Empathy. We’ve heard this word used before. We feel empathy for our friends and loved ones, and in disastrous circumstances, for victims we haven’t met. But, can someone who doesn’t interact with or know people from a different culture feel empathy for them?
I question this as I watch week after week another person of color lose their life in the custody of police. Should empathy – the ability to share or understand the feelings of another – in pain and distress be expected from aggressive or racist police who assault and victimize countless human beings?
According to a report published earlier this year in the Wall Street Journal about empathy, “Science has amply demonstrated that, when we are stressed, there are adverse consequences for our blood pressure, digestive tract, immune system and so on. This research shows that, when we are stressed, there are also adverse consequences for those stuck being around us.” The article also reports that when people are in stressful situations they are less likely to empathize with a stranger in distress than someone familiar to them.
Police have reportedly stated that victims have placed them at higher levels of stress when they believe their lives are in danger, and as a result often respond in a less logical or more emotional way than if they would have had they been at ease or felt less threatened. But, how does one explain those officers who initiated aggression; are they under higher levels of stress?
The confusion and dissatisfaction vulnerable communities have for authority comes from a long history of being targets for unsolicited aggressive behavior. The mere fact that we can be in our own neighborhoods or doing nothing wrong but still face the risk of dying more often than Whites disrupts the security we deserve to feel in being protected by the police.
Weekly reports of terroristic acts of cops terrifying and murdering innocent people have shown a pattern of reckless behavior that could have been avoided. Repeated incidents like Sandra Bland, Kindra Chapman, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice lock us into a psychological trauma that becomes harder to break the more these situations occur. And I do believe communities of color are traumatized. The videos we’ve seen of women and men who dissent their concerns with the police upon initial contact; the aggression that people of color at times displace on one another as opposed to a system of perpetrators. And, the times in which some of our communities turn anger onto our communities in destructive ways displays are signs of traumatized people.
Through all of this pain, we must however, remind ourselves that we are not barbarians; we are not helpless and our communities are not fields for target practice. Our history has told us so but we have a right to be reminded of this and continue fighting against injustice. We must remember to have more empathy too, for our sisters and brothers who are walking the streets every day in the struggle, to remember to think of them and consider them as part of the extended tree of life, not as a threat to our own existence. We have to remember that we are not each other’s enemy.
Asha Tarry, LMSW, PLLC is a Mental Health Specialist, Life Coach and Owner of Behavioral Health Consulting Services (www.BHConsultingServices.net), a mental health company that provides consultations, evaluations, referrals and life coaching to adults 18 years and older with mental health and social services’ needs. Follow her @ashtarry on Twitter/ Asha Tarry on Facebook and LinkedIN.
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