Empathy

Cross-cultural empathy here and now

Blog Post, Empathy, Empathy Ongoing and Growing , ,

A recent article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune tells about a brilliant idea that promotes understanding between cultures. And not only that, it’s easy and cheap. Rather than sending teenagers abroad to live with a host family and learn about that culture, it sends them across town for a week.

The program is called City Stay. Minneapolis and St. Paul, like all big cities in the U.S., have a substantial population of immigrants. Specifically, Somali, Hmong and Latin American. This program allows Twin Cities high schoolers to spend a week living with a family from another culture, and it only costs $250 per student. And the student doesn’t have to travel far away. As Julie Knopp, the founder of City Stay, says, “The point is to build relationships across the dividing lines of Twin Cities communities. When a student builds a relationship with a host family, that connection has a ripple.”

What an inspired way to increase empathy between people of different cultures. Both the students and the host families learn about each other, as they prepare food and eat together, play games together, and talk together about their lives and experiences. They learn that they are not so different, just because they may eat some different foods or have different family traditions. And they learn about what their life experiences have been like, including being a refugee in some cases. One family matriarch told her teenage guest about being a refugee from Laos in 1980. “I never heard a story like that,” said the student. And the Hmong grandmother responded, “She see people who look like me, and now she understand.”

The article described the experience of two 14-year-olds who stayed with a Hmong family for a week. “In just a couple of days, Rose and Shaffer visited Hmong markets and tried foods they’d never had, such as spicy noodles and dragonfruit. They learned a few Hmong phrases, such as ‘Let’s eat.’ They also attended a Hmong funeral, watched Hmong bullfighting movies and rap videos, and helped their host family’s young daughter with her math homework.”

Brilliant!

 

Outpouring of Support for Immigrants

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It is very heartening to see the outpouring of support for immigrants, after Donald Trump’s ban on immigration from several Muslim countries. We have also seen, recently, people from other cultures and countries being denigrated, such as Mexicans, Indians, and Jews. The Southern Poverty Law Center indicates that there has been a huge growth in hate groups recently. But, in a positive way, we can focus on the tremendous push back that we are seeing by the majority of people in the United States against all this hate and misunderstanding.

When I was at a high school in St. Paul recently for a tournament, I saw signs all over the school for “hijab day”. All girls were invited to wear a hijab in support of the Muslim students at their school. The signs said that they could go to a certain room where they would be given a hijab and get help learning how to put it on. I imagine girls of all colors and creeds coming together in that room, laughing together, talking together, and offering support and friendship. Empathy, growing stronger because of this very concrete and beautiful action.

As we see hate crimes growing against Jews again, we also see Muslims and Christians and atheists offering help and support to Jews whose cemeteries were vandalized, who endured bomb threats and worse. At our local Minneapolis JCC, when a bomb threat was called in and they had to evacuate small children from a swimming pool, shivering in the cold winter air, a nearby business quickly took all the children in.

People are saying, no, this cannot stand. Rather, we stand with those who are targeted as different. They are not so different after all. They have families, communities of faith, jobs, friends. People from Pakistan, Somalia, India, Syria share our humanity. They also have cultural differences. Let us learn. Let us respect each others’ differences, as well as our common humanity. Let us have empathy.

The sign pictured, “ALL ARE WELCOME HERE”, grew directly out of the election and the feeling that, suddenly, and in a very un-American way, all are not welcome here anymore. I see this sign everywhere I go–in people’s yards, at the high school I was visiting, at a large shopping mall in the central court (endorsed by the city of Edina). Please check out the website, learn more about why all should be welcome here, and expand your empathy. Also check out their Facebook page. This month, they’re posting about wonderful women is support of Women’s History Month.

Let us say it firmly: ALL ARE WELCOME HERE.

 

Happy Holidays, Y’all

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So, with the election of Donald Trump, people are saying that we can finally say “Merry Christmas” again. Like, we couldn’t before? Of course you can say “Merry Christmas”–to people who actually celebrate the holiday. But it’s not a national holiday that everyone celebrates, like July 4th. It’s a religious holiday. I am so tired of people talking about the so-called “war on Christmas”, as if the majority of Americans are being persecuted for celebrating their favorite holiday. Look around–Christmas decorations are everywhere. Listen–Christmas songs are being played everywhere. All the time. For a whole month, or more.

How about if we take a step back and think about what it feels like from the perspective of a person who is Jewish, or Muslim, or Hindu, or atheist, or any other belief. Let’s listen to Wendy Jacobson, who wrote an article for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune titled “Enough with the Christmas songs.” She was sitting in the bleachers of a public high school, waiting for her daughter’s dance team to perform, days before Thanksgiving, when the p.a. system began playing Christmas songs. And she reached her breaking point. She says, “that was the moment I finally–after 40-plus years of living as a Jew in a Christian world–became annoyed with the constant loop of Christmas songs.”

Of course, we live in a capitalist society, and Christmas sells. It’s a big money-maker. But, it would be one thing if the stores and public places played winter-themed songs (“Let it snow, let it snow”) or even secular Christmas songs (“I’ll be home for Christmas”). When it crosses the line into religion-based songs (hymns) such as “Silent Night”, that’s different. Think of how that would feel to you, if you were of a different faith. For those people who are Christian, let’s reverse things to try to understand the experience from “the other side.” Would you want to be blasted with Muslim songs for the entire month of Ramadan everywhere you went, or with Hanukkah songs for eight days in every store and every public venue you entered? Of course, if that were to actually happen, it might promote the multi-cultural life that actually is America, which we so rarely acknowledge. So maybe Christmas songs, in conjunction with songs from many other traditions and faiths, including Native American and Hmong and Japanese and Somalian and so many others, all blended together over the year, would be fine, and interesting, and enlightening.

But then, there is a reason the founding fathers put the separation of church and state into the Constitution. So while private businesses have a right to play whatever music helps them sell products, public schools should not be playing Christian hymns.

As Wendy says, “I fully understand that Jews are a minority in the U.S., even more so in Minnesota. And I get that Christmas reigns supreme among the holidays. Other occasions are a mere afterthought. But the people who celebrate these other holidays? We shouldn’t be an afterthought. Maybe that’s why I got so frustrated as I sat in those uncomfortable bleachers.”

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This Election: Seriously lacking in empathy

Empathy, Empathy Ongoing and Growing

Hilary and Donald

The election for president of the U.S. this year has been more divisive than any I have ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot in my 48 years of voting. I’m not going to say here whom I will vote for. But I will say that as a preschool teacher, while I have used the presidential election every 4 years to help my young charges begin to learn about being good citizens, how democracy works, and voting, this will be the first year we do not discuss the actual current election, focusing instead on good citizenship and voting, and what the president does.

With the sheer volume of hatred and lack of empathy toward large groups of people being spewed in this election (OK, you may be getting a hint of which candidate I am appalled by), I am looking for any sign of understanding toward people with whom someone may disagree politically, as is expected in American politics. Here are two.

In the New York Times on Oct. 20, in the OpEd section, there was an beautiful article by Imbolo Mbue titled “How to Vote as an Immigrant and a Citizen”. She talks about how she is so excited to vote in her first free, democratic election since becoming a citizen, having emigrated from Cameroon. She writes about how, even though every day she encounters anti-immigrant bias, she understands where that is coming from, as countries in Europe as well as the United States and others struggle to absorb the influx of refugees needing so much help. Then she ends her piece with this lovely statement: “Being black, female and an immigrant–and for a good portion of my life, low-income, too–I’ve weathered my share of prejudice. But the empathy Americans have shown me far outweighs the unkindness. That is why, on Election Day, I will be voting for empathy.” How good does that make you feel?

Number 2: In the Minneapolis StarTribune on the same day, in the OpEd Section, was a piece by Faith Ralston entitled, “We can put civility back in discussion.” She talks about how she visited “dear friends” recently, who had polar opposite views on the election. “It was easy to argue,” she says. Then, “I started listening. I started looking for common ground. I began asking, ‘Where do we both agree?’ and ‘What are we both concerned about?'” She offers a number of guidelines on how to respectfully connect with those neighbors/relatives/friends/others with whom we disagree politically. For example, look for areas of shared concern; ask questions, sincerely; make room for differences. As she says, “When regular folks like you and me start talking, showing respect, listening past our differences and finding common ground, we find solutions.” I would add, assume that a person who disagrees with you has reasons for doing so, and try to understand those reasons. Then, ask the person on “the other side” to give you equal respect and try to listen to and understand where you’re coming from.

And yes, I have to say, as an advocate of empathy and understanding, that while individual supporters of any particular candidate deserve our respectful listening and empathy, castigating entire groups of people is not acceptable for any political candidate. This is the opposite of empathy. Let’s hope our country can get back to its core value of welcoming diversity of opinion and people.

Why do we seek out sadness?

Empathy, Empathy Ongoing and Growing

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When I transferred this blog to the new website, I found one unfinished post. In it, I pondered why humans voluntarily seek out books, movies and TV shows that are about sad, even tragic, situations. I think I didn’t finish it because I really don’t know the answer. I would love to see any studies that help to explain this. But for now, let me just speculate.

The question came up a few years ago, when I was watching the TV show “Parenthood” with my husband. In this particular episode, one of the main characters finds out she has breast cancer. Mike looked over at me, with tears flowing down my face, and asked why I wanted to watch this. In this case, the answer, I believe, is human connection. These characters already felt like real human beings to me, with whom I had made a connection, and so I cared about them.

We recently watched the movie, “Life Itself”, about film critic Roger Ebert. This movie especially focused on his end days, after cancer of the jaw had caused him to lose his ability to speak or eat. It was shocking to see his face with the lower jaw missing. And yet, he remained largely in good humor. I already felt a connection to Roger Ebert from having watched his movie reviews with his compatriot Gene Siskel for so many years. So, as I was shedding a few tears at the end of the movie during scenes of his funeral, I was still glad I had watched it. And Ebert himself said, in this movie, very interesting things about how movies promote, and are often based on, our human capacity for empathy. He said, “For me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy. The purpose of civilization and growth is to be able to reach out and empathize a little bit with other people. [Movies] help us to identify with the people who are sharing this life with us.”

And indeed, the life that we all share as humans involves both sadness and happiness, both tragedy and great success, both sorrow and joy. If we only read books and saw movies and watched TV shows that were all lightness and happiness, comedy but no tragedy, we would not be making that human connection that we all desire–or at least, not as fully. (Although I know people who only watch comedies, saying that real life involves enough sadness–just watching the news every night gives one a full serving of tragedy–so why chose to watch fictional tragedy? For them, movies and TV are an escape, and I agree, that is a perfectly valid use of media.)

I will admit that I don’t subject myself to certain movies that would be too painful to bear, empathetically speaking. I don’t go to see movies about children who are murdered, for example. And as my children will attest, when I do see movies that are about truly horrible things, I fall apart. They will never forget walking out of the movie “No Country for Old Men” as I was crying uncontrollably. I will never forget driving home from the movie “The Pawnbroker” 35 years ago, sobbing as my poor husband was trying to negotiate driving on icy streets after an ice storm that hit while we were inside the theater. I was just devastated by it, and haven’t been able to make myself watch it again.

So, what do you think? I would love for you to join this conversation and tell me, why do you chose to read books or see movies or TV shows that make you cry?