Beyond Empathy Next Steps in Talking About Race
[Music]
laura and i are not really
activists we were too young in the 1960s
when being called a baby boomer was
kind of cute and some would say that
we’re too old
now that we’re in our 60s
and it was not our intention to make
social justice marches a rite of passage
for our grandchildren
but in january 2017
when we joined the women’s march in
nashville we took damon along
it was just a few weeks before his 13th
birthday
in the summer of 2020
after the world witnessed the knee on
the back of a man’s neck
for the last eight minutes and 46
seconds of his life
we we joined a march for racial justice
chelsea wanted to go along it was just
weeks before her
13th birthday i was putting finishing
touches
on a blog post when i first heard the
name of george
floyd that post was about two men
who did not die travis
and his work partner kevin are the are
the two black
furniture delivery workers who were
driving out of a gated community
after making a delivery they were in a
truck
marked with the company name they they
were wearing company uniforms
they were leaving the gated community
as they were about to exit the gate a
car pulled up to prevent their exit
the white driver got out of his car and
began
asking questions which travis did not
did not feel compelled to answer what
are you doing here
why are you here where are you coming
from
all you have to do is just tell me where
you’re going
and if in a few minutes another white
man walked up
and joined the interrogation after about
an
hour the white man the white man who had
received the delivery
vouched for travis and kevin and they
were allowed to leave
what did these white men see when they
encountered
travis and kevin their bias was more
than implicit
all they could see is some something
sinister
and two black men leaving that community
and they felt it was their duty to
apprehend the
apprehend these men as if their white
skin deputized them
with a bad of law enforcement i wrote to
inspire empathy for travis and kevin
i didn’t know that other more tragic
actions
would actually invite that feeling and
the subsequent
subsequent responses empathy was
everywhere that summer
many gained a crash course in empathy
even if only for a moment
a few days or a few weeks
that that some summer i was contacted by
people
people i barely knew people who were
friends of friends
many many of those contact attacks were
focused on
care for me it felt a little strange to
me because my life didn’t feel
any more vulnerable after that infamous
8 minutes and 46 seconds than before
but the marches the calls for policy
change
the drive to process and understand
events
were new and this and they were driven
by empathy
we talk about trying to walk in
another’s shoes
but empathy can fade and it can grow
distorted into something like pity
we can all become weary of social action
when the dust settles we all all go back
into our silos of like people
like-minded
a like ethnically alike ideologically or
whatever
but what are some some everyday ways to
combat injustice
without burning out one starting place
is to cultivate cultivate curiosity
and i mean a petite a particular kind of
curiosity
it is not warriorism warriorism or
culture cultural tourism or demands for
attention
in their legitimate quest to understand
some
people have demanded great emotional
labor from black people
to explain things but there are
legitimate way
legitimate ways to cultivate curiosity
and satisfy it we can educate ourselves
to 2020 exploded with black voices
and allies of all stripes who can lead
the way in
anti-racism keep amplifying them
and keep educating yourself with their
books websites
webinars podcasts films and workshops
and exercise the power of proximity if
we are in
environments of people who are just just
like us
it’s difficult to maximize curiosity but
if we find ways
to be around people who are different
from us
to to work with serve with even play
with
we me we make the most of curiosity
for some of us 2020
ended with a bang december 25th
christmas morning a bomb explo
exploded in downtown nashville we heard
the explosion
although i lived 10 10 miles away from
from downtown
the explosion damaged multiple buildings
and disabled uh communication
throughout tennessee and surrounding
states the investigation quickly
centered on one man
who perished in the bombing
when we saw where the man lived we were
stunned
although the bombing took place 10 miles
from us
the bomber lived only four blocks from
us
i have walked up these steps and
although
although i never met the man i have
knocked on the door
next to his i’ve knocked on the doors of
his
neighbors in in the adjacent cul-de-sac
i was knocking on doors for the u.s
census
and while it was just a job i found
enjoyment
in meeting people especially in our
neighborhood
southeast nashville is home to a grand
array of cultures
and we got to hear people’s stories i
was breeding my curiosity
even while asking prescribed questions
in that cul-de-sac i spoke to a woman
who is a first
generation uh us-born citizen with a
family from guatemala
down the street from me were immigrants
from laos
one naturalized citizen from honduras
stared me down and waited for me to
complete another interview
before approach approaching me and
asking me to interview him
he led me to his apartment where he his
wife
pulled out her phone and activated her
translation app
they were excited to tell their story
and to be counted
as valuable as both empathy and
curiosity
are i think the most important attitude
and practice
to go forward with it is humility
this is especially the case if we are
part of
any dominant culture in our society
this this chosen humility is not based
on
a presumed superiority it must come
from a deep down acknowledgement that
our society rewards certain people
for sin simply simply be being born
with a particular gender sexual
orientation
geographical location economic
situation or ethnicity but each of us
can exercise the humility
that reminds us that no one else
approaches the world in exactly the same
way that we do regardless of who we are
in her book raising white kids dr
jennifer harvey and
her to his parents of white children to
promote what she calls
race consciousness for her race
conscious
parenting involves noticing and naming
race
early and often a few years
ago seven-year-old zoe my white grand
granddaughter spotted dr harvey’s book
when i was preparing for a workshop she
giggled
pipa people sometimes have funny names
for books
this book is called raising white kids
that’s funny so i tried practicing what
dr harvey suggested
do you know do you know what why that
book was written i asked
joey zoe shrugged well because
a lot of a lot of white people think of
themselves as
normal and of everyone else is different
they don’t think about being white i
know you think about it because you have
a black grandfather
and we talk about being black and white
plus
you go to a school where there are a lot
of brown people
and only a few white kids
so you can see yourself as normal and as
different
and you can see your friends as normal
and as different
but a lot of white people can only see
themselves as normal and everyone else
is different
that’s why there’s this book in reality
diversity means that we are all normal
and we are all different
different inclusion means that we
treat each person as unique
we all want to be counted but we are
unique in our combination of
cultural identities it might seem
counterintuitive
but one way to develop cultural humility
is to get in touch with our own cultural
identities
dr michael emerson gives his his
university students an
interesting assignment he says for the
next 24 hours
any time you refer to someone who is
white
identify them as white so if you’re
telling someone about your professor
say my white professor if you if you’re
talking about your friend say my white
friend
when the students report back dr emerson
sees a familiar pattern
the students who consider themselves
white struggle with this exercise
it is uncomfortable for them many of
them have
never thought about about their
whiteness
the students of color seem to have less
difficulty
but each of us is different a few years
ago
i gathered some of my white
grandchildren ages three to ten
to to read a holiday story it was
maggie’s
gift by katherine patterson
the story features mr mcgee a lonely
and cranky older widower who who agrees
to take in eight-year-old an
eight-year-old girl
and her five-year-old brother who
who have to vacate their children’s home
on christmas eve
as he’s on the phone discussing
arrangements with miss trainer from from
the children’s home
he asks by the way by the way
what color are the children white she
says
does it matter yes he says
i have to know know what color to get
the doll
i’ve read this story aloud on many
occasions but this time this passage
struck me
i had dr harvey’s advice in in the back
of my mind
name race early and often
i paused the reading to explain to my
white grandchildren
when this story was written most people
believed
that white people should have only white
baby dolls and black people or brown
people
should have black or brown dolls
ten-year-old chelsea
picked up the narrative yeah in those
days
black people and white people weren’t
allowed to be together
like if you you were white and you
wanted to marry someone who is black
you couldn’t martin luther king said
that you can marry whoever you want
the color doesn’t matter it’s like
chocolate ice cream
and vanilla you can mix them together
and then you have caramel i know
not the perfect analogy or analysis but
she was ten
and how about that heart her loving
and lovely sentiment came through
then six-year-old zoe chimed in
my baby doll is brown i know
i said and i know because
the day she broke the day she brought
that baby doll home
from from the dollar store she
introduced us
she said pipa this is my baby
and she’s like you i named her moana
i’ll call her my baby but you call her
moana
she’s like you i was gonna get the white
one
but it was too much i pushed a little
was the white one the same kind of doll
yeah she said
but this one was almost free the white
one
was ten dollars this is this is one way
to get in touch with our own racial
stories
name race in our own lives from the
from the beginning of when we were aware
of race
once we become curious about our own
lives
we can begin genuine curiosity
about others and begin to be to develop
humility
i didn’t really want to tell my own
story but it crept
up on me it was from my freshman
year intramural basketball had begun
and although i’ve never excelled in any
sports
i have long loved basketball i joined
the matthews hall
team and it wasn’t long before my
inability
my inabilities were discovered perhaps
to cope
my teammates came up with the nickname
pearl
in homage to earl the pearl monroe who
is the spectacular play
spectacular player in his prime with the
new york knicks
the nickname was meant to be both
affectionate
and insulting and coming from guys
who were all taller whiter and richer
than me
there was a racial element that was
meant to be ironic
i knew all of this the joke of course
was that the worst basketball player on
our team
was the only black guy my offense
defense or non-offense
is not the primary issue my indignation
is not the problem
sometimes impact goes beyond offense
sometimes impact goes right to
self-concept
and this is why calls for racial justice
or or any justice
are not just about me my feelings or my
indignation
they are about treating our fellow human
beings
decently humility is never a destination
it’s
never a destination it is an attitude
an awareness a process and a practice
i’ve said in the past that race is not
real but
it does matter what i mean is is
the idea of race as we commonly refer to
it
is not scientifically verifiable but it
is
uh socially undeniable to address the
skeptics
i would would i would want to
speak to a young black man who was out
jogging
or a young black woman who was sleeping
at home
or a black man whose face was pressed
against the pavement
for 8 minutes and 46 seconds those
people are not available
but we have access to activists scholars
practitioners
and policy makers and more than that we
all have access to our own stories
and and the stories of those around us
an ancient text promotes acted justly
loving kindness and walking humbly
also develop empathy
cultivate curiosity practice
humility these actions will not
single-handedly
give us a just and inclusive society
but we cannot approach inclusion and
justice
without them