Dear Reader, Hello.
Our neighbor’s house is being re-roofed and I can’t focus. The nail gun is so loud, and I’m not even in the house that is being re-roofed. I can’t imagine what it’s like next door. For me, this is a minor irritation. I wonder if my neighbors are trying to work in their house, or if they all leave home for work. I’m thinking about minor irritations. When something annoying is happening at your neighbors house, what do you do?
I remember when I was young we used to live surrounded by houses full of college students. We lived close to the University and there weren’t many other single-family houses on our block. There were often loud parties on the weekends, especially during football season. I remember my mom used to sometimes call the cops to come and break up the parties so we could sleep. I’ve been thinking about that impulse.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt a lot of love for cops, but I did still think of them as people to call for help. People who would break up annoying parties or come quickly if there was a burglar. This is what white kids are taught about cops, but I think Black kids are often taught differently. They are taught to be wary.
I have only ever experienced cops as a white person. How else could I experience them?
We can never know how other people experience the world, even if we try. Even if they explain how they feel. Sometimes people say that reading helps create empathy, and maybe it does. But I wonder if it creates a false sense of being able to experience someone else’s reality?
I think a lot about what the poet Natalie Diaz says about empathy. I first heard her say something like this when she came to visit the UofA during my first year in school, but I also heard her talk about empathy in an episode of the podcast VS, as well as in this interview in The Kenyon Review. She says:
I don’t believe in empathy. Which might mean I don’t believe in witness right now. Definitely, I don’t believe in empathy. Empathy is selfish. We can’t have empathy for the people we drop bombs on because we aren’t afraid bombs will be dropped on us. Empathy is selfish. If a person can’t imagine (the violence or pain) happening to their body or to a body beloved to them, they can’t possibly understand it. I can go on and on for days about empathy.
I’m so struck by those words. “Empathy is selfish.” This is not at all what we are taught, and yet it makes a lot of sense to me. Empathy is related to wanting to feel what someone else is feeling. To become them, in a way. To understand them. How does this benefit the person feeling empathy? How does this benefit the person they are feeling empathy for? I can create an idea in my head of how I think someone else feels, but how accurate is it? How does it make me feel comfortable to feel like I understand? What if I just stayed in a place of curiosity?
We want to know what it’s like to be like someone else, even though we can’t. How is this related to whiteness? How does similarity and difference relate to empathy? Is it easier to feel empathy for someone who seems more like you? How might empathy be used as a way of colonizing others? How is it related to the impulse that something should belong to us? That the world is made for us to understand? That the world should be for us?
Prompt: What were you taught about empathy? Have you ever truly been able to understand exactly what someone else is feeling? What are productive ways of relating to each other without trying to experience the same thing that someone else is experiencing?
Action: Think more about different ways of relating to people: your neighbors, friends, strangers. Reach out to them with curiosity. Say, hello.
Thanks for thinking with me again today! I would love to hear what you think about this. Leave a comment below:
Until tomorrow,
Gwen