In this interview, Nikki recounts a tense moment that occurred during a three‑hour knitting circle she hosted, where a white friend openly declared support for Trump and a Black friend later expressed feeling threatened by that disclosure. Unsure how to have handled the situation, Nikki asks facilitator Ryel Kestano for advice. Ryel outlines a step‑by‑step framework for navigating political differences in informal gatherings. He first stresses the importance of explicitly stating the gathering’s original context (e.g., knitting) and deciding whether to stay within that program or to pivot toward a dialogue about the emerging political tension. He recommends the host use facilitator discretion, balancing two core values: delivering the planned content and staying present with what is alive in the group. If the group chooses to explore the political issue, Ryel advises setting clear ground rules rooted in authentic‑relating practices to ensure respectful, non‑defensive conversation. He also highlights the need to separate a person’s political affiliation from their identity, emphasizing shared humanity as the foundation for connection. Drawing on his experience in progressive Boulder, he illustrates how curiosity, welcoming language, and individual‑to‑individual bridge‑building can transform potential conflict into healing. The overall takeaway is a practical, values‑driven approach for hosts to manage unexpected political disclosures while preserving trust and safety in the group.
Chapters
So I'd be interested to know how you might handle this situation that I was in, and I just thought of it. I didn't think I had any questions, but when you said that, I was like, oh, this will be interesting. So I had a knitting circle at my house, and I had one of my pole dancer friends who's Black African American come over, and I had another sex coach friend who's white American, and come over and I didn't know any of their political affiliations or anything, but in the course of the 3 hours that we were together, my white— and these were both females, vulva-bodied people— my white friend says, "Well, I'm a Trump supporter," and then she said some other stuff and she's like, "Is that okay?" And I was like, Well, yeah, it's fine. And then she asked my Black friend, is that okay? And she was like, yeah, it's fine. But then, and I just was like, okay, they're fine. And I just like went on with it as if nothing really happened. But then after the fact, my Black friend, I asked her like, how was that for you? And she was like, oh, I wanted to like do some nasty things, beat the fuck out of her. You know, like there was like this, And I just was like, I don't know if I handled it properly. I don't know if, like, could I have facilitated some kind of conversation? Because it was obvious that my Black friend was not comfortable in that situation. And then I was also a little bit uncomfortable having somebody And my parents are Trump supporters, and like, I know a lot of people who are Trump supporters, and I live in a neighborhood where there's probably lots of Trump supporters. So it's like, but it was just a really weird situation. So I'd like to hear your, like, how might you have handled that if you were in their knitting circle with your pole dancer friend?
Firstly, I love the convergence of knitting and pole dancing. It's a thing. That's fucking genius. So first off, I like that. I feel enlivened already just imagining that. So yeah, a couple of things came up for me as you were sharing and asking the question. First off, you know, as I always share at my Level 1 courses, at the beginning I share a context for me as a facilitator, and I say that I have two values. One is to follow the program, to make sure that I deliver the contents of the training and I honor people's expectations in coming to the course. And my other value is to follow what's alive, is to create space in the circle to be with what's here and to use the tools that we're being trained in to be with what's alive in the group space. And that I'm reserving the discretion to decide between those values how to move forward. How to take the next step. And the reason why I mentioned that is because in this case, it's like, you know, it's a— to me, part of it is a context question. So is the context like, we're here to knit, you know, we're not here to discuss our political differences, you know, or values differences, you know, we're here to whatever, we're here to knit, you know, that's the original plan. That's my personal context as a facilitator, is I'm here to deliver what people came for, you know. And so if discussion starts to arise and take attention away from that proposed and original and agreed-upon context into some political whatever, it's your responsibility to say, hey, listen, like, I appreciate what's coming up. This isn't the context for that conversation because I want to make sure the attention stays with why we gathered here and move forward with that. And/or, if it is that part of the context is actually we're going to be with what's alive, you know, maybe that's just your own personal context and being the host, you know, then you can— and if that's the direction you want to follow, you can state that as an explicit context. Hey, I noticed there's something interesting coming up here in what we're sharing with each other around whatever political affiliations and the impact that that might have. And I'm curious to give this some room and space for us to be in dialogue around. Are you guys open to that? And if so, like, here are some ground rules that I'd like to implement, you know, based on authentic relating or whatever, to make sure that we stay, you know, respectful and considerate and all these things. So I'm not saying one way is right over the other, but I think this is a useful, like, frame to bring up, because if you start diverging into political discussion when the original context was around knitting. You know, that's where I think things can go off the rails. People lose trust in you and in the space. People can get triggered and all the rest of it. It's already a sensitive topic. So I think if it were that you're going to go in the direction of unpacking and exploring what came up here, that you set a context for it and make it clear that you're diverging from the original context that people came together for.
That's great.
So that's one thing I would say. The other is I noticed that I shuddered a bit when you said, I'm a Trump supporter, she's a Trump supporter, like versus— like the distinctions between I'm a Trump supporter versus I'm someone who votes for Trump or I'm someone who supports Trump, right? It's like who you are versus what you do. Right? And we start conflating the choices that we make with who we are as people. I think that's where we start to set the stage for breakdown and, you know, categorization and projection and all that. If we can first recognize that we're all human, actually, fundamentally, that's our starting point. We're human, and it's more fundamental to us that we cry and we laugh and We make love and we fight. That's more of the shared human experience. Let's start with that first and build rapport around that. And then, then there's like the outer layers of what we choose to do, how we choose to express our core values, how we choose to navigate through the world as the humans that we inherently are. I don't believe that someone is a Trump supporter as who they are. I think they're human and they make the choice based on their inherent values. In how they navigate through life and make the choices that they make. And so if that came up for me in a group of people, I would say something like that. You know, like, I'm curious how it would be for us if we didn't identify ourselves as humans with the choices that we make, but be able to see a distinction between the fact that we share a common human experience. We have much to explore in our commonalities. And that we make— it's like, I choose to eat ice cream, you choose to eat vanilla. I mean, I choose to eat chocolate, you choose to eat vanilla. Is that a reason for us to get all triggered and impacted and everything else? No, it's like we make different choices in life and we recognize that underneath that we actually share a lot more in common as humans than we do differently. Yeah, um, you know, in Boulder, obviously it's a very progressive, very liberal, very left-leaning culture here, you know. And, um, and I, I love any, any opportunity there is for diversity, you know, around here, bringing people with different values, different perspectives. Like, I celebrate, right? Like, fucking awesome. Now we have an opportunity to bring in these tools and skills of authentic relating to start building bridges. Like, healing starts one relationship at a time, you It's like the Arabs and Israelis are fighting forever as groups, but there's so much inspiring stories when the individuals get together, right? And they realize, oh, you know what? We're more alike than we are different. I think that's where the paradigm can shift the most effectively, is when we reduce it down to human and human, individual and individual, rather than relating each other group to group. So I'm like, if somebody comes in and they're like, I'm a Trump supporter, I'm like, oh, brilliant, fascinating. You're so welcome here. I'd love to know if we're going to explore that further. I'd love to know what's it like for you to be a Trump supporter showing up here? I mean, it might be really vulnerable for people to say I support Trump in a place like Boulder or Denver already. And then they're bracing to be attacked or get on the defense. And to be able to defuse that by saying, "Oh, you're totally welcome here. I'm just as curious about you as anyone." In fact, personally for me, I'm more curious about people who are of a different shade or flavor than the typical people I'm always surrounded by. I mean, it's the same way, like, I love teaching our courses, but I will say that I'm much more enlivened and fulfilled and moved when I'm teaching of course, to the prison inmates, to the, you know, inmates behind bars, than I am to the general public. Because it's such a— it's like these worlds do not ever meet, you know, and that they are meeting and we have an opportunity to sit with each other, connect with each other, learn from each other, feel the humanness in each other. I mean, to me, that is the healing that this world needs. And so it's an opportunity when people with differences like that come together And you especially, Nikki, as someone who knows this work and I know shares that value of healing through diversity, you know, beautiful things can happen.
Yeah, well, thank you.
Sweet. Yeah, I mean, it's— I fucking would love to hold a circle, hold a training or something, you know, for half, you know, left supporters, half right supporters. You know, like after Trump got elected in 2016, I came really close to going on a documentary road tour with a couple of people and going deep into red country, you know, and producing some kind of material that accurately represented the values that those people stand for and act from to bring back and be like, hey, you know, like, It's fine to not agree, but let's at least strive to understand each other. And in my experience, the more we strive to understand each other, the more our own rigid perspectives start to be deconstructed and challenged. Like, I want my perspective to be challenged by values and perspectives that are different than mine. Like, I know nothing. I know so little. And it's such a bias, I think, to be surrounded by people that think like me and see the world like me. It's like that confirmation bias. The more I hear it reinforced by the people around me, the more I think this is the way the world really is, and if you don't see it this way, then you're wrong or stupid or racist or whatever.
