I wanted to write a blog after the beyond-tragic Buffalo shooting on May 14, but I could not find the right words. They seemed to just loiter on the page, the synapses of my brain unable to fuse them together, my heart too heavy to immediately soldier on. So, as I sat and reflected on this recent event for days, discussed with my hundreds of students, and read more and more news reports, I continued to struggle with what I could add to the conversation about race, about guns, about society, about all of this senseless death. After all, nearly two years ago, I wrote about George Floyd’s murder. Those words stand strong and true, and it is among the works that I am proudest of. On this topic, there is not much more that I felt like I could say about the stench of white supremacy and racism in this country, particularly against Black Americans, that other more prolific scholars have said both in academic texts and countless op-eds across all our major outlets. So, I set my proverbial pen aside, and funneled my energy into supporting my students in the classroom.
And then, 10 days later, another sickening tragedy occurred. When I found out about the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, I was teaching a class: mid-lecture, pacing the classroom of 125 earnest college students, thinking about hope and young people and schools, and then one of my students shared the events with the class out loud. I pulled up the news report and my heart dropped. Absolute shock hit me all over. I felt dizzy and nauseated. Up in front of the class, I felt paralyzed: I did not know what to do in that moment, or what to say to the class. Weeks later, I am still not sure what to fully say to my students, my friends, or myself. (I do know, however, that we urgently need to take action with sensible gun safety policies, and understand how our broken politics prevent such laws from passing.) My shock during that class then turned into visceral anger that another mass shooting happened again (like the anger expressed by this NBA head coach). The next morning, most (but not all of course) of that anger turned into sadness and profound grief. I read a few articles about the children, saw their faces, listened to their parents’ stories, and tears started to fall. It was hard to read and watch and listen. It still is exceedingly hard to do so without losing myself in an otherworldly sadness. On one hand, I feel as if I cannot endure seeing this pain and the emotions such stories elicit. At the same time, as the weeks have gone by, I feel like I have an obligation *to* listen to the stories of parents who tragically lost their beautiful children, and to share even in their tiniest bit of agony.
Why have I felt this way? What is this intrinsic desire to have a shared emotional reaction that feels necessary, even just? Following Uvalde, I again wanted to write something, to try and comprehend something that in reality is so incomprehensible. But, similarly, the words lifted beyond me. Like I did after the Buffalo shooting, I pulled together a list of resources for my students to help them contextualize gun violence, resigned to let experts and advocates in this subject discuss the overdue need for reform to save our children.
But, it’s my birthday today—and in what has seemingly become a tradition, I reflect on the year that was, and as I do so, I cannot separate my birthday reflection from recent events of the past few weeks: the tragedies that have stirred my soul (and my conscience) in combination with what another year means in my life journey. I have indeed added another “chain link” to this journey, and in a world with senseless gun violence, a million Covid-19 deaths, and so much more, I am incredibly grateful to be here, present, thinking, and, most of all, feeling. To feel is what makes us human; to feel is to bring meaning to life; to feel is to have empathy, and empathy is what has been the missing ingredient, I believe, to all our conversations about Buffalo, Uvalde, and ourselves. As I have struggled to write about either of these events, I realize it is the idea of empathy that I have needed to write about all along.
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In a few weeks, I will begin my summer course at the University of California, Irvine, in the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program, teaching a group of nearly 40 optimistic future educators who are earning a Masters degree and teaching credential, and who, in 14 months, will be teaching in their own K-12 classroom. I am extremely excited, but I also take this responsibility in helping educate our future teachers very seriously. What do I say to them about feeling safe in their future classrooms after Uvalde? What do I teach them about racism in the diverse schools they will teach in after Buffalo? Where do I go intellectually and emotionally each week as these young people look to me to guide them as they begin to fulfill their dreams of a teaching career? How do I tell my students who want to teach and change lives that their leaders care more about banning books than banning guns? How do I explain to them the fact that teachers were acting as heroes while police, who have sworn to protect them, did not do so?
To be sure, we will learn about the history of education, about educational inequality, about the contours, structures, and changes in and of America’s school systems. My training and advanced degrees have prepared me for that. But, more importantly, we will also learn about empathy (and I’d like to think that love and wisdom from my family has prepared me for this, particularly my grandfather Ted). We will learn about the struggles of different groups of students across time, place, and space. We will learn about the successes, too. Collectively, as a class, we will probe our own journeys, and learn from each others’ experiences: how we got to this moment so that we can live the next moment with great kindness and love.
Mostly, though, it is empathy that I hope my students and these future teachers learn in my class more than any concept or theme about education because I believe that empathy is not only the most important concept for young people to learn about, but the connective tissue of our society. It is empathy that, in reflection of such tragedies—and in reflection of my birthday—that I feel is the most formidable ingredient to a better life and a better world. Empathy allows us to see the world from another person’s perspective: empathy has no bias, no discrimination, no agenda other than a prescription of perpetual compassion. Empathy is love. Empathy is care. Empathy is the brain’s magic because it inherently leads to action—empathy triggers emotions that make us want to do “something” even when we feel powerless or when change might feel out of reach.
I am under no illusion that empathy could have stopped Buffalo or Uvalde or the countless other gun-related massacres in our schools, public spaces, or homes. (To be absolutely clear: common sense gun safety laws are needed. For example, California, which has some of the stricter gun laws, has 60% less gun deaths than Texas. We even mostly know who are the prime suspects to commit these types of murders. Again, nowhere on Earth does this happen except in the United States.) Nor do I think that empathy alone can solve all our societal ills (as there is immense evil in the not-so-dark corners of the internet and even promoted by some politicians). But perhaps empathy can help. Violence can only happen in the absence of empathy. It is impossible to want to kill or hurt someone when empathy is present. Empathy is like a powerful force field that, while not impenetrable—unconscious rage, mental sickness, gun technology, and the many evils displayed throughout history certainly prove otherwise—can serve as a shield against inflicting pain on another individual. Only a person who cannot empathize with the struggles, or the differences, or the experiences of another who is not like them, can commit such atrocities.
Certainly, these are extreme examples that are at the forefront of my conscience at the moment. However, I also think about empathy a lot in less extreme scenarios when considering our current partisanship and division in society. If it is the provocation of fear—of an immigrant, a stranger, someone of a different race or speaks a different language—that (unfortunately) serves as a powerful catalyst for selfish actions and violent policies that inflict pain on certain groups, then it is empathy that can act as fear’s kryptonite. Empathy forces us to commit to actions and policies that consider all people, not just some (or ourselves). While there are many examples, one recent example of empathy sticks out. Back in March, the state of Utah passed a bill that would ban transgender athletes from participating in girls sports. The Republican governor, Spencer Cox, vetoed the bill, receiving immense criticism from Republicans in his state (which he knew would happen). And, his reasoning for vetoing the bill was notable. (As an educator, I have taught many transgender students and students who identify as LGBTQ+, and their resilience and brilliance inspires me. To be clear, it saddens me that this even has to be a discussion.) In his letter of why he vetoed the bill, Governor Cox explained that: “Four kids and only one of them playing girls sports. That’s what this is all about. Four kids who aren’t dominating or winning trophies or taking scholarships. Four kids who are just trying to find some friends and feel like they are a part of something. Four kids trying to get through each day. Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few. I don’t understand what they are going through or why they feel the way they do. But I want them to live. And all the research shows that even a little acceptance and connection can reduce suicidality significantly [as 86% of trans youth report feeling suicidal].”
Governor Cox admitted he did not understand fully why transgender youth feel as they do about their sexual or gender identity—in a less populous state like Utah, perhaps he has never interacted with a transgender person—but he was able to empathize with their struggles and consider their experiences even if he cannot relate to them. It is this empathy that then allowed him to step back and recognize that this policy would hurt a group a people he, admittedly, knew little about. And, that’s okay! Learning from each other is good, it is right. To participate in the collective experience of being human, of caring about the lives and feelings of others, to consider that my experience may not reflect someone else’s, is the path forward to authentically respecting each other’s differences. It is the path forward to living together cooperatively in a diverse society such as ours.
I do not have the answers to complicated questions of gender discrimination or racism or disability rights for students in schools or any of the myriad of complex issues we face as a world. But being empathic at least allows to consider these questions honestly just like Governor Cox did—and consider how any policy or personal decision we make (or personal opinion we hold) tangibly affects others. This is the power of empathy at work! Empathy brings meaning to our lives, but it also serves as a practical tool—perhaps the most important tool we have—for both our co-existence and a better existence.
Yet, empathy also build relationships and fosters hope. Empathy is a characteristic that the strongest people possess: it takes strength to realize what you are going through is not the same as someone else, to sideline your survival habitual instincts of “fight or flight” to truly see someone else’s struggles or perspectives. It takes strength to recognize that we may have to give up a little bit of something to make someone else’s life better, or, perhaps in the case of gun safety, a little bit safer. I think it is human nature to justify any opinion or action that we do that puts ourselves first; we constantly rationalize that what are actions are “fine” or enough or, again, justified, because of some inner belief about our individual existence. But empathy allows us to question these rationalizations; empathy forces us to tap into our emotions and into our heart to recognize that the path to individual and collective prosperity is not alone, but together. Like I wrote about the power of kindness many years ago, empathy is not weakness, but instead the ultimate source of strength.
So, I hope you teach and practice the art of empathy: to care about others and seek out understanding of those who have experiences and feelings that you might not identify with or even understand. Because to do so is not only essential to our public policy, but it allows us to better understand the fragility of our own life and those we care about. To truly connect with another person on a deeply emotional level is a powerful out-of-body experience. To laugh or cry with someone—a friend, a family member, a stranger—is immensely gratifying. These moments, perhaps these “little moments” as I wrote a decade ago, are beautiful beyond reproach. Fancy cars and fancy dinners might be enjoyable, but engaging in a true empathic experience is to experience the full breadth of the human condition. Empathy provides something that no other material “thing” can: it is essence of not just existing, but living. At the end of the day, all we have is each other and the empathy we share.
Coming full circle, this year has been a year of exploring empathy for me: trying to better understand how I can practice empathy in my daily work, how I can best use the privileges I have to care for others, and how I can find meaning amidst one of the most challenging years of my professional life and a slew of unimaginable tragedies all around me. Again, I do not have all the (or any!) answers, but I know that to every question, the need for empathy as part of the solution is nestled in there somewhere. Because by practicing empathy, I can at least share in the collective process of finding these answers—to racism, to gun violence, to the meaning of life—with those around me: both those I love and know intimately, and with those strangers I have never met. That’s a empowering feeling. As I begin my next year where new challenges await, in these trying times, empathy will be my guiding light, my North Star. I hope it will be yours, too.
