- Welcome to Ear To the Common Ground.

Here, we celebrate the power of music and food to bring Americans together.

Filmed from a historic barn on Cash Lane in Music City, each episode of Ear to the Common Ground features one musical artist, and a diverse gathering of eight of their fans.

Everyone brings a dish to the table, and they talk about one of the issues of the day, face to face, with compassion replacing contempt, as they keep their hearts, ears, and minds attuned to the common ground.

I am Kyshona, and these are eight of my fans; Ellen, Carol, Nozomi, Christopher, Marie, Ruth, Web, and Rosa.

Tonight, we are focusing on voting rights.

Let's celebrate America's greatest diversity, diversity of thought, and shine a light on some common ground.

(melodic humming and soft guitar) (guests applauding and cheering) - Voting should be the easiest thing that an American can do.

There shouldn't be roadblocks.

There shouldn't be changing rules.

We do so many things easy.

If we all had to pay cash tomorrow, paying our bills, who would have a problem with that?

We all would.

It's frightening.

Why can't we vote as easy as we pay our bills?

- For me too, when you say about it being easy, I think we also need to figure out how we can encourage people to even participate in the process.

- And if you give me voting right, I would be more serious about thinking about society and wanna know more.

But you know, me, I don't have rights.

So like, why bother?

So those people could be more into society.

And you guys wanna have us, include us to live together.

That's America, that I expected to be America.

- Well, Americans take, we have a bad habit of taking everything that we have for granted.

Everything.

And by me admitting I never voted, I took it as my right to not vote to protest the way we do our government.

I may not agree with you, but I'll stand shoulder to shoulder with you to make sure you can do whatever it is.

We don't do that anymore.

And when it comes to voting now we're using, it's a weapon.

Do you guys know synonyms to gerrymandering?

- No.

- So one is petty foggery.

(guests laughing) It's a mid 16th century English word.

I hope PBS- - [Marie] Oh, okay.

We gotta reign you in a little bit.

- [Web] Hang on.

Hang on.

- I got a good question for you.

- [Web] I want some leeway on this.

- That will allow you an opportunity to expand.

Go ahead.

- But synonyms of gerrymandering include chicanery, include treachery, include fraudulence.

How can we use a term like gerrymandering with a straight face in this country, when it's fraudulent in a sense to do?

- I'm glad I let you finish.

Cause what I really wanted to do, cause I'm thinking about people like my mother who were like "short words, short sentences".

Because I'm a college professor, and I go on and on and I love all these pieces, but I really do wanna know, because I do have friends who don't vote, but knowing that you were in the military and all of that, what was it that made you turn the corner then?

To decide to start voting?

- So... decency.

So when you serve, when you take an oath to the Constitution and you say you're gonna do these things for everybody, not for the people you like, not for the ideas you like, you don't serve the country to serve just what you agree with.

Like flag burning is protected.

It's a bad idea, but it's still protected.

And people forget that our differences are what make us American.

And people define Americans so many different ways.

Whether you're from Spokane or you're from the Keys, nobody's the same from one side of the country to the other.

- We've gotten to this point where if it doesn't go my way, it must be wrong.

- [Web] It must be wrong.

- You know, it must be fraud if it did not go my way.

And everybody has their own little bubble where they're saying they have the answer.

I mean I know that I take my mom to vote, and I know when we go in to vote that we cancel each other out.

(guests laughing) But I'm still doing it and she's still doing it.

But then I hear people talking.

I have a friend who just retired early as an elections commissioner, because even though everything under his jurisdiction went the way that it was supposed to, he still was getting death threats against his family.

- That's the problem that we're having.

We've gotten to the point where people will get campaign signs shot at and worry about the gunshots coming through their homes.

And that I don't, I don't even know.

This doesn't even, I don't recognize this.

Even as we talk about voting, we have to consider what we're willing to do to protect our neighbors who might not agree with us.

Because we've allowed this slippery slope to happen.

It really, I mean that stuff coming through those boxes, whatever MSNBC, Fox News, CNN or whatever, we've allowed this to erode because...

I very often think of it like football teams.

It's like, I went to the University of Georgia.

"Oh, Florida State, I hate them."

And all this, and it's acceptable.

It's socially acceptable to say that you hate somebody.

Because of the way they believe.

- You know, you put a Democrat in office, everything they're gonna blame's gonna be on the Republican.

You put a Republican in office, everything they blame's gonna be on the Democrat.

It's just a back and forth of what they're doing.

It's like playing poker.

That's exactly what politics and voting is.

It's like playing poker.

The money never leaves the table.

It just changes hands.

Their job is to create confusion.

And a lot of people, I'm sure most of us have heard growing up, people say communication is the key to understanding things.

No communication is important, but comprehension is the key.

Cause you can communicate like we are right now.

But if you don't comprehend anything I'm saying, then I'm just wasting my breath.

So I mean, you can put your civics class and say "We're gonna talk about the Voting Rights Act of 1965."

And y'all can go through, read the chapter, and you can have an open discussion.

But if your students aren't understanding and comprehending what they are learning, they're not going to be able to apply that knowledge.

- But there are these moments when something else can happen because we know that money's gonna change hands, but how do the people get a sense of solidarity and get a sense of being a part of something larger?

And move it just a little bit further over to liberation and big shifts like the passage of the Voting Rights Act, after all that bloodshed, of white, black, asian, Jewish, gay, straight, which is not the story that's taught in the schools.

Cause you just said it.

And that's where we really need to I feel like even go beyond K through 12, and I'm a big believer in looking at the civil rights movement and the things that don't get written down because it was subversive.

That's why it was successful.

Because it went against the grain.

You know Freedom Schools, where on Saturdays, they really taught what is the process.

They went into those sharecroppers homes and talked to them.

They talked to poor white people in the same way that they talked to poor black people.

And that's what's been lost in the story of America.

Because like you said, when you said "keeping the money on the table", it's the people at the top edges of the resources, the people who own the corporations and run things, keep us from talking to each other.

There was an assumption that these people go this way and these people go this way.

- I appreciate what a few of you have said about making it easier to vote.

I'm curious about those of us who have the privilege of voting in this country, what our experience has been like getting registered.

I have a kid friend in my life who is newly on her own as an 18 year old, and getting documents is quite a job.

You've just done it, you've just registered, I assume.

Or were you registered prior?

- No, I've registered to vote locally right before the presidential election when the last president won.

- And what was that process like for you?

- It was super easy.

I spitefully got a mail in ballot, but then once the mail in balloting became a point of contention, I changed my mind, I wanted to see how the process worked by changing my mind once I had the mail in ballot.

So I destroyed, there's instructions on the mail in ballot that says, "if you don't use this, destroy it".

So I ripped it up and several pieces, threw it away, I went to the polling place in our town.

I showed my ID, they asked me "Well see, it says here you registered, or you had requested a mail in balloting?"

And I said, "I've changed my mind based on the fact that it's contentious now.

And I just assumed vote here."

They run my social security number, my credit, my driver's license number.

And said, "Okay, you're clear to vote and go."

And I went and voted.

I don't understand when people say you need IDs, you always have needed IDs to vote.

You don't need a special card that says "I can vote".

You have a driver's license, you have a social security number.

They cross reference all that.

- When you say first thing, "it's the easiest thing anyone can do" that you said.

- [Web] Should be, yeah.

Should be.

- That attitude is to me, you are not trying to think.

So this is easiest thing for you, but for people who are not easy, what can?

You know?

- Sure, sure.

I meant as a philosophy, American philosophy, voting should be the easiest thing an American citizen can do.

There should be no roadblocks.

There should be nothing to prohibit an American citizen to vote.

Whether it be handicap, like you should be able to vote from your phone if it's protected.

That's what I mean.

- Ah.

So the thing then like, yeah, maybe handicap person, or who can't read, from that way, maybe we could think why young kids, why they are not interested, or, do we talk enough?

How about like school?

Do we know what school teach?

- Young people are just told "Well, people died for you to have the right to vote."

But they're like, "What does that mean?"

You know, if they don't learn the story of John Lewis, if they don't learn the story of this multiracial... people of various economic backgrounds fighting to make it possible, they might still think of it as just something that people did for black people.

But it was a civil rights movement that made it possible for everybody to have some of those barriers taken down.

- From the very beginning of your American life, you should be registered- not registered to vote.

You can't vote as a child, but you should be on the path from the get-go.

That should be a part of your social security.

You should be a package that says, "Okay, when you turn 18, this is your code, or whatever it is, you're gonna register to vote."

- So I'm curious to see what other ways can we do to encourage everyone to be a part, and feel like we are contributing something to the country.

- Early voting, having it be a national holiday, having it be a day off from work.

- [Rosa] Take several days and not just a few, or?

- Having it be a celebratory opportunity.

And in all that, I think it needs to feel like it's a natural part of our life.

If we had more of a sense of people that we could put our hands on locally, then I think that would be maybe the first step.

I've been thinking about things in that way to kind of take some of the edge off of this binary of what's gonna happen in the next presidential election.

I don't know if... has anybody ever run for office around the table here?

- Who would wanna run for office?

- [Web] Good people don't run for office, only bad people.

- [Marie] And right there though, that's an issue.

- [Ruth] Because your name gets slung through the mud of everything you did from eighth grade.

- [Marie] But somebody's got to, you guys.

- I don't think it's a easy task for those that are leading in government.

- But you said it, you said that you would, you immediately, your reaction was "Who would do that?"

because your private life would be laid out.

- Oh yeah.

It seems like, and we've been talking about it all night, you're just like grr on you republicans, grr you democrats, and it's like... doxing people for, you know, saying something or doing something, and it's like, how is that fair?

How is that kind?

How is that compassionate?

How is that even nice?

You know, how is that civil?

There's no civil discourse when you have people doing that.

So yeah.

I mean, I don't know how anyone would ever want to run for office.

- So what you can do is vote, and like "Thank you for doing that job.

I read what you say, I hear what you say.

Then I choose."

That's what we can do.

- Civil service is not a part of politics anymore.

Nobody goes into it, in my opinion.

- But, but we've gotta change that y'all.

- [Web] We sure do.

We sure do.

- I'm saying that because one of these days I'm gonna have to step up to the plate.

We were talking about the whole idea of making things easy, and I just wanted to know what people think about souls to the polls, you know, taking people who might be at a church and on a Saturday or Sunday.

- [Ellen] I'm not sure everybody knows what souls to the polls is, if you'd like to explain that.

- That's where, I was going there.

And being able to like put people on a bus, take them to the polls in mass to vote.

That is something that has been debated when we talk about things are being done to keep people to vote because if you cut down on early voting days, you don't have those opportunities.

When I was talking earlier about making it be celebratory, I don't care if it's people from the Elks Club, or the country club, or the Baptist church, or the yoga group, or whatever.

To me those are those kinds of things that could encourage people to vote because they're with their friend, they're with their family members, and everything.

Because otherwise, when we're talking about things that keep people from voting, they're trying to think "Do I wanna get off work?

I don't have time to get off work.

I can't afford it.

I don't have a car."

- I'm definitely all for a national holiday to vote.

- Yeah and what's happened around the country, like we said, which is really the scary things, they've closed polls!

They used to have more polls available for people to vote and now it's just one place instead of 20.

- Yeah.

So I'm for kiwanis, churches, YMC, civic places becoming transportation for people.

- [Carol] That's a great idea.

- Of course.

- For those of us who are privileged to vote regularly, how far is it to where your polling places is?

I'll say that I live in this neighborhood, and I can currently vote early at the library, Which is less than a mile from my house.

The election commission has not come out with the latest polling places for this year's election.

But mine in the presidential election this past year was a block from my house.

So I'm curious what everybody- - Mine was three blocks from my house.

- I live on an island, it's real close.

- [Christopher] Right about 15 miles.

- 15 Miles.

So definitely a driver.

- [Marie] 15 Miles.

- You're 15 miles?

You are too?

- About 15.

You had to have a car.

Yep.

- [Christopher] Perks of living in the country though.

- [Web] We bank by phone these days.

What's more important than money?

- And no buses or public transportation.

I don't even think we have Ubers.

I hadn't checked.

- [Web] We bank by phone.

- Well, yeah, we hadn't even gotten into that.

Should we be able to do mobile voting?

- I mean, we trust all our bill paying by internet.

We order, our credit card is all over Amazon, and then somebody's gonna say, "Well they can hack your credit card."

Yeah.

But they have people, and things, and processes, and things in place to make sure that that's curbed or prevented, or fixed when it needs fixing.

People have jobs based on cyber security.

So when it becomes easier to vote and we can do it safely from computers and phones and stuff, I think some of that mileage goes away, and we should look into that because most rural areas do have internet now.

I'm not saying all places- - [Marie] Well, do you wanna talk about that?

- I'm not saying all places, I've lived rurally most of my life between Florida, Indiana, and Alabama.

So I've lived lots of different places.

But for the most part, we're getting to where we do, we are connected.

And even if you're not, you should again be able to have help doing it by vehicles and churches and citizens.

- And I'm gonna play a little devil's advocate with that.

Do we wanna make it too easy to vote?

- [Web] Yes.

- Where they're not even thinking, they're just pushing a button, and they're really, "Oh I'm gonna vote for this person because they look good on TV."

- [Web] That's what they do at a ballot box.

- You know, just like it's a show or something, like American Idol, or like any of those TV shows, and yeah, I don't know, I think of it as a civic duty.

I don't think of it as, "I just want it to be so easy that I don't even have to think."

And I think that's part of, if you make it too easy, are they gonna think about what they're doing?

- Not everybody is going to go into a situation like voting and just go "Meh."

(mimics beep) So, understand we can't get down that road.

It's just, it's easy to bank, it's easy to pay your bills.

And people can go to a ballot box, in the same manner that you're using the devils advocate, and do the exact same thing and put Mickey Mouse in the right end.

- [Marie] And people do that as a protest.

- [Rosa] Or leave them empty?

- But I think that's just like we said, we have to trust every individual to decide how they're gonna use that right.

- I know that it is good to encourage the system too, like be part of it.

They say we have to be part of the solution, not just a problem, right.

If we just complaining about things.

So I think that if I do get the opportunity to vote in the future, I would feel super happy to have a voice, but I already also have trust and faith in us as humanity to keep working together.

- Hey you guys, how's it going?

Y'all are beautiful.

Y'all really do.

The lights, man.

So look, I brought my dad's cheesecake.

So we'd call this Kent's cake.

This is my dad's cheesecake.

He is known all over Columbia for his cheesecake.

People call him and say, "Kent, will you bring a cheesecake to the wedding?"

So we're gonna hope I did him justice.

(guests clapping) How are y'all?

How are y'all feeling?

- Good.

I Feel like you've told me the exact same thing one time about your dad's soup.

- Yes.

[Inaudible] because he doesn't cook much Ellen.

So the things that he does cook, he cooks very well.

There's a Mexican soup he's learned how to make in the last year, it's really good, cheesecake, and then chewies, which is something that I put all my covid weight on eating.

Which is just brown sugar and butter.

And you bake it.

That's it.

Yeah.

It's really good.

But yeah.

Are y'all feeling okay?

- [Marie] We need another hour to talk.

- It was really awesome just to kind of be a fly on the wall, truly.

Just to hear so many different perspectives.

And I thank you guys for coming to the table, being like open to come to this table, with strangers for most of us, and talk about something really hard.

Cause of course when you talk about voting, you gotta talk about all the other stuff.

You gotta talk about the history.

You have to acknowledge what has been done here in this country when it comes to that.

But then that can be hard for a lot of people.

So thank you guys.

Yeah.

♪ You've got your reasons ♪ ♪ And I've got mine ♪ ♪ Ain't no agreeing ♪ ♪ But I'm on your side ♪ ♪ I can't hear your heart ♪ ♪ Over the screaming crowd ♪ ♪ We've said awful things ♪ ♪ But I'm still choosing you now ♪ ♪ We've got more in common ♪ ♪ We've got more in common ♪ ♪ No matter what you think ♪ ♪ Where you been who you are ♪ ♪ We've got more in common ♪ ♪ Than what tears us apart ♪ (melodic humming and soft guitar) ♪ Second chances ♪ ♪ they don't come every day ♪ ♪ They're like sun in Seattle ♪ ♪ and February rain ♪ ♪ So let's build up these bridges ♪ ♪ And tear down these walls ♪ ♪ Let's give love when we need it ♪ ♪ And be ready to receive it ♪ ♪ Cause love is binding us all ♪ ♪ We've got more in common ♪ ♪ We've got more in common ♪ ♪ No matter what you think ♪ ♪ Where you been who you are ♪ ♪ We've got more in common ♪ ♪ Than what tears us apart ♪ (melodic humming and soft guitar) ♪ Take my hand we'll rise together ♪ ♪ Through the fire you are my brother ♪ ♪ The more we seek, the more we find it ♪ ♪ More in common ♪ ♪ Take my hand we'll rise together ♪ ♪ Through the fire you are my brother ♪ ♪ The more we seek, the more we find it ♪ ♪ More in common ♪ ♪ Take my hand we'll rise together ♪ ♪ Through the fire you are my brother ♪ ♪ The more we seek, the more we find it ♪ ♪ More in common ♪ ♪ We've got more in common ♪ ♪ We've got more in common ♪ ♪ No matter what you think ♪ ♪ Where you been who you are ♪ ♪ We got more in common ♪ ♪ Then what tears us apart ♪ (melodic humming and soft guitar) - Let the frogs sing with me tonight.

(melodic humming and soft guitar) (guests clapping) (upbeat guitar)