In a year of high tensions and intense emotions, it seems impossible to find common ground with all of the hate we see today. We need solutions to bridge the gap forming in our politically divided country, in order to have kind conversations that can help us reconnect.
I’ll start with a straight-forward, honest statement: hope is hard to come by lately. In a general sense, I mean, even when hope is in my grasp, it is difficult for me to truly be hopeful. Negative thinking, I know it is, but it’s the truth.
As much as we have seen acts of kindness emerge this year - particularly with the pandemic’s frontline workers, natural disasters, and among neighbors - there is also a great amount of hate and division in the United States. We could debate about whether this is Trump’s fault or his opponents, but it won’t solve anything.
I’ve thought about the state of our nation a lot lately. Watching highlights from the DNC and the RNC the past few weeks made the division clear. As a young voter, I’m frustrated with politics and dream of the day this two party system dies. I know a lot of other voters feel the same.
I am angry that every four years, people have to vote in order to protect their rights and freedoms. If you think this is an exaggeration, you likely have some privilege to ignore this. The political compass in the United States is moving more and more to the right, and the extremist conservative views expressed today cost many people in our country their freedoms.
No matter how you look at it, Trump is dangerous for vulnerable populations. In my mind as a woman, this is the man accused of sexual assault by more than two dozen women, the one heard on the “Hollywood bus tape,” the one who sexualized his own daughter in interviews, ect.. For Black Americans, he is the man who publicly advocated for the death penalty for the Central Park Five and tried to refuse to hire black workers for his businesses. For LGBTQ+ community members, he’s the man who doesn’t want transgender people serving in the military, serving alongside a man who is pro-conversion therapy. For people with disabilities, he’s the man who mocked a disabled person at a rally. He’s the man who called all Mexicans rapists, the one who referred to white supremacists as “good people,” and the voice that encourages violence and divisiveness.
While my bias is clearly against him, these are all objective facts in a subjective tone. There is fear and anxiety felt by a lot of people about this upcoming election, and the reasons for it are validated by the facts above - and that’s not even an exhaustive list.
After spending some time processing these intense emotions - frustration, exhaustion, hopelessness - I came up with one thing that could help repair this country:
Empathy.
There is so much hate circulating through our nation. We need to have more empathy to fix this.
I wrote a post a few weeks ago titled “Toxic Positivity,” and I talked about giving people second chances before cutting them out of our lives. This concept is relevant with political issues in 2020. However, when it comes to human rights, sometimes it can be too difficult for us to hold on to someone long enough for them to get that second chance.
This is usually due to a difference in people’s understanding of the situation. While one person might see illegal immigration through the lens of how it impacts the economy, someone else might have more empathy and realize that immigrants are human beings dealing with a confusing legal process full of obstacles. The first person would likely support Trump’s expansion of ICE, while the second person might see it as unnecessary militarization.
Empathy makes all the difference.
Let’s take COVID-19 as another example where empathy can drown out hate. When it was first announced by the CDC that masks can decrease the spread of the virus, people were asked to wear masks not just to protect themselves, but to protect others from themselves in case they had the virus. For many people, this knowledge that wearing a mask protects others from you invoked a seed of empathy.
It’s simple. If I want the virus to stop spreading, and I don’t want other people to get sick, I should wear a mask. Empathy also plays into the idea that there are vulnerable populations - people in multi-generational homes, cancer patients, and immunocompromised people - who could potentially die from the disease. I know I would have guilt if I selfishly chose to not wear a mask, and it resulted in the death of another person.
However, for people who do not think to walk in another person’s shoes, the concept of wearing a mask is up for debate. They perceive it as a threat to their freedom before they consider the lives of others as equally important to their own.
It’s easy to see that we should have - and encourage others to have - more empathy with all that is happening in 2020. In the last week alone, we’ve had natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires rob people of their livelihoods; clusters of COVID outbreaks in college towns as a result of careless partying; another case of police brutality caught on video that resulted in Jacob Blake’s paralysis and a resurgence of protests; three protesters shot - two dead - by a young, white male illegally carrying a firearm at a counter protest; and among all of this, hateful language and ideas still being spread.
I will acknowledge that, if you aren’t used to considering emotions as a factor in forming an understanding, empathy is easier said than done. Most things are. However, we should at least try to have empathy in times of high tension. It is simply another skill being tested in 2020, just as flexibility and patience are.
We all need to remember this, as we respond to current events. Before asking questions of others, consider what it is like to be in their shoes.
If your first thought when you hear about Black Lives Matter protests is a negative judgement, consider what it is like to be black in American in 2020.
If your first reaction to a business’s mask mandate is anger, consider how it can be the difference between life and death for someone with a weakened immune system.
In fact, with any response we have to anything, we should consider the other side of the argument through the lens of empathy.
It is impossible to be highly educated on every social and humanitarian issue plaguing our nation and the world at large. While we might not understand fully the history behind contemporary issues - and most of us don’t even know what is happening in the world all the time - we can still try to have empathy.
Hopefully, by being more considerate of others and their perspectives, we can find a common ground in this divided country for conversations to bridge the gap.
Consider someone else's perspective. See through someone else's lenses. Walk in someone else's shoes.
When all hope is lost, try to have some empathy.
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