Mayor Parker has pledged ‘One Philly.’ Here’s how to get there.

Thirty years ago, after joining the Big Sisters of Philadelphia program, I hung out with a young African American teenager from West Philadelphia, who told me it was easier to get drugs at her high school than a book to take home so she could do her homework.

After my young friend had been beaten up by a group of girls on her way to high school, she transferred to a new school midsemester. She struggled in French class — and was in danger of failing — but her teacher refused to let her take the textbook home so she could try to catch up with the rest of the students.

When she told me about this, we went to the school together so I could plead on her behalf. The teacher and principal explained they didn’t have enough books for class, so students were not allowed to take books home. They were afraid they would be lost or stolen.

My frustrated and terrified mentee eventually dropped out of high school. Years later, she did get a GED.

This is the Philadelphia too many of us have known for too long.

Our new mayor, Cherelle Parker, has promised to change our city by giving everyone a seat at the decision-making table. At her inauguration this week, she led the crowd in chants of “One Philly.”

It sounds like a good idea, sure. But what will happen when diverse racial, ethnic, generational, and economic classes — with opposing interests and lived experiences — get in that room together?

I’ve facilitated dozens of risky and uncomfortable conversations over the years — at newsrooms, a law enforcement agency, and even a military command.

Too often, these conversations start with a blame game. For instance, when talk turns to public safety, police officers will bemoan the loss of community cooperation and support. Then community leaders will bring up incidents of police brutality. Employers call for a more educated workforce, prompting civil rights activists to warn that many disconnected youth don’t engage because they aren’t given opportunities in local workplaces.

That could bring us to public schools and their sliding performance, for which I suspect parents will say poor classroom conditions or low expectations are responsible. Teachers, then, will bring up the lack of adequate funding and parental involvement.

These conversations play a role during periods of transformation. But if all we do is say how much our city would improve if someone — or something — else changes, we will only worsen tensions. And cause a collective heartbreak.

Instead, over the years, I’ve developed a few ground rules that can help everyone rethink our beliefs by seeing the world from someone else’s perspective.

Resolve not to limit your concerns to the people who live in your neighborhoods, or belong to your faith, generation, or ethnic group. Walk into Parker’s big tent looking out for the greater good — not your own self-interest.

Yet often, people will bring a narrow perspective into an uncomfortable dialogue: They argue the problem of crime in Philadelphia is because of the policies of District Attorney Larry Krasner, or the shortage of police officers, or some other reductive cause that ignores all the dimensions of the problem. That is like trying to cross a busy intersection while glancing only at the traffic coming from your right.

To cross safely, pedestrians need to look in all directions and be mindful of everyone nearby. We need the people who disagree with us because they see obstacles and hazards we can’t see. If we believe police are part of the problem, we need to listen to them and view the streets stained by tragedy through their lens. If we believe Krasner’s office is to blame, we need to understand that his efforts to restore confidence in the criminal justice system are critical to crime reduction. And we also need to ask ourselves what we may be doing — or not doing — that is worsening the situation.

Most importantly, we must adopt the attitude that we will rise — or fall — together. None of us are safe until all of us feel safe.

Each of us should arrive with an understanding of our own hidden biases, and how they could trigger blind spots that keep us from seeing the truth. Self-awareness is the foundation for “cultural competency,” a term Parker uses quite often in her speeches. To be culturally competent, you must accept that culture and lived experiences affect everyone’s — including our own — behavior and beliefs. To understand anyone, you have to be aware of their specific cultural beliefs, values, and sensibilities.

Our questions should guide us toward solutions, not spark more tension, hostility, and outrage.

Instead of asking, “Why are our young people killing each other?” we might ask, “What else do young people in Philadelphia need from the adults in their lives to be hopeful, successful, and safe?”

Instead of asking, “What are we going to do about people experiencing homelessness?” we might ask ourselves, “What responsibilities do we have to our neighbors without decent or safe places to live?”

Then we gather youth, parents, educators, neighborhood leaders, religious leaders, business executives, civil rights leaders, law enforcement, and legislators together to decide how each can help. We work as a cohesive unit to imagine a city where everyone in every zip code — regardless of their age or educational attainment — has opportunities to succeed.

Over the decades that I have lived here, Philadelphia has successfully avoided tough conversations that prompt deep self-reflection. We don’t always consider how some of us have benefited from policies that spread wealth and opportunity unequally across neighborhoods. I think it is just too painful to admit the shortcomings that have led to some of the unfortunate choices we have made.

In years past, when we sent teenagers into dangerous high schools with too few textbooks, we were not thinking about the city’s future or the greater good. We can make up for it now by breaking the stubborn cycle of poverty for public school students and their families and resolving to finally shed the title of America’s poorest big city.

Only then can we truly become “One Philly.”

Linda S. Wallace, a veteran of more than three decades in journalism who spent eight years as a reporter and editor at The Inquirer, is a blogger who writes about diversity and belonging on her blog, Cultural IQ.