Empathy?

 

   

Empathy 210525  - the year/the month/the day

You asked and I deliver.

Empathy you say?

I doubt it.

Empathy really means something.  It isn’t a ‘throw-away’ line.

”Oh, Honey, I feel your pain.”

BS.

 

Don’t bother to go further until you read the NYer non-fiction account of empathy, “World Without Pain.”  A real woman, living in upper Scotland, has no empathy. She feels no pain. Really.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/13/a-world-without-pain

Superbly written, methinks.

 

201005

The year/the month/the day   ~      ~    covd times, time to think

Empathy. Easy word, yeah, I feel your pain. Except when I met a woman who has no empathy. That word  means something much deeper than I’d considered. She lives, has a life in northern Scotland, and is of great interest to pain researchers worldwide. People who feel no pain  occasionally come to the attention of pain researchers, our Scot is not alone in this peculiar human health category. She also is first human in history to be studied for a new field of genetics, oh WOW, mind blowing to me,  but let’s take a look at empathy.

I met the Scot, Joanne Cameron, via a New Yorker article, January 13, 2020, thanks to journalist Ariel Levy. I think about Cameron often, especially as I grieve for my Black neighbors who suffer greatly at the hands of my government. To me, the cop with his knee on that Black guy’s neck for over 8 minutes, (to be known months later – 9:29 min.)  ~ ~   that deal, well, that cop is part of my govt. Yes, the cop was employed by another city in another state, I can remove myself somewhat from the murder. But bullshit. That cop is part of a nationwide strong thread of cops having societal approval for their judge/jury/executioner decisions. I am part of this, I can’t pretend otherwise.

This hurts. I don’t want my law authorities doing this.  In a way, the cop with his knee on that guy’s neck says, “Karen Chadwick and I are so bothered that you tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill at that store, that with her ok, I get to kill you.” Now use those multiplication tables and count all the Black people killed for no serious reason by the long arm of my govt, hundreds, then thousands, if we go back to early USA.  Yeah, some weren’t killed by police, but even then, my police, MY police, either looked the other way or helped the mob with the rope. Am I just another brick in the wall? Don’t we need education and opportunities to right this killer ship?

Empathy. I feel your pain. Let’s look at me trying to understand what a Black American woman about my age might experience. Can I feel her pain? Oh, I can say I do, easy. How long have I considered that Black women are very much like me, long time.  Long time.

In 5^th & 6^th grade, I went to a Romulus elementary school, then went to Romulus Jr. High, Romulus, Michigan, 7^th  & 8^th grades. I was in the Chess Club, always the girl sitting at the very end of the row of  tables in the cafeteria after school, even beginners usually whipped my lousy game. ~   ~    Oh well, I still play, stronger now, aggression is me. Love Love Love film “Queen of Katwe.” A first-rate true story about chess.

 Lots of Black kids, just other kids to my view. Somehow the district got changed, and I went to another high school, all whites, didn’t like most of them, just other kids begging for a cig. Good reason to not smoke, so something worked out.

Along my journey I worked with Black women, office work, some of us became “friendly” and had passing respect for each other, just co-workers, right? I’ve got my problems, they have theirs, life moves along.

Ready for weird?

Somewhere last century, there was a npr thing, a good speech – D.C. Press Club or some such -   by a Black woman who had just become Pres. of some east coast fancy university, first Black in the position, all good. Yet something she shared still penetrates me. She explained to the large audience, “Look at me, you can see I know how to dress well. I always dress well when I go out my door, I respect myself and like to look good. But even with my attention to attire, I wish JUST ONCE I could walk into any New York or Boston fine department store and not be followed by security.”

What? Just once? The security staff in any upscale department store follows her all the time?

Oh, this was hard to get my head around. Not that I frequent fine department stores very often, nor do I “dress” to go shopping, me be usually cas., but as far as I know, I’ve never been tailed by security while looking around in a store. Maybe, but not to my knowledge. And from her statement, somehow those security folks make a point of letting this respectable woman KNOW she’s being followed. WTF?

I cannot feel her pain. I cannot feel her humiliation. I cannot feel her anger at being considered a potential shoplifter every time she goes shopping. Yet instantly I have compassion for her stress.

After George Floyd, I’ve  given this small mark of prejudice deeper thought. I keep thinking of what Floyd’s 14 yr. old niece said at the 3^rd funeral, “Someone said ‘make America great again.’ America has never been great.”

I’m starting to see, starting to barely understand.

Last century I had developed a great respect for my congressman, Howard Wolpe. Good guy. Smart guy. We had something of a friendship over the years, and he was one of the unique folks in my life, the more I knew him, the more I liked him. Somewhere along the way, he told me that his PhD dissertation was on file at Western Michigan University. Oh. Gotta check it out. Well, well, well.

Dumb me, in my ignorance, aren’t all Black people in Africa all buddies? Nope. Howard’s research gave me an eye-opening education. Turns out as one west coast city in Africa was becoming big, very big, many people from small villages were moving to the city, seeking opportunity, better life, all that. Well, turns out lots of these people had NO history with others. Many of the small villages had been home to one group of folks who maybe were best at farming, another village was best at hunting, another was best at art, and so on.

Howard dug deep and found out that these folks had never had normal communication with each other. Why? Because there was another group of folks who were gifted at speaking several languages, and they would set up the trade system between the farmer and the hunter and the art folks. Now, suddenly, in this booming huge city, folks were living next door to others they had always feared, had no reason to chum with, trust, until suddenly living next to. Fascinating read, you can check it out.

Here’s another point of education for me. Have you heard of Walter Reuther? He was one of the giants of the 20^th century, he and his brothers improved the auto worker unions with great struggle and serious opposition by none other than our Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover hated Reuther, oh yeah.  J. Edgar thought Reuther might be a Commie because Reuther as a young guy he and his brother took a bicycle  trip around Europe and was invited to USSR to see how a factory was structured, Reuther was actually not impressed with their style. Reuther’s daughter, Elisabeth Reuther Dickmeyer wrote a biography of her father, Putting the World Together, My Father, Walter Reuther: The Liberal Warrior. She tells an account of when her dad was a boy, he and brothers living in West Virginia could go to an overlook near their house, and see trains moving north and in plain sight, boxcars, open boxcars, with lots of Black men riding north. We learn that these train trips were orchestrated by Henry Ford to break the unions. Yep, THAT Henry Ford, extreme white supremist, extreme anti-Semite, extreme anti-union,  that guy. In case the white workers at Ford didn’t have reason to hate Blacks before, now they did.

Keep in mind that liberals are the gatekeeps of capitalism. J. Edgar couldn’t grasp that one.

Another point of education for me, a local Kalamazoo Black theatre group, Face Off Theatre Company, FOTC, did an interesting play a couple years ago, “Mahalia.” We get a glimpse of this amazing woman, her vocal talent, what America looked like during her years of enormous success, and why she refused to sing “secular.” To this day I regret that during the after-show “chat” with the audience, I wish I would have spoken up. Didn’t. I got a theatrical look that evening of what her life might have looked like, how her church was her life, her loyalty was completely within her gospel music choice. I sat there, kind of stunned, it was my first glimpse of what church life must mean to some African Americans. Oh. Oh. Oh. Hmm, so, that’s why Aretha Franklin got so much shit for stepping into my music world. I’d heard something about the pressures she had to face, but I had no context for it until seeing this new work regarding Mahalia Jackson’s intense devotion to her church life and how her church controlled her career. Oh.

For me, this is another important factor in not understanding what harsh boundaries some of my Black women friends might endure. I choose no church life, have no loyalty to any group of church folks. Tried many, have given this deep thought for many years, yet my joy and best space is this:  My church is to be in the woods, fields, wetlands, watching Mother Nature show me what’s really important. I love God, trust God, pray to God for many reasons often, I just cut out the middle man.

Let’s consider redlining. Redlining. Red lining. Dumb me, I’d heard the word many times, never researched it, something about  - hmm, where some people lived? I rented often in low rent urban digs. I just thought the older parts of town with cheap rents were just how things go with old buildings.

Until I had occasion to attend a talk at the Vine Neighborhood Association in Kalamazoo a few years ago. I went that evening to hear a wise friend give a talk, Dr. Kim Cummings was chatting up the why, how, when, that the Dutch folks found reason to settle in this town I love. Very interesting! They be money in that celery! Add this mystery – put that celery in the dark for a few days, give it sugar water or some mystery drink, and THAT celery became every house wife’s needed food. Oh!

Next speaker, someone I did not know, going to talk about something I knew nothing about, Matt Smith from Kalamazoo Public Library will talk about Redlining. I could have moved on, but easy to just stay in my seat and at least hear the guy’s intro, the door is not too far away, I can slip out if I choose. Redlining, whatever.

My inertia paid off. I learned a great deal, and even more powerful, Matt had the facts of redlining right here in my town. Oh. Oh. Ugly shit. Dumb me thought folks lived where they could afford to live. Much deeper, much more evil than a “choice.”

Then memories returned, that after-school-activities bus, junior high in Romulus, that bus route was through areas I didn’t see any other way, but I rode that bus after Chess Club once a week or more (yeah, I tried to be a cheerleader – ugh – I’m not doing the splits to show off on command – not me, girls!) for two years, and saw up close really sad housing, crappy messy junk houses, sometimes with very nice new car in the driveway. Oh, maybe their wealthy relative is visiting? Maybe. Yet with better understanding, those folks could not move to better ‘hood, and their best way to compensate was to have a great car to ease the humiliation. Oh.

That bus also meant I had a mile walk home, but damn it, chess was worth it! And most definitely, my mom NEVER drove to get me at that bus stop. No, no, no. She did not give rides for us for any activity, she was not going to use the family car/gas for such frivolous exorbitant use. Snow, rain, already dark, walk. Walk. Walk. My mom could get blood from a nickel. Her early life had been harsh, and wasn’t much better then, either. Third husband wasn’t a dream guy. Neither were the others.

My adult life was up and down, by the Grace of God I live to smile and enjoy the morning sun on my pillow.

I remember hanging out with the Students for a Democratic Society, SDS, while I tried to be a college gal, UICC freshman at 23 yrs. old, really. Wow, I just have to sign stuff and I can be a college student? And I can get enough money to pay for a room of my own (bathroom down the hall, shared with strangers) in Lincoln Park, Chicago? Where do I sign? The SDS folks were going to do an action, something about going to support welfare mothers in Chicago, I pretended I knew what they were talking about.

 Inside, I’m clueless – welfare mothers? Aren’t they lazy or something? Well, well, well, who knew, a few years ahead I’d also be a welfare mom, my ex-con love and father of the one in my belly showed me the door to welfare. Oh. I even went to a job interview, found out I was preg the next day, the next day I was called back for second interview, they offered me a job! But – but, I’m preg, sick as a dog, in a nightmare living arrangement with that guy, and I told the interviewer that I must turn down this offer, I sure won’t be working here long and you deserve a better employee. She quietly smiled and said, “You don’t have to tell me that.” But I was dumb and the truth seemed best. Back to temp work, then welfare, evictions, and he was embarrassed to walk down the street with a preg woman. Prison doesn’t help young men grow to be good men.

Empathy. The Scot woman has none. She feels no pain, and how she came to the attention of medical researchers is a read. What we learn is that she has an abundance of compassion for every human being.

Can I be empathic for a Black woman friend? I wish I could say yes, and in some circumstances, a “yes” might be worthy, but in total, no, I cannot have empathy for what a Black woman faces every day of her life in this USA. Her worry at her safety, her concern for her husband’s life as he leaves the door, her silent fear of what the next phone call might bring of her kid in school, and on and on and on. Don’t get me wrong, I had plenty of OMG parenting drama. I’ve earned my white hair.

I watched, several times, the recent Netflix work by Ava DuVerney, “When They See Us”  ~  ~  ~   the 4-part series of young teens in NYC who each got years for a crime they had no part of.  What our criminal injustice system did to those five young teen boys is an immense tragedy. I studied it, could either watch it all at once, HARD, or watch it in tiny bits, also hard. I learned to not watch it at night, too too too hard to take that truth to sleep. Its truth is most important and that’s why I need to grasp it as I can. That’s MY govt doing THAT to those kids. That’s MY govt doing that to all those families.  My pain is that MY govt. is making a mess of justice, doing what suits them to keep their paychecks rolling in. What I find as I try to discuss this work with others, “oh, no, I can’t watch that, I heard about it, no, no, I won’t watch it.” Yet so many folks LOVE ultra-violence shows, movies, stories. This one is ultra-violent nonfiction. Oprah does a classy show with the actors, then the real men along with DuVerney. Worthy.

 Imagine this – change all the primary roles in “When They See Us”  to opposite skin color. Or imagine George Floyd white, and the cop Black. Says Bob Marley, “ Open your eyes, and look within, are you satisfied with the life you’re livin’?”

Chauvin conviction on all charges by Minnesota jury April 21, 2021 – methinks we walk a good step with this accounting of a man with little heart, true jubilation for me that afternoon, and still miles to go. I was on edge of despair that I had to trust 12 strangers to see what I saw. Down to my last fingernail. Then jump out of my chair for joy!

How my black neighbors must manage their time, their focus, their dreams is something I have plenty of compassion for, but no, I do not know their pain.  I will listen, I will care, and I will offer solidarity. One Race. Human.

That NYer article about Cameron, another amazing fact: she is stoned all the time but has never ingested cannabis. Whoop!