Patrick Sallee looks at where we need to improve ourselves if we want to make a difference.
___
On an almost weekly basis we have another news story of behavior that is embarrassing, shameful, and completely disconcerting about where this world is headed. I am regularly amazed at the responses of friends when the topic turns to Ferguson, or the killing of another unarmed black man. Or the racist chant from a fraternity at the University of Oklahoma, or the incredible lack of decency when a “religious freedom” bill is signed in Indiana, opening the doors to hatred and bigotry.
These are topics I like to bring up in conversation, because I like to push people on their thoughts. It’s not even that I’m out to convince people of my opinions, as much as challenge thinking on both sides and hope we both gain perspective and understanding. We spend way too much time in our own bubbles, where things feel comfortable and safe, thinking isn’t challenged, and we don’t have to face the realities of the world around us.
After dozens of these conversations, I see a common thread in the characteristics of thought. And I’ve identified three lines of thinking where our abilities hold us back from substantial conversations and taking action towards a greater good. Here are the three areas where need to improve.
Empathy
Empathy is hard. Anyone that tells you it isn’t probably isn’t empathic often.
|
Empathy is hard. Anyone that tells you it isn’t probably isn’t empathic often. It takes a lot of intentional thought and consideration to put yourself fully in someone else’s shoes, to consider another person’s life and situation, to understand why they might act or think the way they do.
One of the traits that made Abraham Lincoln so effective and successful was his “extraordinary empathy,” as described by Doris Kearns Goodwin “Perhaps the most important of his emotional abilities was empathy—the gift of putting himself in the place of others, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires.”
There was a point in our history where political debates were exactly that, debates where people listened to the opposing views. Not that they changed their minds, but they listened. Now, we are at a point where the facts of the arguments, don’t matter and sometimes aren’t even known. The talking points and the side we are on is all that matters. That is a scary proposition for our future.
The very least we can do as humans is to consider the lives of others, the battles they have to fight and the scars they live with.
Have you had to hide the relationship with the person you love for fear of losing your job, your benefits or your family?
Do you know how it feels to be followed around a grocery store, to make sure you don’t steal something, strictly because of the color of your skin?
Can you imagine working two jobs to provide for your children and that still not being enough to keep a roof over your head? And the fear that comes every day with worry of losing them.
Humility
My father, who is the president of a small college in Kansas City, likes to use a quote from Isaac Newton whenever he has the opportunity. “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Paying due respect to the people that came before him, to the work done that he was able to build on.
Regularly, I hear the argument that “I’ve made it all this way on my own, why can’t these people get jobs and work hard?” I’m always a little taken aback and ask if they consider that their view on success, or their firm belief that success would happen, was instilled by their parents and that maybe, just maybe, not everyone is raised in the same circumstances.
The fact is, none of us accomplish anything without the help of others. None of us.
|
The fact is, none of us accomplish anything without the help of others. None of us. An unwillingness to acknowledge the opportunities and privilege others have made for us is a slap in the face to them and anyone not afforded similar opportunities.
I’m a white male, with two college educated parents who are still married. While I will comfortably tell you I have taken advantage of many opportunities and created a successful career, I have done none of it on my own. I am the definition of standing on the shoulders of giants.
If we took a moment to step back from congratulating ourselves on our success, we might just realize how blessed we truly are. And with that realization we would be quicker to forgive, softer with words and slower to anger.
Silence
When incidents come up like the recent Wichita East High School discrimination, or the Indiana Governor signing the religious freedom bill, you will see some outrage on social media, but in general, the harder the issue, the more people keep quiet.
Posting on Facebook about your anger isn’t enough. Looking at your life and how you benefit from the systematic forms of racism and prejudice in our country, and how you can help people overcome circumstances … that is being heard.
|
In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. Martin Luther King wrote: “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.” This challenge from the 1960s still rings true today. Posting on Facebook about your anger isn’t enough. Looking at your life and how you benefit from the systematic forms of racism and prejudice in our country, and how you can help people overcome circumstances … that is being heard.
None of us alone can change the situation in Ferguson, MO, or have an impact similar issues that are both broad and deep. But each of us can look at our own lives and how one by one we can become an active participant in justice.
Can you mentor an ex-offender trying to make his way back from incarceration to a regular upstanding life?
Do you work with someone from a minority background that deserves an opportunity to take on more and broaden their skill set?
Is there a homeless shelter down the street that needs many hands to help feed the increasing need?
Are there children at your kids’ school, who needs some extra attention because their parents are working multiple jobs?
Often the discussions on these topics stop too soon. The happy hour solutions to the world’s problems are great, but they don’t make a difference, and we can’t do it alone. I challenge each of us to be thoughtful and conscious of ways to help in our own community … and then to act! Everyone can do something.