Two stories caught my attention this week. One in relation to an event, the other to a trend.
First, the trend: NPR featured a story on the decline of empathy and cited some disturbing peer-reviewed research demonstrating that this decline is no fluke.[1] Americans are growing less empathetic. Additionally, for many of us, the practice of empathy is reserved only for those who are just like us. Even more disturbing is the evidence that for many people today not employing empathy towards those deemed different is viewed as a virtue! This selective empathy reinforces tribal loyalties and furthers the “othering” of people we disagree with . . . dehumanizing others, you can see, is just a few short steps further down this slippery slope.
We can see the effects of this decline all around us: in politics, in the behavior of leaders, and with the increasing disregard we have for those who do not think like us or vote like us. Yeah, I get pretty disgusted with some of the people who respond with vitriol and hate speech towards marginalized people or even towards my own posts; but the work (I remind myself) is to recognize their humanity too, even if they don’t recognize it in others . . . that is why it’s work, if it were easy we’d have some different word for it.
The second item that caught my attention was the following statement from Randy Woodley[2], which he posted amid the news coverage of the Notre Dame fire:
Dear Euro-Americans, I'm sorry your church at Notre Dame is destroyed, but stop referring to it on national news as a "symbol of our civilization." Much of America has no European roots and you destroyed our civilizations when you came here. Do you have any regrets about that?
I love this post for its truth and its frank honesty. With all the headlines and sound bites pointing out how Notre Dame is a “priceless symbol” of European culture, a counter point was needed to put this in perspective. The centering of European/white culture in the media has been obvious and painful, especially considering that in the past few weeks three arson-hit black churches in Louisiana had been struggling to raise funds to rebuild. The feel-good element here is that after some prodding on social media from journalist Yashar Ali[3] and a $20K donation from Chrissy Teigen, the crowdfunding campaigns for these churches have now topped $1.8 million.
Thank you to Yashar Ali for right-sizing us. It was needed. He certainly was not the only one. The Root this week was of course spot-on as well with this headline: White People Don’t Live in Flint or Puerto Rico, So President Sends Aid to France.[4] I believe it’s fruitful to consider that as we talk about sending literally billions to rebuild a church in France, a much needed discussion about providing reparations to descendants of slaves or Native Americans in the US becomes a subject of “controversy.” This is even the case when we talk about reparations in the sense that Bryan Stevenson talks about them: not as financial but as structural and service-oriented actions made in direct response to past injustices; e.g., in the past people of color were kept from the polls, the reparation should be lowering of the barriers to voting. Stevenson’s ideas are practical and concrete and shouldn’t be considered controversial.[5]
Bringing this together with Randy Woodley’s quote and the theme of empathy, as we mourn the loss of Notre Dame as a symbol of French and Christian culture, I feel a sadness for the lack of lament we have (as a society) expressed for the loss of Native American culture in the US. On an encouraging note, there are signs of a reawakening of native culture in the US, demonstrating that the native population is growing and even thriving. The counter-intuitive finding has been that much of this growth has been in urban centers, a welcome counter narrative to the one of endemic poverty, addiction, and human suffering on reservations.[6]
It is worth noting that the illustration in this Economist column drew criticism from some corners, but the statistics cited in the story are certainly encouraging. That said, I wish as a country we could do a better job lamenting and recognizing the way European/white culture has harmed others through slavery and through the steamrolling of native communities. In the name of manifest destiny, the US did the equivalent of burning down thousands of Notre Dames that belonged to the civilizations here before us. And for God’s sake, we’re STILL burning down black churches.
Come on white people, it’s 2019!
If there ever was an opportunity for empathy, it doesn’t get much more obvious than this! Of course, the work of lamenting such travesties can feel overwhelming. Sometimes I don’t know where to start. That is when I try to rein in my circle of concern to more closely match my circle of influence. To that end, in my own community, Seattle (where I live on land once occupied by the Duwamish people), I’ve decided to give to Real Rent Duwamish. See the link in the footnote.[7] It’s an opportunity to support the Duwamish who are still in Seattle . . . and sadly, are still not federally recognized (a subject for a different blog, but you can learn more here at Promisedlanddoc.com).[8] These are small steps, but they are good places to start. The GoFundMe site for the Louisiana church fires is here too in the footnotes.[9]
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[1] https://www.npr.org/2019/04/15/712249664/the-end-of-empathy
[2] https://twitter.com/randywoodley7?lang=en
[3] https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1118719513619587075
[4] https://www.theroot.com/white-people-dont-live-in-flint-or-puerto-rico-so-pres-1834097106
[5] https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice?language=en
[6] https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/11/29/the-rise-of-native-american-politicians
[7] https://www.realrentduwamish.org/
[8] https://www.promisedlanddoc.com/about
[9] https://www.gofundme.com/f/church-fires-st-landry-parishmacedonia-ministry?member=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=p_email%2Binvitesupporters