With schools beginning and teachers planning as best they can, it’s again time for me to try my best to help the students understand something that may not appear in a textbook, but this ‘invisible lesson’ is of the utmost importance. So here goes:
Let’s get something straight. For two weeks I have been hearing people speak of empathy. A white announcer turns to a black baseball player and says, “I can empathize with you.” Sorry, pal. Your feelings are legitimate, but you need a dictionary — and with it — an acknowledgment that you have in baseball parlance: made an error.
Far too many folks who are not ‘of color’ claim to have empathy for black and brown Americans.
Face it. I am a white writer and former English teacher. I cannot relate to a black teacher walking into a classroom, or striding to a 7/11, or pining for a beer at a bar, or just minding his/ her own business taking a jog around the neighborhood. My skin is never going to cause a stir. It will not prompt anyone to look over their shoulder and wonder what I am doing here, there or anywhere. I get a free pass. I am presumed innocent. Full stop.
However, what causes me to shake my head in frustration is when someone pretends to (often with no malice) relate to another when clearly they have no business stepping into that batter’s box. So here goes: Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone — thus, you mail them a sympathy card. Empathy requires an understanding of that person’s troubles because of the likelihood of fairly similar experiences — sometimes, quite similar, but by ‘definition’ not exactly the same.
Joe Biden empathizes with another parent who has lost a child. Kamala Harris empathizes with the challenges present for people of color. They have been there. They get it. I can only sympathize…and try my best to educate myself.
On the contrary, many in this country simply do not understand, do not want to, and have no tolerance for folks who have been dehumanized, discriminated, or disadvantaged by the pigment of their skin. Instead, far too many see protesters as agitators, looters, and a threat to their life and liberty. Ironically, those same protesters are out on the streets because, in fact, life and liberty have been taken from them over and over again.
So why am I troubled with the semantic misrepresentation of these words? Because far too many folks who are not ‘of color’ claim to have empathy for black and brown Americans. It is politically correct to claim so. It makes them seem so ‘woke.’ But the truth be told, like myself, it is easy to say “Oh, I understand” — far far more difficult to live those beliefs.
Here’s a little test you can take (sorry the teacher in me). Credit for this test goes to Michael Landon of Little House on the Prairie and Bonanza fame. What would be your answer to the question: Would you rather live 50 years as a white person or 100 years as a black person? This was the question a black child asked Landon’s character on his show. Landon’s face told the young man all he needed to know. Landon’s character was ashamed because they both knew the answer.
Of course, you may say, “Well, that was life 100 years ago. It was the Old West.” Right. That was then and this is now. And the ‘now’ I live in, especially these last three plus years, is far more embarrassing. Fear is what fires up some of the voting public. Fear of immigrants, blacks, liberals, socialists, women, LGBTQ activists — there are many to choose. The reality is that black men and women in particular are the ones who should be afraid. They are the victims of systemic racism. They are the ancestors of slavery: the 1619 Project. They are the ones presumed guilty and told to get out of the car — they are the ones shot in the back.
When I was teaching To Kill a Mockingbird, I told my students about the great Bill Russell. I showed them his picture on a Wheaties box. Of course, I asked them who the best basketball player ever was — the GOAT. They piped up “Jordan, Koby, LeBron.” I smiled. “How do we know? Let’s ask ourselves who led their team to more championships — after all, it’s a team game, right?” That’s when I showed them the picture on the back of the cereal box of Russell’s two hands that held 13 rings. No one comes close.
So you would think he is the most recognizable man in America, right? Well, earlier in his career, after winning yet another title and the MVP award, he took a ride in his Maserati to see his family that lived in the Deep South. Then I asked the kids what happened next. From out of the mouths of babes they responded, “He got pulled over by the police.”
They knew. They were 14 year old freshmen in high school, but they already knew. Fancy, fast car. Black man. Rebel flag.
“And then what?” I asked.
“He got …something bad happened…arrested…shot….” The students were on the edge of their seats.
“No,” I said. “Bill Russell stood up and waved his arms — he is 6’10” and someone then recognized him and told the policeman, who was asking him how he got that car, ‘Hey, Officer, don’t you know who that is? It’s Bill Russell, the basketball player with the Boston Celtics!”
I looked at the students and asked one last question to them — “What do you think the officer did next?”
They knew the answer…he asked for Russell’s autograph.
Soyou see, as Harper Lee poignantly wrote, “You can’t know a person until you’ve stepped in his shoes and walked around in them.”
Now that’s empathy for you. Class dismissed. Go out and make a friend and judge them by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. Oh, wait. Kids already know that…it’s when they grow up that worries me.
