Voice Our True Empathy…VOTE
You might consider some of these ideas before you vote–or just VOTE.
EMPATHY: ...I think reading books is a good place to start thinking about and understanding people’s stories you aren’t familiar with, outside your comfort zone and experience. A novel will ask you to walk in a character’s shoes, and this can build empathy. WITHOUT EMPATHY WE ARE LOST…I have come to understand the world better through the lens of novels. When someone else’s world is different from our own, we see how we are the same. We not only become more empathetic to their experience but we see how we are equal.
The above was written by TOMMY ORANGE, author of THERE THERE. It originally appeared in TIME MAGAZINE. He ends his piece saying how important it is that schools no longer have students read ONLY books written by upper-middle-class white males. YES!
BOTH THE WRITER AND THE READER BRING THEIR EXPERIENCE TO THE PAGE. And when you vote, you have made a choice based on the voices of those who are running. You have evaluated what they stand for. You see them as helping to maintain the country that you want to live in. You see them as supporters of our democracy, our constitution. You see them as supporters of ALL THE PEOPLE, not just those upper-middle class white men whose voices we have heard for many years, and whose voices don’t always have the answers.
WE CAN’T LEARN IF WE DON’T LISTEN
Also in TIME was a piece by Margaret Hoover, a Democrat married to a Republican. She writes: The key as I’ve learned from my mixed political marriage is listening with a generous assumption that the other’s views are informed by good intentions. Too many of our conversations in the media hinge on conflict delivered in 3-second sound bites. To function as a democracy we are going to need to listen in the spirit that presumes our political opponents are engaged in civic debate for the same reasons we are–they are about the country, their communities, their families and their neighbors.
Hoover also believes that we need “time” to effectively debate ideas. Tweeting at the last minute will not help that process. She writes: …giving ideas time to air, to be developed, defended and challenged is key…Giving our fellow citizens time to truly engage in a constructive contest of ideas…will take us a long way to mending our hyper-partisan media and politics.
And: The Myth of the Moral Middle Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage, writes: I find myself annoyed by the hand-wringing about how we need to find common ground. People ask how might we “meet in the middle,” as though this represents a safe, neutral and civilized space. This American fetishization of the moral middle is a misguided and dangerous cultural impulse. …There is nothing inherently virtuous about being neither HERE nor THERE. Buried in this is a false equivalency of ideas, what you might call the “good people on both sides” phenomenon.
When we revisit our shameful past, ask yourself, Where was the middle? Rather than chattel slavery, perhaps we could agree on a nice program of indentured servitude? Instead of subjecting Japanese-American citizens to indefinite detention during WW II, what if we had agreed to give them actual sentences and perhaps provided a receipt for them to reclaim their things when they were released? What is halfway between moral and immoral?
The search for the middle is rooted in conflict avoidance and denial. For many Americans it is painful to understand that there are citizens of our community who are deeply racist, sexist, homophobic and xenophobic. …Perhaps there is some way to look at this–a view from the middle–that would allow us to communicate and realize that our national identity is the tie that will bind us comfortably, and with a bow…As Americans, we are at a crossroads. We have to decide what is central to our identity… Compromise is not valuable in its own right, and justice seldom dwells in the middle.
If your found these excerpts fulfilling, interesting, challenging, you can read more in the current Double Issue of TIME MAGAZINE. See http://time.com/5434381/tayari-jones-...
PHOTO: thanks to TED TALKS and artist Jon Buckley
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