It’s always bothered me how when someone is trying to elicit an emotional response, they’ll say, “Imagine that person is your sister/brother/mother/father.” I say that’s part of the problem—this idea that we can’t fully connect with someone else’s experience until they’re someone we know or are related to or look like we do. To me, understanding should come automatically because we are human beings. It should go unsaid that if tragedy befalls some of us, it befalls all of us.
