Empathy And Racism

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Empathy means “the ability to understand and share the feelings of others” (Miriam- Webster dictionary). Empathy requires that we recognize that other people feel very differently than others and it requires that the pain they feel exists in other people even if we don’t understand why (Pg. 393). Empathy is society’s ability to understand the anger and hurt that is caused by racism. Some examples of empathy can be looked at when we think back to the Travon Martin case. Many white mothers felt empathy towards not only Trayvon’s mother but all African American mothers once the news was announced that the shooter walked free. Many people felt the anger and pain that his parents felt because they have children of their own and understood that his …show more content…

The 4 steps that Eric listed was recognition, responsibility, reconstruction, and reparation. It’s important to mention that these four steps have a particular order because without one step, the other steps wouldn’t be possible. The first step Eric addresses is recognition which he defines as “recognizing the harms created by racism” (Pg. 393). Recognition requires us to have empathy and being able to come to terms with the bad things caused by racism because it affects people’s lives and their look on society. Some examples that we can relate to recognition is the Armenian Genocide because many places including the United States don’t recognize it as something bad that has happened in our world. Based on my group projects topic, institutional racism specifically in the educational system, this first step would be focused on the idea that we need to acknowledge and recognize that there is racism throughout the educational system. For example, the college in Missouri had issues with racism and it wasn’t until people started to speak up to defend themselves to say that racism was occurring and it was wrong, that the school started to acknowledge that maybe the president shouldn’t have said what he said because it affected so many people’s lives. Once we recognize that harm …show more content…

394). Once we recognize that something bad as occurred and who is responsible, then the next step is to take action such as an apology. In 1995, a church apologized to African Americans for overlooking and prolonging individual and systematic racism in this lifetime (Pg. 394). In educational systems, we must give an apology to the children and parents who have been victims of the segregation within the schools system. Before 1954, children who were not white were prevented from attending white schools under a policy called “separate but equal” (Pg. 208). During slavery, many African Americans were forbidden to read and write by laws and the slaves who were considered free were not allowed to enroll in public schools (Pg. 208). In this case, the children would get an apology from the United States for not allowing them to read and write and for not allowing the free slaves to have access to an education. This apology leads us to Eric’s next step where we actually make something happen in fixing the

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