Radical Empathy
The podcast On Being with host Kirsta Tippett recently rebroadcasted a November 17, 2016 conversation with Isabel Wilkerson, winner of the “Pulitzer Prize for her work as Chicago Bureau Chief of the New York Times and the recipient of the National Humanities Medal by President Obama in 2016.” She may be best known for her book, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration that won the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction.
I urge the reader to listen to or read the podcast of this conversation.
One of the phases Ms. Wilkerson used was “radical empathy”. She used it in reference to the seeming inability or the fear of police officers being with a person they have shot; people who may be breathing there last breathe. Aside from the question of whether or not lethal force needs or should ever be an option for our law enforcement personnel (a much different discussion) she wonders what keeps the police officer from kneeling down and allowing himself or herself “the basic human response to take the hand of someone whose life is slipping away from them and to comfort them.” She goes on to speak of the common humanity, which we all share.
This morning I heard a report about the mistreatment of a 13 children in a “middle class” home in California. There is seemingly plenty of concern for the children, but I have yet to year any empathy for the parents. What led these parents to behave the way that they did? How did these two parents seemingly lose all sense of the recognition of themselves in these children? Perhaps these parents were not able to accept or even recognize the humanity within them.
Ms. Tippett in the conversation with Isabel Wilkerson uses the word neighbor to describe one’s relationship with others. The “neighbors” of this California family noticed that something was off about the behavior of the children of this family, but they did not feel they knew the family well enough to even suspect that there was serious problems.
In the United States we place a high value on privacy, secrecy and the illusion of independence. In neighborhoods in which I lived if someone new moved in I would bake something to welcome them and offer my help or use of my tools while they were settling in. In her book Rabbit Patricia Williams talks of her shock in having a neighbor welcome her family with a cake when she moved into a neighborhood. That had not previously happened to her or her family. She did have one teacher who, instead of belittling her for coming to school late and in dirty clothes, quietly got her clothes and items such as soap. This teacher was the first teacher to acknowledge the common humanity she and Patricia shared.
Radical empathy requires that each of us “know ourselves” well enough to know that we are the other. Our particular pains, fears, hopes, and dreams may be different, but our experience of pain, fear, hope and dreams (if we can allow them) are exactly the same.
Those who have experienced severe and/or chronic trauma learn that it is only by facing the trauma and the accompanying emotions that they can begin to heal. I think Isabel Wilkerson and other teachers are suggesting that it is only by facing our common humanity that we will begin to grow emotionally and spiritually. The United States could become great and even amazing by creating a country where radical empathy became the new norm.
Written January 16, 2018
The podcast On Being with host Kirsta Tippett recently rebroadcasted a November 17, 2016 conversation with Isabel Wilkerson, winner of the “Pulitzer Prize for her work as Chicago Bureau Chief of the New York Times and the recipient of the National Humanities Medal by President Obama in 2016.” She may be best known for her book, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration that won the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction.
I urge the reader to listen to or read the podcast of this conversation.
One of the phases Ms. Wilkerson used was “radical empathy”. She used it in reference to the seeming inability or the fear of police officers being with a person they have shot; people who may be breathing there last breathe. Aside from the question of whether or not lethal force needs or should ever be an option for our law enforcement personnel (a much different discussion) she wonders what keeps the police officer from kneeling down and allowing himself or herself “the basic human response to take the hand of someone whose life is slipping away from them and to comfort them.” She goes on to speak of the common humanity, which we all share.
This morning I heard a report about the mistreatment of a 13 children in a “middle class” home in California. There is seemingly plenty of concern for the children, but I have yet to year any empathy for the parents. What led these parents to behave the way that they did? How did these two parents seemingly lose all sense of the recognition of themselves in these children? Perhaps these parents were not able to accept or even recognize the humanity within them.
Ms. Tippett in the conversation with Isabel Wilkerson uses the word neighbor to describe one’s relationship with others. The “neighbors” of this California family noticed that something was off about the behavior of the children of this family, but they did not feel they knew the family well enough to even suspect that there was serious problems.
In the United States we place a high value on privacy, secrecy and the illusion of independence. In neighborhoods in which I lived if someone new moved in I would bake something to welcome them and offer my help or use of my tools while they were settling in. In her book Rabbit Patricia Williams talks of her shock in having a neighbor welcome her family with a cake when she moved into a neighborhood. That had not previously happened to her or her family. She did have one teacher who, instead of belittling her for coming to school late and in dirty clothes, quietly got her clothes and items such as soap. This teacher was the first teacher to acknowledge the common humanity she and Patricia shared.
Radical empathy requires that each of us “know ourselves” well enough to know that we are the other. Our particular pains, fears, hopes, and dreams may be different, but our experience of pain, fear, hope and dreams (if we can allow them) are exactly the same.
Those who have experienced severe and/or chronic trauma learn that it is only by facing the trauma and the accompanying emotions that they can begin to heal. I think Isabel Wilkerson and other teachers are suggesting that it is only by facing our common humanity that we will begin to grow emotionally and spiritually. The United States could become great and even amazing by creating a country where radical empathy became the new norm.
Written January 16, 2018
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