I spend the majority of every work day speaking to people I will likely never meet. This is because I work in a helpdesk. Not a call center. I speak to people who are frustrated, irritated, and in need of fast and accurate help. Call centers work from finite scripts and are only there to get the details that will be sent to someone who has the skills to troubleshoot and work through the problem.
When people call, I can choose to work from my own perception, or I can approach their problem with an open mind, ready to understand and build a perception that is suited to that specific moment and situation.
What happens if I fail to perceive, rather than judge? What if I choose to work from a preconceived notion of who they are and what they need? The answer is simple. That failure makes the whole call fail. I do not end up with a clear idea of the problem, so I can not solve it. I anger the caller, and my coworkers suffer from the reputation my shortcoming has created. I may actually be terminated if such failures go on for any protracted amount of time.
In many ways, that is what is happening in our public discourse. Instead of people asking what a person means and thinking about the reply, they look at some superficial aspect of the person and work from a set of preconceived perceptions. This leads to people assuming things that can have little or no basis in reality.
We need to reclaim our ability to listen and communicate. If we fail to do this, there is little hope that our fractured national structure can be fixed before the consequences of our stupidity fall upon us. I implore everyone, instead of labeling people, listen to them, talk with them. Try to understand what they feel and think and see if you can find a way that your ideas will work in tandem with theirs.