recipes that my wife makes that I do embrace every year and look forward to.

And of course, bagels.

(laughs) - Love it.

What do you put on the bagel?

- Cream cheese.

Lox and cream cheese.

- Lots of cream cheese.

(everyone laughs) - No, no.

Lox and cream cheese or cream cheese or scallion cheese.

- I love it.

- Muenster cheese.

I could make a meal three times a day with bagels.

- You know, when we were talking before we started filming, friends, you pointed out, Jeff, that we have more similarities than we do differences.

- Absolutely.

- And if people could focus on the similarities, what are some that you say and how people can come together?

- Well, one similarity right away is the family involvement and the commitment- - Yeah, we've heard that from all three of you.

- to family and celebrating our rich heritage and customs.

- So how do we celebrate your uniqueness, yet come together at the same time?

You know, some people would say, you're trying to make me not whatever I am, and when you want us to celebrate each other.

Any thoughts about that?

- Well, understanding, - Yeah.

- Understanding.

And I think also trying to find what is the common thread between my culture, what Ruth and her culture might be celebrating, Tommy and his culture.

But I think understanding and really trying to find the common denominators bring us together.

- I love it.

Ruth, talk to us more.

- Yeah.

I would add on understanding, and with an open mind and being open for agreement to disagree.

Sometimes we have to learn how to respect and agree, even though it might not be our custom.

It might not be my culture, but let me learn from it.

Let me be open.

Hey, I'm not gonna lose or win anything, but I wanna be challenged.

And that's something that we kind of block ourselves sometimes.

- And it seems, Tommy, like this is something, and we can all jump in on this, that we've seen a lot because of social media.

I admit to being 55 years old and I feel like this in my lifetime is more divisive because people wanna point out, no, if you are whatever, and it's different than me, I'm not going to like it.

You and I talked a little bit about social media, and what it does.

How do we agree to disagree anymore?

We used to be able to do it and it seems like we've lost that skill in the US.

- This is true.

Even the constitution talk about freedom of speech- - [Amy] Absolutely.

- right?

- But your speech is now judged.

And so, it's almost as if it's only right if I believe it.

And no matter what no one else believes.

And so, I believe you have to refresh your mind daily, so that you can have a open and clear perspective about life.

As long as you allow that seed to continue to penetrate your thinking, then you're gonna continue to think like the masses, versus having kind of this renewal every day to think, have a clear perspective about life and who you are, and the positive things you wanna create and achieve in that particular day.

- Mm-hmm.

How do we, there are some people say, and I don't want this to be a religious conversation, but I want it to be, they often say Sunday mornings and the faith community is the most divided time in America.

Speaking of faith in general, it's such an important thing to so many of us.

How do we understand each other's differences, respect our different faiths?

And that causes so many hurts when we don't.

Jeff, let's start there.

- So I don't know that I have the answer, but I think the word is respect.

You start with respect and if you're not respectful, then you can't solve anything, and you're actually putting wedges.

And so, I would answer to you that it starts with respect.

- Ruth, your perspective?

- I think besides respect is actions speak more than words.

The way they see me out there is not how I get.

How do I go to church and be on a Sunday service and try to profane that I'm a Christian or any beliefs, but then I disrespect my neighbor?

I don't even salute my, anyone, my friend, or whatever.

So my actions are the ones that are gonna reflect and are gonna show and prove who we really are, and what we want.

Do I need unity?

Do I want unity?

I'm gonna act unity.

- Tommy, your perspective.

- Yeah, it's interesting.

I remember one time I was at the corner of Trade and Tryon, I was walking and this group of Middle Eastern men had a sign says, "Jesus, Moses, and Muhammad."

And I asked a question, different religious beliefs, they were Muslims, I said, "Well, tell me how do you see Jesus?"

And they said, "They saw Him as a prophet."

And so, we had this big dialogue and all the younger people was around as we were talking.

And so I established a covenant with him.

Didn't judge him, but we shook hands.

I said, let's do this.

If what you're telling me is true, then may I walk away from this day and believe.

If what I am saying is true, may you walk away from this conversation and believe.

We established a covenant, gave each other high five and walked away.

- How neat.

- That's how I did that.

(Tommy laughs) - Yeah.

- What a beautiful example of trying to walk the walk, trying to profess that we can all come together and respect our differences.

- [Tommy] Right.

- But yet, I wanna go back to, and I wanna talk specifically, and we'll start with you Tommy, about social media.

- [Tommy] Yeah.

- I love it for being able to connect with my friends from high school who live in Ohio.

I used to live outside Chicago with my husband, and we've lived in Pennsylvania.

And so, Facebook is beautiful to see our friends.

- [Tommy] Yes.

- But there's just so much divisiveness that have come along with that.

How can we use social media for good and not to divide?

- Yeah.

I think it's an individual thing at this point in time because you can look at your culture and groups of people by faith, and they're all thinking differently.

No one is on one accord these days.

And so, I do something called Monday Morning Minutes.

And my Monday Morning Minutes, I speak about topics, general topics, and I have a kind of a positive component to those conversations.

So that's kinda my personal responsibility to set the track on truth and love, and that's what I do personally.

- Truth and love.

What do you do, Ruth, to help?

- Well, sometimes, I think are, human being, every single person should challenge themselves, and look at themselves in the mirror and know who they really are, their value and what they are within in themself.

Social media to me is just a tool, like you mentioned, just a tool that could harm or could expose you to failure or to success.

I personally believe that it's not what I read that goes into me.

It's what I have that comes out and makes that change.

So I could read hatreds in there.

I mean, I've seen so many groups, but that doesn't harm me.

That doesn't change me.

That that's not gonna change my perspective.

That's not gonna change who I am.

My sense, my love, what I feel for humanity.

That's not gonna invade the light that I carry.

That's not gonna change none of that, you know?

For instance, it's gonna change it to better.

I'm gonna turn it around, flip it around and make it better.

So we just gotta teach our new generation that social media could be a double weapon.

And what we really do for them is at home, start establishing their identity, who they really are, why they're here, their real purpose, their value.

So that way, no harm out there, no weapon will come against them and make 'em become failure, become losers, become unwanted.

And they can start profaning that hate 'cause that's how it multiplies.

- And so much with our young people, Jeff.

It's how many likes did you get on whatever?

Even if you posted something, you were wherever you were, Hey, I'm here.

Oh no, I see my 22-year-old college students.

- Not only young people.

I've met womens.

They get depressed if they load up a picture, and they don't get a like.

They'll even call their friend and say, "Why didn't you put a like on my picture?"

(Tommy laughs) And I'm like, I mean, "I didn't even notice you put it up for likes.

I mean, I thought it was just a picture."

I mean, not only young kids, and we're being the role model of those young girls.

- Absolutely.

Your thought, Jeff?

- Well, I use social media for positivity, primarily at least.

And so, I try to tune out and ignore where I see hate and negativity.

I do think it's much easier for people that feed into that to write something that they wouldn't say.

And I don't understand why there's negativity on social media because the positive part is so wonderful.

- [Amy] Right.

- And that's what's so great, like you said, like to keep and connect- - [Amy] Love, connect.

- with old high school friends or college friends, or even neighbors.

And, but I don't understand why you would get on social media.

- And spread hate.

- Amy, to have.

- Yeah, go ahead.

- Yeah, one quick comment.

And we should also use social media to defend righteousness.

And what I mean by that is this, I remember when Kanye West came out and really started talking about the Jewish culture.

And I saw that, and I have relationships with the Jewish community.

I've been mentored by an individual who was Jewish in my early twenties.

And so, I created a post to defend.

I said, if anyone's listening to this gentleman who's speaking negative about the Jewish culture or the Jewish race, you are a fool to listen to him.

And I did that on social media.

- That's great.

- Yeah.

'Cause we gotta keep in mind that, you know, even though we don't talk about religion or anything, but there's a particular book that gives us the instructions for this life.

And it gives us the right to choose from right and wrong.

That's, to me, social media, right or wrong, I get to choose.

I have the power to choose where I wanna direct my life to.

- [Tommy] That's good.

- So, we have the right to do it.

I mean, there's no one else.

Not even teachers, not even colleagues, not even, no one, not even mentors.

It's within you.

There's a word, there's a little voice that will monitor you every single day, while you're asleep, while you're awake, hey, you're doing wrong or you're doing right.

Why are you hating this?

He hasn't done nothing to you.

Why are you don't say hi?

Why are you just being yourself?

We have to get out of that box and learn how to experience life.

This is life, being loved and give love.

- [Tommy] Yes, that's good.

- It is so good.

And we've already gone there.

We talked about the second half of our conversation, transitioning into solutions, and we're already into possible solutions.

(panelists laugh) And again, no one person has the ultimate solution.

- Right.

- But if we each share a piece, I feel like that leads to it.

So I wanna start with you, Jeff, and something that is tangible.

So many times people say, "Oh, we can't solve it.

There's just no way to solve it."

But that's a negative thought.

And if you think negatively, negative things happen.

So I really try to be a positive person.

What's one positive thing that anyone can do?

- I think take the time to understand is, and that's something that I really try to do, but it takes a little bit of time.

And I think also to reach out and to connect and to build bridges.

- Building bridges as opposed to throwing landmines behind you and watching the bridge explode.

Ruth, I know you have more thoughts about that as well.

- Oh yeah.

Me as being a mother, grandmother, I try to learn new recipes for my kids.

Seeing the world right now.

- Good food.

- Yes, food- - Food brings us together.

- bring us together all the time.

So, especially when you have to take care of yourself, and you wanna live more.

Like in my case, I wanna live more and I wanna learn.

I'm on the daily learning system where whatever is not gonna harm my family or myself, I wanna be there.

So why not get out of your regular box?

Why not get out of your regular routine, and learn how to do something different?

Maybe you've never learned how to give a hug.

Maybe you've never learned how to shake a hand of someone that you didn't know.

Or for instance, like what Tommy said last week, if you're in an elevator within three-feet distance, you know, I'm not gonna take it away from you, - Yeah.

- but- - Go ahead.

(Tommy and Amy laugh) - Learn.

- But we can adopt it.

- Let's challenge- - We learned something from Tommy last week, and that we can all adopt.

- We can all adopt something new, and that particular action will lead you to make bigger changes.

The more you act, the more you try yourself and force yourself.

I'm not saying you're gonna change for one day to another, but if you embrace and start little steps by step, by the time you turn around, you've gone a long way.

- So good.

Tommy, I want you, since it was your idea that when we were talking about it, tell us how did that start that you talked to everyone in elevators?

- Yeah.

I realize heaven is gonna look more like what we have at this panel.

And so as a result, I see people as people.

I don't see your color.

I see the heart of the individual.

And so I have this three-foot rule, if you anywhere on the elevator, three-foot rule, I'm gonna say something to you, I'm gonna communicate.

If we sit in the table at a hotel, whatever I create, I see something about you that I can comment on.

And I find that people love sharing their life.

They love sharing their stories with complete strangers.

And I'm able to bond with people.

And I learned in the process about cultures and people as a result of my three-foot rule.

- If we were within three feet.

- Three feet.

- So I love the fact that you brought a group of students that you work with to our studio - [Tommy] Yes.

- for a tour.

Gosh, maybe a month, month and a half ago.

- [Tommy] Yes.

- And you opened your mouth and said, "Hello."

And I just felt this kindred spirit in you, and you wanted to get to know me, and I wanted to get to know you.

- Absolutely.

- And I wanna thank you for bringing this beautiful panel together, friends of yours that you introduced me to, and now, I'm so honored to call you friends of mine- - Yes, yes.

- as well.

- Absolutely.

- Isn't that the way the world works.

- Yes.

- How do we, so, but let's not sugarcoat this.

Unfortunately, the world is not rainbows and unicorns.

We have a lot of hate in the world.

- [Tommy] Yeah.

- What's the number one thing?

And I know love defeats hate, but for someone who doesn't understand how to love, how do we introduce them in small parts beyond just saying, hello?

I'm gonna start with you, Ruth.

- Someone cannot give what they never received.

- Mm.

- Hate, it's coming and following us for so many years, and it's become a culture.

It's become, became a culture, a tradition.

And there's even sects where there's places where you get bind to become a hater.

It's similar to religion, and that's what the number one weapon, it's keeping us aside.

It's keeping us divided by not breaking those barriers where we were taught of hatreds.

And for instance, in my family, I was not allowed to marry a Mexican person.

That was against the law.

That was against our culture.

That was hateful.

You cannot get married to a Mexican 'cause he's a macho man.

That's the cape that they carried 'cause of the movies or whatever.

Nowadays, it's not a macho man.

Now, it's a narco man because that's what the society is bringing out.

- Narco, you mean drugs?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- So how are we gonna break that?

Giving an opportunity of knowing and flipping that, saying, hey, that might be the way you thought, and I respect that, but give yourself an opportunity to get to learn that person for who they are, and not what the society had put over.

That's what we need to learn.

- That's dispelling a stereotype.

So let's go there a little bit and talk about stereotypes.

What is a big stereotype, myth that we could dispel in the black community, Tommy?

- Hmm.

I think one of the things is that they say that we're lazy.

That we want government assistance.

That black people are troublemakers, so you see a lot of those myths.

And I work very hard as African-American male.

I work very extremely hard in what I do.

And so, I think there's a lot of myth that way in terms of our culture.

And they take us, they group us together versus looking at us on the individual basis.

You know, who is Tommy Nichols?

And once you find out who that is, you'll find many of those myths, many of those stereotypes that you've heard about, you probably can dispel those at that particular time.

And I think that exists for everyone in the African-American community.

- Thank you, Tommy.

Jeff, your turn.

Help us dispel some myths in the Jewish community.

- Well, I would say, first of all, I was just listening to what Tommy said and I was like, how horrible that these myths are out there.

- Absolutely.

- Mm-hmm.

- And so, the Jewish myths that I've grown up with, and you know, the Anti-Defamation League website, I think there are two that are very hurtful, and I almost really feel, have a difficulty even speaking it, but one that Jewish people are greedy and that they're power-hungry.

And I can assure you that that is a myth.

And I don't know where it started.

- Can myths be sometimes, if there's one person, and in all races, in all types, large, small, young, old, not everyone's the same, even within our different cultures.

- Right, absolutely.

- And if one person makes a mistake and does something inappropriate that may be greedy, or maybe lazy, or maybe, you know, one Mexican sold narcotics and then it became the label for everyone.

And the myth of whites is that we don't care about others.

We only care about ourselves sometimes.

How, you know, we can stop that one.

Yes, there are outliers.

Yes, there are whites who have done horrible, awful things, and there are people who've done horrible, awful things in every style, shape, and size.

I often see when things, something bad happens, and this is where social media comes, and everyone globs onto it.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- And then we just all, and we label everyone by one person's mistake.

We're running outta time, but I really wanna give each of you some final words of what do we do?

Unity is such a beautiful dream.

And this country, we've seen everything.

We've seen the Abe Lincolns of the world fight for freedom.

We've seen Martin Luther King fight for freedom, and we've made some level of progress, but we aren't there yet.

I think as lifelong learners, we're never gonna be there, but can we do better?

Tommy, I wanna give you a final word of how do we do better?

- Yeah, yeah.

Well, remember that social media is used really to deceive you.

And not every issue is a righteous issue.

So don't speak about everything unless you do your research.

Don't act upon anything unless you know it's a righteous issue that's gonna move the bar forward.

And so, I would just say just be, live a life of truth without, when I say righteousness of truth, and a life that will push the bar forward for the greater good of our society.

- I love it, Tommy.

Ruth, your final words.

- Well just think about what we sow, we reap.

And how we wanna see ourselves and our families, that's how we gotta learn how to treat each other.

If I don't want my family being mistreated, be rejected, be discriminated, I gotta start being the bridge-builder.

I gotta start being the breakthrough.

I gotta start doing, making that change and see myself, like Tommy just mentioned, seeing a human person, just who they are, not by the color, by their culture, by their origin, by what they choose to be.

Just be themself.

- Jeff, you get the last words.

- Oh, wow.

Well, I would say outreach and reaching out, and building bridges is the answer.

And for me, I like to celebrate what we have in common and respect what our differences are.

And being on the panel today has been wonderful, by the way.

And with Ruth and Tommy, I feel like I have new friends.

- Mm-hmm.

- Absolutely.

- And two new people I wanna get together with and learn more, so it's not gonna stop here.

And I think if I do that and everybody else that is in the listening audience commits to that as well, - [Tommy] Yeah.

- we'd be a better society.

- Yep.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Tommy Nichols, Ruth Perez, and Jeff Turk, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your perspectives.

Well, creating unity in a diverse society isn't easy, but understanding what we have in common as opposed to only looking at our differences can help.

And here are a few more suggestions.

Greet everyone, especially new and unfamiliar people.

Avoid jokes or comments that may be offensive.

That may require us to educate ourselves through authentic conversations like the one we just had, or do our own research.

And look for opportunities to serve and include everyone.

Helping those in need unites us in a very powerful way.

I'll wrap up tonight with another look at our constitution.

This is another powerful phrase.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

I'm not trying to oversimplify this incredibly complex situation, but our country could take a step toward unity if we all try to spread happiness instead of hate and seek to understand each other rather than be easily offended.

Thanks so much for joining us for this important conversation tonight.

Goodnight, my friends.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) - [Presenter] A production of PBS Charlotte.

(bright music continues) (bright music fades) - [Speaker] Support for Carolina Impact comes from our viewers and Wells Fargo.

- [Spokesperson] Wells Fargo has donated $390 million.

- Honey, like I said, you get your own room.

- [Spokesperson] To support housing affordability solutions across America.

(upbeat music) - Get it.

Get it.

- [Spokesperson] Doing gets it done.

Wells Fargo, the Bank of Doing.