The primacy of “lived experience” is based on the belief that you can’t understand what somebody has been through unless you share their gender or race or sexuality. But this is bizarre. I mean, how much of the human experience is really siloed off in these ways? How many of us, regardless of these identities, have never felt as if we were treated unfairly? How many of us have never been misjudged because of the way we look? How many of us have never felt misunderstood or let down or alienated?
Empathy is everything. Skin color is not. I find the ability to connect with another person entirely dependent on the degree to which they embrace empathy as a way to build understanding.
Of note, we recently visited a relative who had spent the Covid time encased in fear and at home. I get fear. It’s scary. But this experience blinded them to the incredible adverse costs borne by those that couldn’t hide at home - those that had to be out there, in the mix, day after day. So our inputs to the discussion were met with a kind of condescending ‘there, there’ pat on the head and ‘gee, you’re so angry’ but it was all ok because hey, they were safe. Empathy score = 0.
I don’t discount real experience - I just think it’s an over used metric of what matters. Of course what you lived through informs who you are - but how do you live your life? Do you act with integrity toward other people? You don’t get a pass from me because someone crapped in your space - everyone has that experience. What do you do after? That’s what matters - how you stand up and how you go forward.
"Of course what you lived through informs who you are - but how do you live your life?"
Yep, exactly. To what extent does your personality affect your perception of the world, for example? Or your levels of self-esteem? Or blind luck? Experience is, by definition, subjective.
This doesn't mean it's useless, but it does mean we can't use it as the one true path to knowledge.
Excellent post! We teach these values in my agency's peer support volunteer trainings. Of course I respect any individual's lived experience as their own experience. But a hyper-focus on the unique individual experience can diminish the fact that we, as humans, all draw from the same palette of human emotions. As you say, the reasons differ but the emotions do not. It is particularly important that peer support volunteers recognize this, else they get caught in a mind-trap where they feel too ill-equipped to support a senior and/or a person with HIV or cancer, simply because they "have not walked in their shoes." I mean, no they have not, of course, but... they've also felt loneliness, happiness, sadness, loss, excitement... that's the purpose of empathy, to see the commonalities in emotions. And then, eventually, commonalities in experience & perspective may eventually come up. Or not! Who cares, vive la difference and all that, but we're all also human beings despite our differing lived experiences.
"else they get caught in a mind-trap where they feel too ill-equipped to support a senior and/or a person with HIV or cancer, simply because they "have not walked in their shoes.""
Absolutely. I see this kind of thinking on such wide range of issues. It helps to approach people as people as people *first*. Not as a disease or an age bracket or a "race". If we focus on the human, it's very rarely difficult to relate to people on a meaningful level.
And it is being taught in... the California Bay Area! The agency that I work for has charted its own course since the late '70s. Usually to much acclaim, but sometimes to controversy. Strange to think that our perspective of looking at the whole human with empathy - rather than thinking one part of a human equals the whole - could ever be considered controversial. Fortunately, literally thousands upon thousands of volunteers & staff trained in our model over the years have embraced our values. Turns out that being able to hold the ideals of both universalism and individualism simultaneously is not rocket science.
Great article. I interfaced with a black UPS driver several years ago and I tried to express empathy toward him by relaying that I had been terribly abused as a child and I could relate to what dehumanization feels like, even if the cause of my pain was a different catalyst. He shamed and blamed me for this attitude and said I would never understand and how dare I? I was just trying offer empathy and be supportive.
I felt spun out by that exchange for a long time. It made me feel completely invisible - ironically - one of the wounds I sustained in childhood. But, to him, it didn't matter if he triggered me or caused me harm because I am white, so therefore I am culpable and my humanity is suspect and he felt he didn't have to consider it. End of story.
I think it was at that exact moment when I began battling against woke ideology. If what we need to fix us is the right to dehumanize others, to cause the same harm to others that was sown on our heads (a la Kendi's "more discrimination" invocation), how does this move us forward in any constructive way as a country?
All I was trying to relay to him is that I deeply understand the journey of the victim and can empathize with whatever trials he has had to face and how it must impact him. I wanted him to know how deeply sorry I am that my culture levied that burden on his. But, he chose to cleave to his anger and to not see me - certainly his choice. But, I felt sad that we couldn't connect and commiserate as human beings. I felt sad that he couldn't receive my empathy. I think being open to receiving empathy from others is one of the steps toward healing.
That said, I know how seductive rage is. It feels so good to be angry, especially when it is justified. It took me a long time to realize I was wasting my life on quest for justice that would never be realized. I had to decide to move past my rage before I could begin living a fulfilling life - my rage was sapping my strength and my will and making it very hard to create anything meaningful. Letting it go was hard work, but it is so worth it. Today, I am a whole person. I don't live in fear or anger any longer. So, so worth it.
Plus, and perhaps most importantly, I've won. Those who sought to make me small, who sought to disempower and dehumanize me did NOT win! They didn't crush me. As Maya Angelou would put it, I ROSE! ;-)
"But, to him, it didn't matter if he triggered me or caused me harm because I am white"
I'm really sorry to hear this, and especially sad at how often I hear it. In some people's minds, victimhood (and more precisely, their specific *kind* of victimhood) is what defines your worth as a human being.
I've seen similar attitudes among some feminists who can't see the humanity of men, trans people who can't see the humanity of non-trans people, and yes, people of colour who can't see the humanity of white people. As you say, anger can be seductive. And recognising the humanity of your "oppressor" makes anger at everybody in that group harder to maintain.
That said, I do think it's tricky to compare different forms of victimhood. The ways we experience pain, the journeys it takes us on, are so different and hinge on so many different factors. Even when talking to other black people about racism, I'm reluctant to claim I know what they're going (or have been) through.
The shared foundation of humanity is a great starting point for conversations about our experiences. But as I mentioned to Sophie, even if we were siblings, it likely wouldn't be wise to presume we *understand* how experiences have impacted each other,
Your essential honesty, Steve, is just a beautiful thing. Responses like this show a path forward instead of what becomes, in essence, wallowing in grievance.
I think that (imperfectly but meaningfully) understanding how life is for someone else is very feasible though empathy and contact and learning. But it also seems to be important to have humility, always expressing one's understandings tentatively with willingness to deepen or modify one's understanding, rather than being overly confident. It's easy for somebody to feel misunderstood or even to feel like their pain is being trivialized by what lands as only a superficial understanding.
And awareness of that tension and balance is part of effective empathy in itself.
That said, at times a person does not want to be "understood" and does not want empathy; for example, they may want power or some other outcome. The space of crossing racial lines with empathy is particularly strewn with mines, thanks to the neo-progressive reframing of differences as inherently conflicting view of what is "right" or "true". Accepting diversity of viewpoint is not one of their strong suits.
That sounds like a painful and unfair experience. There's an art to empathy that I find difficult at times --sometimes it feels helpful and appropriate to share a parallel experience as a way of relating or commiserating and sometimes doing that lands poorly and makes the other person feel like I'm trying to shift the convo toward myself and away from them. (I'm not talking about inter-racial conversations specifically, just in general). I'm not always confident in my ability to read a situation and know whether to share a personal story or not.
I think that ups guy treated you with some serious disrespect. Why should your attempts to empathize be discounted? What a bitter person. Please don’t make that the shut down moment - your grace and sharing deserve a better reception.
Thanks, but I'm' doing great - I got over it and he no longer drives in my area. It has made me cautious with regard to how I interface with black people, though. There is a great deal of sensitivity these days.
That said, I wish him well. I hope that he is able to heal his anger and develop a healthy self concept and live a fulfilling life. He deserves it. We all do. :-)
I'm glad you are doing great! But please try not to see one individual's perspective as necessarily representative of an entire community or people's perspective. That's a slippery slope...
Something to think about. At times I must sound a bit like Sophie. How? I often think that part of the difference in people with very different worldviews is because of the very different lives they have lived. The thing is, people often hear, when they should be listening. They are thinking about their response before the other person finishes. I am often guilty of this, but I'm working on it.
Around 40 years ago I worked a night shift as an electronic mechanic on a military base in Georgia. We had "parts changers" who changed parts for us. I spent many hours listening to an old black woman (parts changer) who couldn't have had a lower opinion of white men. She told me her stories, mostly from when she was young, which put them farther back into the bad old days than I knew of from personal experience. When I say listen, that's truly what I did. Some valuable hours of my life.
Could I learn more from a white woman? It's easy to think no, but I don't know how she came upon her views. But as you wrote, some ideas are so wrong, and bad, that they need to be honestly challenged, no matter who says them. I like to think I have something to contribute, but I've been told to stay in my lane. Maybe I'm wrong.
"Could I learn more from a white woman? It's easy to think no, but I don't know how she came upon her views"
Absolutely. In the end, I think it's just about being open-minded. I don't think we should dismiss people because of their immutable characteristics, and I don't think we should listen to people because of them either.
What does the person have to say? Can they defend their position clearly? Do their ideas point to solutions? Do hey understand their subject matter? If the answer to these questions is "yes", I couldn't care less what the person looks like.
I'm going to stick up a bit for Sophie here. I'm with you on the idea that you don't have to have personally experienced a particular type of -ism to understand it and be empathetic, but there are some limits. As a woman, I do see in men a general cluelessness, an inability to completely understand how women have to move through society with more concern for their safety than men do. (Probably) perfectly nice guys can't understand why a woman wouldn't want to just get into a car with some guy she barely knows and are maybe even a little offended by the implication of her resistance. They probably don't think of themself as a potential sexual assaulter but we do, until we know them better. A few times I've gone against my better judgement and gotten into a car with a strange man and at the least I get nagged for a date, and on one occasion I came near to getting sexually assaulted. BTW, I was a crazy headstrong kid of 51 when this happened, which is why I became a radical on Medium writing about how women need to patch the gaps in judgment in their own brains to protect ourselves better, to stop *being* the victim rather than whining about 'blaming the victim', esp when we sometimes make it really really easy to be victimized.
I've experienced all the usual disses and occasional mistreatment women typically get, so I get how black people are unfairly discriminated against on sight. I may not get followed around stores like blacks but I do by horny men. (Still at 58. I'm such a little near-senior hotcha hotcha lol). BUT....that doesn't mean I can't be blind to certain things, just as men are (in many cases involuntarily) blind to that which they've never experienced. I disagree with Sophie thinking that white peoples' opinions should be marginalized (!) because of skin colour; two wrongs don't make a right. An advantaged group (white, male, cis-het, whatever) is often unfairly blanket-maligned, esp by those who value 'feelings' over facts and who think they can mindread (that Karen thought I work in the grocery store because I'm black! No, I thought you worked there because I was in a hurry and your outfit looks a lot like their store uniform).
A *value* that *sincere* people from a dominant group can offer is an alternative view and an insight into what others may be thinking based on their own experience. Like, what it's like to be in a dominant group and what we're really thinking, saying or doing when others feel 'marginalized'.
I think white women and black men share a certain commonality: We're both members of dominant and disadvantaged groups. They don't know what it's like to grow up white, I don't know what it's like to grow up male, and the 'intersectionality' of our identities aside, we can compare notes and apply each other's insights to our own experiences (like, our respective experiences in getting followed by strangers).
"As a woman, I do see in men a general cluelessness, an inability to completely understand how women have to move through society with more concern for their safety than men do."
Oh yeah, absolutely. Jared (from the conversation about trans women in changing rooms) was a shocking recent example of this. I'm definitely not suggesting that we understand the experience of other groups by default, simply because we're all human.
I'm saying that if we truly make an effort, if we're genuinely interested in understanding each other, listening and empathy and careful thought can get us a fair amount of the way there. Again, aren't we're always having to do some version of this with other people? Even people who share certain traits with us? After all, I don't know what it's like to grow up black. I know what it was like for *me* to grow up black. Undoubtedly there's crossover with other black people. But as some of my conversations show, there's also a fair amount of disagreement sometimes.
My view on "blackness" as a concept has been formed far more by listening to other black people than by drawing on my personal experiences.
Thank you for this... I was feeling a little guilty for not liking D’Angelo’s White Fragility as it just annoyed me, it felt so whiny. I was worried it might be a blind spot thing but I really could not bear to read beyond the first chapter. I loved How to be an Antiracist though by Kendi really nuanced, thorough, humane, inspiring and practical.
Thanks for the opinion on Kendi’s book. My wife is a super problem solver type. When the George Floyd turmoil was occurring, she got the message that sometimes white people are unaware of their own racist attitudes. So, she immediately bought and read White Fragility. So, of course, I read it too. Aside from the fact that it’s a grand projection of her own conflicted mindset onto everyone else, black and white, the main thing I didn’t like about it was that there wasn’t a hint of redemption. Maybe I’ll read Kendi.
I liked Kendi's first book, Stamped from the Beginning, but didn't get much out of How to be an Antiracist. I also really like Toure Reed's Toward Freedom b/c it brings a class analysis into the mix and holds open the promise of multi-racial working class organizing.
I used to revere empathy very highly, as one of the primary positives about this interesting species we find ourselves incarnated into. However, one thing I realized in recent months is that there is a distinction between what I call "tribal empathy" and "universal empathy".
What I noticed is that within certain contemporary US tribes, having empathy for designated groups is not only respected, but mandated; while any sign of empathy for other groups is treated with disdain and distancing. What I realized is that this type of empathy has been turned into a weapon of the culture wars - unlimited empathy for our side, anti-empathy for other sides. Not too surprising since it piggybacks on the us/them tension. Chimpanzee males in a band do a of grooming each other and cultivating positive feelings - in order to recruit and retain allies in sometimes very bloody struggles with other groups.
What I've begun noticing is that this kind of "empathy" is always connected to a prescribed numbing of empathy for other groups, a flip side of the coin.
By universal empathy, I don't mean that we humans must universally empathize with everybody without exception - but if one can do so, it's not treated as a moral failure, but as a possibly hopeful thing. This is the kind of empathy which transcends tribal boundaries, and breaks affective logjams. When I see a former neo-nazi or KKK member who escaped from that mindset, typically the key was receiving empathy from someone they expected to receive hate from; their mindset thrives on being hated, that feedback has been incorporated into the mechanisms which sustain the mindset. Receiving empathy from somebody whom you are against and who you expect to despite you, can break the pattern.
So when some people think that empathy is not enough to bridge the gap of having had different life experiences, perhaps they have experienced giving and recieving mostly "tribal empathy", which indeed is by definition bad at bridging (tribal) differences. But by talkinng with people, by reading good fiction and non-fiction, one can indeed get some meaningful understanding of what it's like to live in somebody else's shoes. Imperfect, but it's always imperfect - it can still be important.
This is one of the cultural mutations which characterize "neo-progressivism" from liberalism or traditional progressivism - empathy has become substantially more tribal. Once upon a time, trying to understand how something looks from "the other side" was valued among liberal values; now to do so is suspect. Dogma has suppressed not only critical thinking, but any kind of universal empathy, which might undermine the starkness of The Oppression Narrative upon which so much neo-progressivism's power rests.
We had a debate earlier about the usage of the word 'racism.' I maintained the relevance of the European usage, which developed independently in the 19th century, and means essentially what it means here, except it is in reference to what we do to each other.
I don't think I expressed my real reason at hating the dismissal or 'correction' of European people using the word. I believe all the dogma surrounding it has been piled up to shore up any breaches in the concept that 'white people will never understand racism.' You're hitting on that here. You're showing your willingness to entertain the possibility of 'understanding each other perfectly.'
I don't think I told you about the two professors at the University of Montenegro who discovered my book. They're both involved in the new government following their involvement in the deposing of the dictator there. That was achieved by borrowing from the non violent resistance strategies of black America. A very big deal to happen in Montenegro of all places, but too much to go into here.
She's now the minister of culture and education (don't hear from her anymore, too busy I guess). At one point we were chatting at length. She teased me that I overromanticize us Serbs. I said that we've been so inundated with so much hatred, that we often internalize, that sometimes we need to do a little overcompensating. She was startled and told me I am always making these succinct statements that were so surprising because they reveal that I understand them perfectly and I've never even been there.
Then I was startled, that she recognized that about me and she's never even met me. And all my life I've surrounded myself with these people making precisely those succinct statements -- where I got that one, actually -- and what I'd always loved about them, when not one of them in a lifetime has ever recognized that I understand them perfectly.
This myth about 'white' inability to comprehend racism is couched in a whole lot of very dysfunctional emotion that's up to no good. Its end result is the preservation of the false division between us, 342 years old. At this point, no one is maintaining that division more assiduously than black Americans. There is nothing about it to be trusted, whatsoever. It is pure distress misapplied into completely unproductive, cheap thrill scapegoating. Of course 40 million people murdered in end-stage racism isn't really racism. It would mean we are equals fully capable of understanding one another perfectly.
"You're showing your willingness to entertain the possibility of 'understanding each other perfectly.'"
I've never been unwilling to recognise that people can understand each other. In fact, the vast majority of my writing makes this point. Human beings have far more in common than in contrast. We can't understand each other *perfectly*, simply because it's not possible for human beings of any combination of colours or creeds to understand each other perfectly. People are different. Their experiences and biases and formative experiences are different. All of this is fine.
But while individuals can understand each other, individuals can't understand groups. You don't understand black people as a group. *I* don't understand black people as a group. Simply because there are millions of black people on Earth, all with different experiences and ideas about racism. There is no unified group experience to "understand". This is a really important point. Empathy and conversation help us to gain insight into experiences we haven't had. But as hard as I try, as many conversations as I have, as much empathy as I muster, I'll never "perfectly" understand what it's like to be a woman, for example. This is fine too.
I have the same feeling I had in our earlier conversation. It's as if you see racism as some sort of club that you're being denied entry to. I still don't understand why you feel this way.
The definition of the word racism has nothing to do with trying to exclude white people. At least not in my mind. I've never argued that white people can't experience racism or that black people can't be racist (again, I've written the exact opposite on numerous occasions). But the average white person's experience of racism is obviously different to the average black person's experience. Just as men's experience of sexism will generally be different to women's experience of sexism. White people will typically need more of those conversations and empathy to grasp what a consistent experience of racism is like.
Bigotry has many forms. They're all bad. "Racism" describes one type. And as the name suggests, it's bigotry based on the concept of "race". But as I said in our previous conversation, if you want to describe your experiences as racism, go right ahead. I don't claim to have any control over how you use words.
Linda, I’m so baffled by this. Forget what? What is it you want to convince me of? What would you like to hear me say? What’s really at the root of all this for you?
I don’t “just want to argue”, I just don’t agree with you. And I don’t understand why you’re so invested in what is, at least to me, purely a semantic disagreement.
This isn't remotely semantics for me. Something you said yesterday stuck, "It's as if you see racism as some sort of club that you're being denied entry to." Perhaps I've been upside down in explaining who I am. That is a very interesting observation about a Krajina Serb. Let's see why we might feel that way. What we have been through is as bad as it gets, anywhere, ever. Do you know anything about us?
For several generations we endured psychological destruction of identity and self-worth. I surmise the AH empire decided it would be expedient for their subjects in Croatia to be western-identified, as opposed to eastern-identified.
Behind that, cultural genocide became colonial policy. Then there was all that physical butchery, many think the most sadistic exterminations of WWII, one in four of us murdered. Then came the terrorism of the Nineties that was essentially the last 150 years of the black American experience, (uncanny similarity in plot points) in reverse, in a few years' time, that resulted in our expulsion. We're now far too small and scattered for the culture and identity to survive. The culture that produced Tesla no longer exists. There are just old people left in the land we are largely aboriginal to, dying off.
There's nothing semantical about the analogies I have felt, not thought, felt about the fine details of our experience mirrored in the black American experience, precious clues on a quest I didn't even know I was on, since childhood. Those feelings are at the bottom of why I even know who I am. My own family's identity was destroyed in that first phase. My grandmother was too ashamed of who she was to even tell us. We had no explanation whatsoever for the overwhelming contempt we held ourselves in, that we were punishing each other with daily. My father, a Krajina Serb who thought he was an American bigot, confoundedly raised me to be the opposite. What's the opposite of an American bigot? A Krajina Serb.
I had no idea why, but the conversation about racism and identity that the airwaves were full of since my childhood in the Sixties was the most interesting conversation in the world to me. Especially the one about the recovery of a devastated identity.
Once of age, I spent a lifetime supporting a number of people in their re-emergence. Those are really the only people I could relate to or understand. I have lived on what America considers the 'wrong' side of the color line for a lifetime. That is NOT an easy position to occupy. You meet with constant shunning and shaming from the 'good' white folks, and far too often, scapegoating from the black folks around you, often at very close range from people you are depending on.
It was when I went to write a rant, almost ten years ago, about how difficult that life is and began researching my grandmother's line that I discovered who I really was. I recovered my birthright and completed the conversation about 'recovering a devastated identity.' That was never a semantic discussion, obviously, it ran to my core and was worth any difficulty I wound up paying for it. A fortune, actually. For my own goddamn birthright.
As I said, I spent a lifetime supporting any number of people on this issue. It has not been reciprocated. There is a truncated response nearly always. I've been struggling to understand and explain it. I'm sure that truncated response is at the core of the existing dysfunctions between black and white.
Meanwhile, I'm quite aware that the profoundly racist experience heaped upon my people is in no way perceived as such. We were characterized in the West as the invading genocidal maniacs. (A simple examination of the census proves otherwise. We're the only Balkan population in that conflict with a significant loss in numbers) In fact, we were largely aboriginal people subjected to an extreme genocidal pogrom for over a century. To say we would feel like people who've been denied entry to the racism club hits the nail on the head. It's not at all semantical. It's the core of our existential dilemma. And the lack of admission to that club has everything to do with why our story became as bad as it gets, ever, anywhere. Nobody supports us. Nobody.
“ Let's see why we might feel that way. What we have been through is as bad as it gets, anywhere, ever. Do you know anything about us?”
No, I don’t really, so I won’t comment on the experiences you describe here. But this is the same point we keep butting up against. Bigotry is not a competition. I’m not saying that the experience isn’t “as bad as it gets”. Nothing I’m saying is intended in any way to diminish your people’s suffering. Why can’t you understand this?!
It’s as if you think that if we call what your people experienced “racism” if we use that word instead of another, people will care more about what happened. But that’s not how language works.
Murder and sexual assault are both abhorrent. I wouldn’t try to say that one is worse than the other. But I can’t call murder rape. They describe two different things.
So yes, this is semantic. I’m not questioning the horror of what your people went through. As you say, I don’t know nearly enough, I just don’t think the word racism is the best descriptor for that horror.
Hmm. I was enjoying and learning from the interchange, which was disagreeing on some points but respectful - two people seeming to try to get a better grasp on the truth, through contrasting their perspectives.
I wasn't taking sides, but learning from each of your facets of the truth. I wasn't seeing the point being to "win", so much as to share differing opinions.
Then suddenly you seemed to end that interchange with Steve QJ and exit.
Was I misreading the tone and purpose of your initial writing? Or did something else just come up?
Sorry, never got notice of your comment. I didn't exit the conversation, he did. My comment ended with my near universal experience of a truncated response from the black folks around me, some in my own family, when I share the racism my people have experienced. I don't receive a satisfying reciprocation of the caring attention and supported I've lavished on them for a lifetime. I sense an instinct to react to my statements as a competition and dismissal, which is the racist tradition since 1680, at the close of Bacon's Rebellion.
I expected a truncated response to what I'd shared. That's what happened, isn't it? No surprise. I've had to move on with the understanding that will never happen. It will always grieve me, but I must live with it.
It has certainly frequently happened that someone who insists on this definition of racism purely delineated by appearance, has dismissed me and mine, often even turning on me, it being obvious that they cannot hear me, they are hearing Karen. They are hearing what they expect to hear, as per their stereotypes. There is absolutely every bit as much Implicit Bias in black American heads as white in the reverse. I notice this bias more than others since all those adjectives presumed about white American negate me 100%. Culturally genocided people really hate being negated. I mean, REALLY hate it.
Nothing gets the ghetto in the Serb going more than being associated with supremacists. Nobody's had more trouble with those mf's than we have, for refusing to join up with them, and to have it blithely assumed we're associated with them when we get here is a major reason we despise the notion of having to come here.
“I didn't exit the conversation, he did. My comment ended with my near universal experience of a truncated response from the black folks around me”
I thought very seriously about ignoring this comment. Not only is it very obviously untrue, my reply is right there, written months ago, with no response from you, so no, I didn’t exit the conversation.
But also, I find it fascinating that this “near universal response” you get from black people doesn’t make you wonder if you’re the one missing something. You just keep doing the same thing with new black people and demanding different results.
You haven’t “lavished” caring attention on me. The “black community” doesn’t get together and share notes on who we have an obligation to because of some kindness to another “them.”
I’ve never dismissed what you’ve said, I’ve sympathised with the suffering you’ve described over and over again. I simply disagree with you about what word to use to describe it.
Empathy is everything. Skin color is not. I find the ability to connect with another person entirely dependent on the degree to which they embrace empathy as a way to build understanding.
Of note, we recently visited a relative who had spent the Covid time encased in fear and at home. I get fear. It’s scary. But this experience blinded them to the incredible adverse costs borne by those that couldn’t hide at home - those that had to be out there, in the mix, day after day. So our inputs to the discussion were met with a kind of condescending ‘there, there’ pat on the head and ‘gee, you’re so angry’ but it was all ok because hey, they were safe. Empathy score = 0.
I don’t discount real experience - I just think it’s an over used metric of what matters. Of course what you lived through informs who you are - but how do you live your life? Do you act with integrity toward other people? You don’t get a pass from me because someone crapped in your space - everyone has that experience. What do you do after? That’s what matters - how you stand up and how you go forward.
"Of course what you lived through informs who you are - but how do you live your life?"
Yep, exactly. To what extent does your personality affect your perception of the world, for example? Or your levels of self-esteem? Or blind luck? Experience is, by definition, subjective.
This doesn't mean it's useless, but it does mean we can't use it as the one true path to knowledge.
Excellent post! We teach these values in my agency's peer support volunteer trainings. Of course I respect any individual's lived experience as their own experience. But a hyper-focus on the unique individual experience can diminish the fact that we, as humans, all draw from the same palette of human emotions. As you say, the reasons differ but the emotions do not. It is particularly important that peer support volunteers recognize this, else they get caught in a mind-trap where they feel too ill-equipped to support a senior and/or a person with HIV or cancer, simply because they "have not walked in their shoes." I mean, no they have not, of course, but... they've also felt loneliness, happiness, sadness, loss, excitement... that's the purpose of empathy, to see the commonalities in emotions. And then, eventually, commonalities in experience & perspective may eventually come up. Or not! Who cares, vive la difference and all that, but we're all also human beings despite our differing lived experiences.
"else they get caught in a mind-trap where they feel too ill-equipped to support a senior and/or a person with HIV or cancer, simply because they "have not walked in their shoes.""
Absolutely. I see this kind of thinking on such wide range of issues. It helps to approach people as people as people *first*. Not as a disease or an age bracket or a "race". If we focus on the human, it's very rarely difficult to relate to people on a meaningful level.
It's encouraging to hear that this is still being taught in the 2020's.
And it is being taught in... the California Bay Area! The agency that I work for has charted its own course since the late '70s. Usually to much acclaim, but sometimes to controversy. Strange to think that our perspective of looking at the whole human with empathy - rather than thinking one part of a human equals the whole - could ever be considered controversial. Fortunately, literally thousands upon thousands of volunteers & staff trained in our model over the years have embraced our values. Turns out that being able to hold the ideals of both universalism and individualism simultaneously is not rocket science.
Great article. I interfaced with a black UPS driver several years ago and I tried to express empathy toward him by relaying that I had been terribly abused as a child and I could relate to what dehumanization feels like, even if the cause of my pain was a different catalyst. He shamed and blamed me for this attitude and said I would never understand and how dare I? I was just trying offer empathy and be supportive.
I felt spun out by that exchange for a long time. It made me feel completely invisible - ironically - one of the wounds I sustained in childhood. But, to him, it didn't matter if he triggered me or caused me harm because I am white, so therefore I am culpable and my humanity is suspect and he felt he didn't have to consider it. End of story.
I think it was at that exact moment when I began battling against woke ideology. If what we need to fix us is the right to dehumanize others, to cause the same harm to others that was sown on our heads (a la Kendi's "more discrimination" invocation), how does this move us forward in any constructive way as a country?
All I was trying to relay to him is that I deeply understand the journey of the victim and can empathize with whatever trials he has had to face and how it must impact him. I wanted him to know how deeply sorry I am that my culture levied that burden on his. But, he chose to cleave to his anger and to not see me - certainly his choice. But, I felt sad that we couldn't connect and commiserate as human beings. I felt sad that he couldn't receive my empathy. I think being open to receiving empathy from others is one of the steps toward healing.
That said, I know how seductive rage is. It feels so good to be angry, especially when it is justified. It took me a long time to realize I was wasting my life on quest for justice that would never be realized. I had to decide to move past my rage before I could begin living a fulfilling life - my rage was sapping my strength and my will and making it very hard to create anything meaningful. Letting it go was hard work, but it is so worth it. Today, I am a whole person. I don't live in fear or anger any longer. So, so worth it.
Plus, and perhaps most importantly, I've won. Those who sought to make me small, who sought to disempower and dehumanize me did NOT win! They didn't crush me. As Maya Angelou would put it, I ROSE! ;-)
"But, to him, it didn't matter if he triggered me or caused me harm because I am white"
I'm really sorry to hear this, and especially sad at how often I hear it. In some people's minds, victimhood (and more precisely, their specific *kind* of victimhood) is what defines your worth as a human being.
I've seen similar attitudes among some feminists who can't see the humanity of men, trans people who can't see the humanity of non-trans people, and yes, people of colour who can't see the humanity of white people. As you say, anger can be seductive. And recognising the humanity of your "oppressor" makes anger at everybody in that group harder to maintain.
That said, I do think it's tricky to compare different forms of victimhood. The ways we experience pain, the journeys it takes us on, are so different and hinge on so many different factors. Even when talking to other black people about racism, I'm reluctant to claim I know what they're going (or have been) through.
The shared foundation of humanity is a great starting point for conversations about our experiences. But as I mentioned to Sophie, even if we were siblings, it likely wouldn't be wise to presume we *understand* how experiences have impacted each other,
Your essential honesty, Steve, is just a beautiful thing. Responses like this show a path forward instead of what becomes, in essence, wallowing in grievance.
I think that (imperfectly but meaningfully) understanding how life is for someone else is very feasible though empathy and contact and learning. But it also seems to be important to have humility, always expressing one's understandings tentatively with willingness to deepen or modify one's understanding, rather than being overly confident. It's easy for somebody to feel misunderstood or even to feel like their pain is being trivialized by what lands as only a superficial understanding.
And awareness of that tension and balance is part of effective empathy in itself.
That said, at times a person does not want to be "understood" and does not want empathy; for example, they may want power or some other outcome. The space of crossing racial lines with empathy is particularly strewn with mines, thanks to the neo-progressive reframing of differences as inherently conflicting view of what is "right" or "true". Accepting diversity of viewpoint is not one of their strong suits.
That sounds like a painful and unfair experience. There's an art to empathy that I find difficult at times --sometimes it feels helpful and appropriate to share a parallel experience as a way of relating or commiserating and sometimes doing that lands poorly and makes the other person feel like I'm trying to shift the convo toward myself and away from them. (I'm not talking about inter-racial conversations specifically, just in general). I'm not always confident in my ability to read a situation and know whether to share a personal story or not.
Fair point.
I think that ups guy treated you with some serious disrespect. Why should your attempts to empathize be discounted? What a bitter person. Please don’t make that the shut down moment - your grace and sharing deserve a better reception.
Thanks, but I'm' doing great - I got over it and he no longer drives in my area. It has made me cautious with regard to how I interface with black people, though. There is a great deal of sensitivity these days.
That said, I wish him well. I hope that he is able to heal his anger and develop a healthy self concept and live a fulfilling life. He deserves it. We all do. :-)
I'm glad you are doing great! But please try not to see one individual's perspective as necessarily representative of an entire community or people's perspective. That's a slippery slope...
Of course. I still take each person as they come and try to extend benefit of the doubt where I can.
Something to think about. At times I must sound a bit like Sophie. How? I often think that part of the difference in people with very different worldviews is because of the very different lives they have lived. The thing is, people often hear, when they should be listening. They are thinking about their response before the other person finishes. I am often guilty of this, but I'm working on it.
Around 40 years ago I worked a night shift as an electronic mechanic on a military base in Georgia. We had "parts changers" who changed parts for us. I spent many hours listening to an old black woman (parts changer) who couldn't have had a lower opinion of white men. She told me her stories, mostly from when she was young, which put them farther back into the bad old days than I knew of from personal experience. When I say listen, that's truly what I did. Some valuable hours of my life.
Could I learn more from a white woman? It's easy to think no, but I don't know how she came upon her views. But as you wrote, some ideas are so wrong, and bad, that they need to be honestly challenged, no matter who says them. I like to think I have something to contribute, but I've been told to stay in my lane. Maybe I'm wrong.
"Could I learn more from a white woman? It's easy to think no, but I don't know how she came upon her views"
Absolutely. In the end, I think it's just about being open-minded. I don't think we should dismiss people because of their immutable characteristics, and I don't think we should listen to people because of them either.
What does the person have to say? Can they defend their position clearly? Do their ideas point to solutions? Do hey understand their subject matter? If the answer to these questions is "yes", I couldn't care less what the person looks like.
Thank you, Steve, for your "empathy and hours of research and a heartfelt desire to repair the damage these evils have caused."
Your efforts are evident in the insights, analysis and observations you articulate in each of your excellent writings.
Thanks so much Ruth! 😊
I'm going to stick up a bit for Sophie here. I'm with you on the idea that you don't have to have personally experienced a particular type of -ism to understand it and be empathetic, but there are some limits. As a woman, I do see in men a general cluelessness, an inability to completely understand how women have to move through society with more concern for their safety than men do. (Probably) perfectly nice guys can't understand why a woman wouldn't want to just get into a car with some guy she barely knows and are maybe even a little offended by the implication of her resistance. They probably don't think of themself as a potential sexual assaulter but we do, until we know them better. A few times I've gone against my better judgement and gotten into a car with a strange man and at the least I get nagged for a date, and on one occasion I came near to getting sexually assaulted. BTW, I was a crazy headstrong kid of 51 when this happened, which is why I became a radical on Medium writing about how women need to patch the gaps in judgment in their own brains to protect ourselves better, to stop *being* the victim rather than whining about 'blaming the victim', esp when we sometimes make it really really easy to be victimized.
I've experienced all the usual disses and occasional mistreatment women typically get, so I get how black people are unfairly discriminated against on sight. I may not get followed around stores like blacks but I do by horny men. (Still at 58. I'm such a little near-senior hotcha hotcha lol). BUT....that doesn't mean I can't be blind to certain things, just as men are (in many cases involuntarily) blind to that which they've never experienced. I disagree with Sophie thinking that white peoples' opinions should be marginalized (!) because of skin colour; two wrongs don't make a right. An advantaged group (white, male, cis-het, whatever) is often unfairly blanket-maligned, esp by those who value 'feelings' over facts and who think they can mindread (that Karen thought I work in the grocery store because I'm black! No, I thought you worked there because I was in a hurry and your outfit looks a lot like their store uniform).
A *value* that *sincere* people from a dominant group can offer is an alternative view and an insight into what others may be thinking based on their own experience. Like, what it's like to be in a dominant group and what we're really thinking, saying or doing when others feel 'marginalized'.
I think white women and black men share a certain commonality: We're both members of dominant and disadvantaged groups. They don't know what it's like to grow up white, I don't know what it's like to grow up male, and the 'intersectionality' of our identities aside, we can compare notes and apply each other's insights to our own experiences (like, our respective experiences in getting followed by strangers).
"As a woman, I do see in men a general cluelessness, an inability to completely understand how women have to move through society with more concern for their safety than men do."
Oh yeah, absolutely. Jared (from the conversation about trans women in changing rooms) was a shocking recent example of this. I'm definitely not suggesting that we understand the experience of other groups by default, simply because we're all human.
I'm saying that if we truly make an effort, if we're genuinely interested in understanding each other, listening and empathy and careful thought can get us a fair amount of the way there. Again, aren't we're always having to do some version of this with other people? Even people who share certain traits with us? After all, I don't know what it's like to grow up black. I know what it was like for *me* to grow up black. Undoubtedly there's crossover with other black people. But as some of my conversations show, there's also a fair amount of disagreement sometimes.
My view on "blackness" as a concept has been formed far more by listening to other black people than by drawing on my personal experiences.
Thank you for this... I was feeling a little guilty for not liking D’Angelo’s White Fragility as it just annoyed me, it felt so whiny. I was worried it might be a blind spot thing but I really could not bear to read beyond the first chapter. I loved How to be an Antiracist though by Kendi really nuanced, thorough, humane, inspiring and practical.
Thanks for the opinion on Kendi’s book. My wife is a super problem solver type. When the George Floyd turmoil was occurring, she got the message that sometimes white people are unaware of their own racist attitudes. So, she immediately bought and read White Fragility. So, of course, I read it too. Aside from the fact that it’s a grand projection of her own conflicted mindset onto everyone else, black and white, the main thing I didn’t like about it was that there wasn’t a hint of redemption. Maybe I’ll read Kendi.
I liked Kendi's first book, Stamped from the Beginning, but didn't get much out of How to be an Antiracist. I also really like Toure Reed's Toward Freedom b/c it brings a class analysis into the mix and holds open the promise of multi-racial working class organizing.
Empathy is indeed a key.
I used to revere empathy very highly, as one of the primary positives about this interesting species we find ourselves incarnated into. However, one thing I realized in recent months is that there is a distinction between what I call "tribal empathy" and "universal empathy".
What I noticed is that within certain contemporary US tribes, having empathy for designated groups is not only respected, but mandated; while any sign of empathy for other groups is treated with disdain and distancing. What I realized is that this type of empathy has been turned into a weapon of the culture wars - unlimited empathy for our side, anti-empathy for other sides. Not too surprising since it piggybacks on the us/them tension. Chimpanzee males in a band do a of grooming each other and cultivating positive feelings - in order to recruit and retain allies in sometimes very bloody struggles with other groups.
What I've begun noticing is that this kind of "empathy" is always connected to a prescribed numbing of empathy for other groups, a flip side of the coin.
By universal empathy, I don't mean that we humans must universally empathize with everybody without exception - but if one can do so, it's not treated as a moral failure, but as a possibly hopeful thing. This is the kind of empathy which transcends tribal boundaries, and breaks affective logjams. When I see a former neo-nazi or KKK member who escaped from that mindset, typically the key was receiving empathy from someone they expected to receive hate from; their mindset thrives on being hated, that feedback has been incorporated into the mechanisms which sustain the mindset. Receiving empathy from somebody whom you are against and who you expect to despite you, can break the pattern.
So when some people think that empathy is not enough to bridge the gap of having had different life experiences, perhaps they have experienced giving and recieving mostly "tribal empathy", which indeed is by definition bad at bridging (tribal) differences. But by talkinng with people, by reading good fiction and non-fiction, one can indeed get some meaningful understanding of what it's like to live in somebody else's shoes. Imperfect, but it's always imperfect - it can still be important.
This is one of the cultural mutations which characterize "neo-progressivism" from liberalism or traditional progressivism - empathy has become substantially more tribal. Once upon a time, trying to understand how something looks from "the other side" was valued among liberal values; now to do so is suspect. Dogma has suppressed not only critical thinking, but any kind of universal empathy, which might undermine the starkness of The Oppression Narrative upon which so much neo-progressivism's power rests.
We had a debate earlier about the usage of the word 'racism.' I maintained the relevance of the European usage, which developed independently in the 19th century, and means essentially what it means here, except it is in reference to what we do to each other.
I don't think I expressed my real reason at hating the dismissal or 'correction' of European people using the word. I believe all the dogma surrounding it has been piled up to shore up any breaches in the concept that 'white people will never understand racism.' You're hitting on that here. You're showing your willingness to entertain the possibility of 'understanding each other perfectly.'
I don't think I told you about the two professors at the University of Montenegro who discovered my book. They're both involved in the new government following their involvement in the deposing of the dictator there. That was achieved by borrowing from the non violent resistance strategies of black America. A very big deal to happen in Montenegro of all places, but too much to go into here.
She's now the minister of culture and education (don't hear from her anymore, too busy I guess). At one point we were chatting at length. She teased me that I overromanticize us Serbs. I said that we've been so inundated with so much hatred, that we often internalize, that sometimes we need to do a little overcompensating. She was startled and told me I am always making these succinct statements that were so surprising because they reveal that I understand them perfectly and I've never even been there.
Then I was startled, that she recognized that about me and she's never even met me. And all my life I've surrounded myself with these people making precisely those succinct statements -- where I got that one, actually -- and what I'd always loved about them, when not one of them in a lifetime has ever recognized that I understand them perfectly.
This myth about 'white' inability to comprehend racism is couched in a whole lot of very dysfunctional emotion that's up to no good. Its end result is the preservation of the false division between us, 342 years old. At this point, no one is maintaining that division more assiduously than black Americans. There is nothing about it to be trusted, whatsoever. It is pure distress misapplied into completely unproductive, cheap thrill scapegoating. Of course 40 million people murdered in end-stage racism isn't really racism. It would mean we are equals fully capable of understanding one another perfectly.
We can't have that, now can we? How un-American.
"You're showing your willingness to entertain the possibility of 'understanding each other perfectly.'"
I've never been unwilling to recognise that people can understand each other. In fact, the vast majority of my writing makes this point. Human beings have far more in common than in contrast. We can't understand each other *perfectly*, simply because it's not possible for human beings of any combination of colours or creeds to understand each other perfectly. People are different. Their experiences and biases and formative experiences are different. All of this is fine.
But while individuals can understand each other, individuals can't understand groups. You don't understand black people as a group. *I* don't understand black people as a group. Simply because there are millions of black people on Earth, all with different experiences and ideas about racism. There is no unified group experience to "understand". This is a really important point. Empathy and conversation help us to gain insight into experiences we haven't had. But as hard as I try, as many conversations as I have, as much empathy as I muster, I'll never "perfectly" understand what it's like to be a woman, for example. This is fine too.
I have the same feeling I had in our earlier conversation. It's as if you see racism as some sort of club that you're being denied entry to. I still don't understand why you feel this way.
The definition of the word racism has nothing to do with trying to exclude white people. At least not in my mind. I've never argued that white people can't experience racism or that black people can't be racist (again, I've written the exact opposite on numerous occasions). But the average white person's experience of racism is obviously different to the average black person's experience. Just as men's experience of sexism will generally be different to women's experience of sexism. White people will typically need more of those conversations and empathy to grasp what a consistent experience of racism is like.
Bigotry has many forms. They're all bad. "Racism" describes one type. And as the name suggests, it's bigotry based on the concept of "race". But as I said in our previous conversation, if you want to describe your experiences as racism, go right ahead. I don't claim to have any control over how you use words.
Oh forget it. You just want to argue.
Linda, I’m so baffled by this. Forget what? What is it you want to convince me of? What would you like to hear me say? What’s really at the root of all this for you?
I don’t “just want to argue”, I just don’t agree with you. And I don’t understand why you’re so invested in what is, at least to me, purely a semantic disagreement.
This isn't remotely semantics for me. Something you said yesterday stuck, "It's as if you see racism as some sort of club that you're being denied entry to." Perhaps I've been upside down in explaining who I am. That is a very interesting observation about a Krajina Serb. Let's see why we might feel that way. What we have been through is as bad as it gets, anywhere, ever. Do you know anything about us?
For several generations we endured psychological destruction of identity and self-worth. I surmise the AH empire decided it would be expedient for their subjects in Croatia to be western-identified, as opposed to eastern-identified.
Behind that, cultural genocide became colonial policy. Then there was all that physical butchery, many think the most sadistic exterminations of WWII, one in four of us murdered. Then came the terrorism of the Nineties that was essentially the last 150 years of the black American experience, (uncanny similarity in plot points) in reverse, in a few years' time, that resulted in our expulsion. We're now far too small and scattered for the culture and identity to survive. The culture that produced Tesla no longer exists. There are just old people left in the land we are largely aboriginal to, dying off.
There's nothing semantical about the analogies I have felt, not thought, felt about the fine details of our experience mirrored in the black American experience, precious clues on a quest I didn't even know I was on, since childhood. Those feelings are at the bottom of why I even know who I am. My own family's identity was destroyed in that first phase. My grandmother was too ashamed of who she was to even tell us. We had no explanation whatsoever for the overwhelming contempt we held ourselves in, that we were punishing each other with daily. My father, a Krajina Serb who thought he was an American bigot, confoundedly raised me to be the opposite. What's the opposite of an American bigot? A Krajina Serb.
I had no idea why, but the conversation about racism and identity that the airwaves were full of since my childhood in the Sixties was the most interesting conversation in the world to me. Especially the one about the recovery of a devastated identity.
Once of age, I spent a lifetime supporting a number of people in their re-emergence. Those are really the only people I could relate to or understand. I have lived on what America considers the 'wrong' side of the color line for a lifetime. That is NOT an easy position to occupy. You meet with constant shunning and shaming from the 'good' white folks, and far too often, scapegoating from the black folks around you, often at very close range from people you are depending on.
It was when I went to write a rant, almost ten years ago, about how difficult that life is and began researching my grandmother's line that I discovered who I really was. I recovered my birthright and completed the conversation about 'recovering a devastated identity.' That was never a semantic discussion, obviously, it ran to my core and was worth any difficulty I wound up paying for it. A fortune, actually. For my own goddamn birthright.
As I said, I spent a lifetime supporting any number of people on this issue. It has not been reciprocated. There is a truncated response nearly always. I've been struggling to understand and explain it. I'm sure that truncated response is at the core of the existing dysfunctions between black and white.
Meanwhile, I'm quite aware that the profoundly racist experience heaped upon my people is in no way perceived as such. We were characterized in the West as the invading genocidal maniacs. (A simple examination of the census proves otherwise. We're the only Balkan population in that conflict with a significant loss in numbers) In fact, we were largely aboriginal people subjected to an extreme genocidal pogrom for over a century. To say we would feel like people who've been denied entry to the racism club hits the nail on the head. It's not at all semantical. It's the core of our existential dilemma. And the lack of admission to that club has everything to do with why our story became as bad as it gets, ever, anywhere. Nobody supports us. Nobody.
“ Let's see why we might feel that way. What we have been through is as bad as it gets, anywhere, ever. Do you know anything about us?”
No, I don’t really, so I won’t comment on the experiences you describe here. But this is the same point we keep butting up against. Bigotry is not a competition. I’m not saying that the experience isn’t “as bad as it gets”. Nothing I’m saying is intended in any way to diminish your people’s suffering. Why can’t you understand this?!
It’s as if you think that if we call what your people experienced “racism” if we use that word instead of another, people will care more about what happened. But that’s not how language works.
Murder and sexual assault are both abhorrent. I wouldn’t try to say that one is worse than the other. But I can’t call murder rape. They describe two different things.
So yes, this is semantic. I’m not questioning the horror of what your people went through. As you say, I don’t know nearly enough, I just don’t think the word racism is the best descriptor for that horror.
Hmm. I was enjoying and learning from the interchange, which was disagreeing on some points but respectful - two people seeming to try to get a better grasp on the truth, through contrasting their perspectives.
I wasn't taking sides, but learning from each of your facets of the truth. I wasn't seeing the point being to "win", so much as to share differing opinions.
Then suddenly you seemed to end that interchange with Steve QJ and exit.
Was I misreading the tone and purpose of your initial writing? Or did something else just come up?
Sorry, never got notice of your comment. I didn't exit the conversation, he did. My comment ended with my near universal experience of a truncated response from the black folks around me, some in my own family, when I share the racism my people have experienced. I don't receive a satisfying reciprocation of the caring attention and supported I've lavished on them for a lifetime. I sense an instinct to react to my statements as a competition and dismissal, which is the racist tradition since 1680, at the close of Bacon's Rebellion.
I expected a truncated response to what I'd shared. That's what happened, isn't it? No surprise. I've had to move on with the understanding that will never happen. It will always grieve me, but I must live with it.
It has certainly frequently happened that someone who insists on this definition of racism purely delineated by appearance, has dismissed me and mine, often even turning on me, it being obvious that they cannot hear me, they are hearing Karen. They are hearing what they expect to hear, as per their stereotypes. There is absolutely every bit as much Implicit Bias in black American heads as white in the reverse. I notice this bias more than others since all those adjectives presumed about white American negate me 100%. Culturally genocided people really hate being negated. I mean, REALLY hate it.
Nothing gets the ghetto in the Serb going more than being associated with supremacists. Nobody's had more trouble with those mf's than we have, for refusing to join up with them, and to have it blithely assumed we're associated with them when we get here is a major reason we despise the notion of having to come here.
“I didn't exit the conversation, he did. My comment ended with my near universal experience of a truncated response from the black folks around me”
I thought very seriously about ignoring this comment. Not only is it very obviously untrue, my reply is right there, written months ago, with no response from you, so no, I didn’t exit the conversation.
But also, I find it fascinating that this “near universal response” you get from black people doesn’t make you wonder if you’re the one missing something. You just keep doing the same thing with new black people and demanding different results.
You haven’t “lavished” caring attention on me. The “black community” doesn’t get together and share notes on who we have an obligation to because of some kindness to another “them.”
I’ve never dismissed what you’ve said, I’ve sympathised with the suffering you’ve described over and over again. I simply disagree with you about what word to use to describe it.