An Absence of Empathy

Empathy is defined as: the ability to understand and share the feelings of others.

What's so disturbing about the current public debate is that there seems to be a complete inability to demonstrate true empathy. Instead we have tortured, circuitous narratives to show that "your story" is really "my story." We're meant to recognize that the life experience of Hillary Clinton, a 60 year old, upper middle class (now rich) white woman from Illinois, is somehow intimately tied to that of 60 year black children of share croppers from Alabama. The dehumanizing mantra is, "We are all the same." But, we are NOT the same. To assert otherwise, not only annihilates the power of our individual experiences, but it diminishes to nothing the moral significance of helping others. It says, I care about this issue, because your issues are my issues, and ultimately, to help you is to help myself. But, this is not empathy. In fact, these sorts of political gestures seem to cynically reject the very possibility of empathy in American public life. Maybe rightly so. Empathy is caring about what happens to your neighbor, or someone on the other side of the world, not because their fate is your fate, in some literal-minded way, but because you recognize that person's humanity, and you relate to them on that basis alone. Because what happens when we CAN'T make those acrobatic, a-butterfly-bats-its-wings-in-the-Amazon connections? What happens when the people we need to reach out to are truly and utterly different from us in terms of their cultural, political, and religious experiences? Jim Crow happens. Abu Ghraib happens. Darfur happens. And, yes, September 11 happens.

Hillary to Selma Marchers: Thanks for Giving Us . . . Jimmy Carter?

She can't really be as desperate as she seems, can she? Watching her speech today I felt like I was being subjected to the recitation of a winning entry in some social studies essay contest . . . make that the runner's up entry. It was painful to watch. Actually cringe-inducing at times. Especially, when she broke out the Evita on the balcony of the Casa Rosada blocking. What was with all of the awkward outstretched arms gesturing? Oh Hillary. Buy a clue.

But, aside from being slightly embarrassed by her delivery, I was also baffled by some of the content. I can't believe she got up there, on a day commemorating the bloody repression of a peaceful march calling attention to the denial African-American voting rights in this country, and had the balls out 'audacity' (no credit to Barack there) to say that those sacrifices were validated by the election of a couple of white Southern males to the White House!! CRACKA SAY WHAT?! Hey, John Lewis, thanks for getting your head bashed in 42 years ago, so that we could get some GEOGRAPHIC diversity back in the Presidency. After all, it had been two whole terms between the last Southern male to hold the office and Carter making that giant leap for mankind. And, Lord knows, ever since the Constitutional Convention the interests of white Southerners have been soooo underrepresented in our national political discourse. Wow, Hillary. Just . . . wow.