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each participant is fundamental to effective civic dialogue and engagement, particularly when

discussing topics of race and racism among diverse groups. The freedom participants enjoy in

settings where dignity resulted from a foundation interaction helped participants in the dialogues

on race to achieve a comfort level and willingness to move past the politeness of the conversation

(Locher, 2004) to areas that exposed their vulnerabilities, pain, and disappointments with respect

to race relations.

While the term dignity did not emerge explicitly (as a code or node category) from the

interview data set, the elements, including safety, inclusion, acceptance of identity,

acknowledgment (framed to dialogue participants as good regard), and validation, were part of the

co-construction of safety by dialogue group members at each meeting.

Together, dignity and safety provide a foundation for dialogues on race that confirms and

names the type and quality of experience necessary for healing conversations to evolve. At certain

points during the dialogues on race violations of dignity occurred that required substantiating and

then processing the violation. In some cases, the violation was a lack of acknowledge of feelings

or perspectives,

As Hicks (2011) observed “conflicts stay alive when people do not feel acknowledged and

when their voices are not heard” (p. 60). Support from the facilitators and other dialogue group

members assisted one another to hear and begin the process of understanding by staying with the

discomfort of tension, disagreement, and conflict long enough for exploration and further

revelation so that opposing perspectives could work toward closing rather than widening the gap

of understanding.

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