Assessing Interview Techniques

This week I listened to "Fighting Hate with Friendship, One Cyclops at a Time."

The interviewee was a (black) man named Daryl Davis, who, after a chance encounter with a member of the KKK, began to form unlikely friendships with clans members in order to show them the error of their ways. A key quote for me that came out of this interview was "You can't fight hate with hate. You can't beat the meanness out of a mean dog."

Below you can find the transcript of the interviewer's statements and questions. I found that she was quite conversational and tried to connect with Davis on a personal level. As I was listening, it seemed that she had general questions or a general direction of where she wanted the interview to go, but that she was only interjecting to offer comments or incite further discussion when Davis finished an answer. She took a backseat role as the interviewer and let Davis guide the discussion with his recollection of how he came to be in a position of 'fighting hate with friendship'. The interviewer was clearly familiar with Davis' story and wanted to share this with the world, and as such, she added in personal anecdotes, connections, and sometimes possibly controversial thoughts or opinions that she believed listeners might hear. In doing so, the interviewee's story really shone through and was the main focus.



Transcript of Interviewer's questions and comments.

• "Daryl, you are a black man. How on earth did you first start making friends with members of the KKK?"
• "I've gotta say, I frequent some drinking establishments from time to time, and if I'm at a bar and someone sits next to me, and I'm a woman of colour, and pulled out their KKK membership, my reaction might be to get the hell out of there."
• "Ok, so um, it sounds like the start of a terrible joke-- black guy sitting at a bar and a KKK guy comes in and sits down next to him. What happens next?"
• "So that first encounter in a bar that happened decades ago kind of got you hooked since then, as you say, you have made it your personal project to sit with members of the Klu Klux Klan to talk with them."
• "Help me out-- How the heck does a conversation like that happen? What is your opening line?"
• "Really? 'What kind of music do you like?'"
• "So you find that common ground, and, as you say, sometimes one of the natural ones is music. How does that then turn into a deeper conversation about racism and hatred, and hatred of you?"
• "And what do people say? I know you have a lot of responses."
• "Ever hear that you are naturally violent? Black people are violent?"
• "Daryl Davis has had hundreds of conversations, and he estimates that many of those people have also left."
• "So Scott was deeply embedded in the Klan. He focused on recruitment, mostly of kids from troubled homes. He was buddies with David Duke, the Klan leader at the time, otherwise known as 'Grand Wizard' and it was sometime around then, in the '80's when he saw Daryl on T.V."
• |"After that second time Scott saw Daryl on T.V just under a decade ago, Scott decided to reach out to him. They ended up talking on the phone about, well, at first, music.......and then the KKK."
• "What was it for you, Scott, that actually cut through the hate for you? Was there one moment or thing Daryl said that clicked?"
• "Daryl, tell me this, what has all this---all these conversations taught you about hate?"
• "What do you mean?" [insert quote from above about not fighting hate with hate]
• "You're talking about Charlottesville?"
• "Daryl, the kind of hate you're talking about goes so deep. It's inter-generational, it's families, it's organized, it isn't just a set of mistaken views. It's worldwide, so how do you cut through hate that's so ingrained like that?"
• "Scott, after you met Daryl, what did you do with your KKK robe?"
• "Daryl has it?!"

(end of interview--- music plays)