In 1968, just months before his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. looked out at burning American cities and gave an assessment of what he was really seeing. “In the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard,” he said. King wasn’t excusing violence. He was diagnosing the problem as something even deeper than disagreement over politics or values. Beneath the unrest, he saw the pain of people who had been speaking for a very long time, and who felt that no one in power was listening.

Today, more than a half century later, the “language of the unheard” is as pervasive as it was then. Yet it’s taking new and sometimes unexpected forms. We can see it in populist political revolts of people who feel their economic and cultural struggles have been mocked or ignored; in nurses and teachers striking over workloads that endanger patients and students; in parents shouting at school board meetings; in employees quietly disengaging despite so many surveys and listening sessions.

The details may differ, but the fundamental message is the same: You don’t hear what I’m really saying.

The journalist Krista Tippett has popularized a powerful phrase: “Anger is what pain looks like in public” (Giridharadas, 2016). Looking to King’s insight, so much modern anger stems from the pain of being unheard.

Human beings have a profound need to feel recognized and understood. Think of a baby crying or a young child expressing a feeling. Whether we feel heard determines whether we feel real—and whether we experience belonging. When the need to be heard is met, our nervous systems settle, our minds open, and we become more willing to........

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