An holistic empathy & A muscular humility

Cady Voge is OWYP’s Program Director. She designs and implements annual trainings for OWYP’s university student volunteers, supports the OWYP volunteers and manages partnerships with secondary schools. Read more about Cady.

The buzz-provoking “If I Were A Poor Black Kid” piece by Gene Marks this week is cringe-worthy. My first thought: Who is this guy? Ohh, an accountant who writes a tech column and has published a few books on small business management? That makes sense because I work for a small global education not-for-profit and today I’m writing this post about an idea I thought of yesterday while riding the bus about how I’m going to cure cancer.

Many counterattack articles and blogs are presenting the countless reasons why our hero/savior Marks’ simple plan for success (for all the poor black kids out there) is condescendingly over simplified. I agree with these rebuttals. And I cringe not only because Marks’ simple proposals offend me but also because it’s embarrassing that he might think these ideas are novel.

In his gracious response to Marks’ piece, Ta-Nehisi Coates presented an idea I’d like to explore, the role of empathy in gaining a deeper understanding of race in America:

“Some weeks ago I met a student who was specializing in economy and theater. She said that what she loved about both fields was that she had to presume a kind of rationality in studying her actors. She had to surrender herself–her sense of what she would like to think she would do–and think more of what she might actually do given all the perils of the character’s environs. It would not be enough to consider slavery, for instance, when claiming “If I was a slave I’d rebel.” One would have to consider, for instance, family left behind to bear the wrath of those one would seek to rebel against. In other words, one would have to assume that for the vast majority of slaves rebellion made no sense. And then instead of declaration (“I would do…”), one would be forced into a question (“Why wouldn’t I?”).

“This basic extension of empathy is one of the great barriers in understanding race in this country. I do not mean a soft, flattering, hand-holding empathy. I mean a muscular empathy rooted in curiosity. If you really want to understand slaves, slave masters, poor black kids, poor white kids, rich people of colors, whoever, it is essential that you first come to grips with the disturbing facts of your own mediocrity. The first rule is this–You are not extraordinary. It’s all fine and good to declare that you would have freed your slaves. But it’s much more interesting to assume that you wouldn’t and then ask “Why?”

“This is not an impossible task. But often we find that we have something invested in not asking “Why?” The fact that we — and I mean all of us, black and white — are, in our bones, no better than slave masters is chilling. The upshot of all my black nationalist study was terrifying — give us the guns and boats and we would do the same thing. There is nothing particularly noble about black skin. And to our present business it is equally chilling to understand that the obstacles facing poor black kids can’t be surmounted by an advice column.”

I’ll never forget a tense class discussion about experiencing race in America my senior year in high school after watching Los Angeles Burning (a beautiful portrayal of the many perspectives in the Rodney King Riots by Anna Deveare-Smith). When I raised my hand to share my opinion I offered every caveat I could in an effort to timidly apologize for my white privilege with, “I mean, I don’t actually know but I think that maybe…” when my classmate finally interrupted me to say, “We know you’re not black and you won’t ever know what that’s like, but just say what you have to say.” Now I carry this value with me at all times: the only experience we can all truly be experts in is our own and we all have the right to share it.

Despite dedicating my life’s work to the pursuit of bringing empathy education to the attention and top priority of anyone who will listen, the above experience makes me question if enacting true empathy (the ability to understand and share the feelings of another), is possible. Is it not presumptuous to believe you can understand and share how another human being experiences the world? My problem with Marks’ words is not that he is a white man talking about racial inequality but rather that he is a white man who seems to believe he is practicing empathy, and most offensive of all that he’s got all the answers.

I believe the key to practicing empathy is not only building our muscles to ask the more challenging questions and to think holistically about the social forces at play for why every poor black kid doesn’t just (as Marks suggests) try a little harder, as Coates calls upon us to do. Practicing empathy requires humility. Humility reminds us that our experiences are not universal, our ideas aren’t the best (even if we’re a Forbes columnist), and that it is neither the job nor the expertise of one middle class, middle-aged white man to liberate all the poor black kids from centuries of systemic discrimination. Inequality hurts everyone. Own your skin in this game, but don’t own that of others.