It’s never been easy to talk about an issue you care deeply about with someone who disagrees with you. Now, it might be especially hard. But good society thrives on challenging conversation. If you’ve been wanting to find fresh ways to approach what could be tense exchanges about things that matter, this is the session for you.

The Evergrey team has talked with some impactful facilitators and moderators in our work bringing different people around the region together. (We once took locals to Sherman County, Oregon, so people who voted for Clinton and people who voted for Trump could chat.) In this workshop, we’ll explore how you can approach charged discussions so they lead to better understanding, and invite you to share your own best practices and experiences.

Panelists:

Mónica Guzmán (Moderator)

Ana Sofia Knauf (Moderator)

Warren Etheredge

Mozart Guerrier

Bo Zhang

Recorded live during the Crosscut Festival. Read more at http://crosscut.com/tag/crosscut-festival/

Last August, the nation was stunned by the sight of white nationalists and Nazi sympathizers marching in the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia. What began as a protest against the removal of a Confederate statue ended in bloodshed, as a white nationalist drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters. Charlottesville shone a spotlight on a rising tide of hate and hate speech on college campuses, including here in the Pacific Northwest. Seattle reporter Sara Bernard leads a conversation about the line between free speech and hate speech on campus, and what different schools are doing to police it.

Panelists:

Sara Bernard (Moderator)

Jamil Bee

Ethan W. Blevins

Zoltán Grossman

David Neiwert

Recorded live during the Crosscut Festival. Read more at crosscut.com/tag/crosscut-festival/

They came here as children, brought here illegally by their parents. The Obama administration coaxed them out of the shadows, providing them protection from deportation and allowing them to go to college and work here legally under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. But President Trump is sunsetting that program, and now, their lives in the United States are uncertain. What are the arguments for and against ending DACA? What does the future look like for these young immigrants? We'll hear from Washington state’s attorney general, who has been a national leader in the resistance against Trump's immigration policies, a former Seattle U student body president who is a DACA recipient, and others.

Panelists:

Lilly Fowler (Moderator)

John Carlson

Bob Ferguson

Carlos Rodriguez

Recorded live during the Crosscut Festival. Read more at http://crosscut.com/tag/crosscut-festival/

The gig economy — think: Uber, Postmates, Task Rabbit — is radically reshaping work in America. These new platforms offer new flexibility in work schedules and incredible convenience for consumers, but the new work is coming without the same protections traditional jobs have offered, from forming a union to saving for retirement. Now, some gig economy workers and lawmakers want to change that. We’ll talk to a labor law expert, a state representative and gig workers about efforts to allow ride-hailing drivers to unionize and other moves to create security and equity in a disruptive economy.

Panelists:

Heidi Groover (Moderator)

Charlotte Garden

Takele Gobena

Debra Jeffs-Grad

Monica Stonier

Recorded live during the Crosscut Festival. Read more at http://crosscut.com/tag/crosscut-festival/

As the #MeToo movement sweeps the nation, college students are on the front lines. Women are fighting entrenched sexism and sexual assault even as they celebrate their own sexuality as never before. Many male students are more sensitive to women’s concerns than previous generations, while other men perpetuate the most cruel misogyny. Award-winning journalist and author Vanessa Grigoriadis helps us make sense of it all.

Panelists:

Patricia Murphy (Moderator)

Callie Burt

Vanessa Grigoriadis

Katie Querna

Menosh ZA

Recorded live during the Crosscut Festival. Read more at http://crosscut.com/tag/crosscut-festival/

Seattle’s housing market is the hottest in the nation. To afford monthly payments on the median house in the Seattle metro area, a household needs a record $93,400 in annual income, according to a recent story in the Seattle Times. That’s up $11,000 from just a year ago. The average renter, meanwhile, now spends over 30 percent of their income just to keep a roof overhead. It’s great news for landlords and developers — but what about the increasing number of Seattleites for whom the rent is just too damn high?

Panelists:

Tyrone Beason (Moderator)

Kathleen Hosfeld

Estela Ortega

Roger Valdez

Inye Wokoma

Recorded live during the Crosscut Festival. Read more at http://crosscut.com/tag/crosscut-festival/

The Western U.S. holds rich deposits of coal, oil and natural gas — resources that have been eyed for export to rapidly developing economies in Asia. But a remarkable alliance of activists and tribes have drawn what some have called a “thin green line” to stop a series of proposed refinery expansions and export terminals along the West Coast. This opposition has helped create a remarkable shift in the energy future of the Pacific Northwest. For perspective on how this transformation came about, and what needs to happen next, we’ll hear from a tribal chairman, an environmental activist, an energy policy expert and the former head of the U.S. Interior department.

Panelists:

Michelle Nijhuis (Moderator)

Tim Ballew

Sally Jewell

Emily Johnston

Recorded live during the Crosscut Festival. Read more at http://crosscut.com/tag/crosscut-festival/

Five years after Washington’s historic passage of Initiative 502, which made it legal to posses and sell recreational marijuana, retail stores are thriving and cannabis is a $1.5 billion statewide industry. But who’s profiting from the end of the War on Drugs? So far, the people who suffered the most from the war’s racist underpinnings are benefiting the least from legalization. Female entrepreneurs are making the cannabis space their own, but people of color remain notably underrepresented in the industry. Leafly Deputy Editor Bruce Barcott leads a conversation on the opportunities, the barriers to entry, and the innovative equity policies now being tested in Massachusetts, California, and Maryland.

Panelists:

Bruce Barcott (Moderator)

Jody Hall

Jesce Horton

Recorded live during the Crosscut Festival. Read more at http://crosscut.com/tag/crosscut-festival/

It’s no secret that the industry that props up the Seattle metro area's gangbusters economy is largely staffed by white males. In some cases, this has had disastrous consequences, from creating biased products to forcing out talented employees. Nationally, women make up less than 30 percent of the employees at tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook. That number drops even further when you look at the percentage of women in leadership roles. And the number of Hispanics and blacks working in tech are vanishingly small. We’ll hear from one of the women caught up in the infamous “Gamergate,” and talk about how local businesses and government are tackling this problem, and what more they could do.

Panelists:

Ruchika Tulshyan (Moderator)

David Harris

Susie Lee

Zoe Quinn

Recorded live during the Crosscut Festival. Read more at http://crosscut.com/tag/crosscut-festival/

Closing performance gaps between student groups consumes nearly every conversation about American education. Usually, discussion collects around the possibility of biased testing or teachers. But the work of Dr. Nadine Burke Harris suggests another angle. In her pioneering research with low-income children in the San Francisco area, Dr. Burke Harris found that adverse — but common — childhood experiences like parental divorce, substance abuse or neglect can change students’ neurology and directly affect learning. Should public education expand its mission, moving from a tight focus on academic-concept delivery to something more holistic? Dr. Burke Harris will tackle this question in a moderated discussion with Washington’s Superintendent for Public Instruction and a national expert on multicultural education.

Panelists:

Claudia Rowe (Moderator)

James Banks

Nadine Burke Harris

Chris Reykdal

Lyon Terry

Recorded live during the Crosscut Festival. Read more at http://crosscut.com/tag/crosscut-festival/