Radical Empathy

Finding a Path to Bridging Racial Divides

Givens, Terri, Givens, Terri E., Terri E. Givens

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781447357247
• eBook ISBN: 9781447357261
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Structural racism has impacted the lives of African Americans in the United States since before the country's founding. Although the country has made some progress towards a more equal society, political developments in the 21st century have shown that deep divides remain. The persistence of inequality is an indicator of the stubborn resilience of the institutions that maintain white supremacy.

To bridge our divides, renowned political scientist Terri Givens calls for 'radical empathy' - moving beyond an understanding of others' lives and pain to understand the origins of our biases, including internalized oppression.

Deftly weaving together her own experiences with the political, she offers practical steps to call out racism and bring about radical social change.

1

Bridging divides: From racism to empathy in the 21st century

I have always been a positive and hopeful person, but the 21st century has challenged my ability to focus on the good in the world. As I write this, it is the summer of 2020 and the COVID-19 coronavirus is changing our lives. The murder of George Floyd by the police in Minneapolis has led to protests around the US and the world, supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. Although these crises have created a sense of linked fate for many of us, the political divides in our country remain. Racism continues to rear its ugly head, with Asian Americans being blamed and attacked for a virus that appears to have started in China. Politics continues to divide the country in a variety of ways.

In this era of stark political divides, it is clear that racial divisions can get in the way of empathy.¹ I define “empathy” as the ability to see the world from another person’s perspective, in order to understand their feelings and life experiences. “Radical empathy” takes this a step further, encouraging each of us not only to understand the feelings of others, but also to be motivated to create the change that will allow all of us to benefit from economic prosperity and develop the social relationships that are beneficial to our emotional wellbeing. Racial divides can cause us to see economic and societal benefits as a zero-sum game. Empathy allows us to see the humanity in others, and radical empathy moves us to work towards social justice and change that will benefit us all.

It is important to understand that we can all contribute to change. As Jennifer L. Eberhardt states,

…addressing bias is not just a personal choice; it is a social agenda, a moral stance. Every society has disadvantaged groups that are the targets of bias. When that disadvantaged status is blamed on those groups’ imagined faults, our incipient bias can feel warranted…the first step toward ending those disparities is to discard the assumption that they are inevitable.²

Issues of race are complicated in the US, but over our history, the most consequential racial division is between Whites and Blacks (acknowledging that native Americans have also suffered loss of life and land in the United States). In 2016, race was a decisive factor in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. After the election, exit polls showed that Trump won 57 percent of White votes, but only 8 percent of Black votes, 28 percent of Hispanic votes, and 27 percent of Asian-American votes. Recent research using data from the American National Election Study and other surveys has shown that Trump was supported by White Americans who shared his prejudices in regard to race and his anti-immigration stances.³

The words of Crystal Minton illustrate the sentiment of many low-income Whites in the US. Minton was a secretary at a prison in Marianna, Florida, a small, politically conservative town that depends on jobs from a federal prison impacted by a government shutdown in January of 2019. “‘I voted for him, and he’s the one who’s doing this,’ she said of Mr Trump. ‘I thought he was going to do good things. He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.’”⁴ This quote was made in the context of economic losses for White supporters of President Trump. For Minton, Trump was meant to be the one who would bring jobs and prosperity, but only for those who were “worthy,” that is, White people. These words also betray an utter lack of empathy for her fellow non-White citizens; as a reporter for Vox puts it, “Minton is declaring that one aim of the Trump administration is to hurt people—the right people. Making America great again, in her mind, involves inflicting pain.”⁵

At a time of great division in our country, I am turning my researcher’s lens to my own story and how my life and that of my family has been impacted by the bias that has existed in this country since its founding. The ways that my parents dealt with race, as I will describe in more detail, left me conflicted in the ways that I viewed Blacks and our ability to achieve success. I knew I would have to work harder but I didn’t always see the structural racism that has made it difficult for African Americans to advance—there are no bootstraps to pull up on.

Ibram Kendi’s work on the history of racism, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, was one of the main influences that encouraged me to write this book. In the prologue of his book he states that, “Fooled by racist ideas, I did not fully realize that the only thing wrong with Black people is that we think something is wrong with Black people.”⁶ His admission resonated with me. I have had similar feelings for many years. As a political scientist who has been studying the politics of race in Europe for many years, I have been grappling with my own biases, and I knew that at some point I would need to tell my story.

For too long we have accepted structural racism as inevitable, exemplified in the institutional policies and practices that perpetuate barriers to opportunities and racial disparities. I am writing this book to challenge that idea, and to use my story and that of my family to put into context the reality of the lives of African Americans today. It is important for more of us to understand the importance of empathy, and to develop the actions that will create change. Telling our stories is an important component to developing empathy. My story begins with understanding the pernicious nature of bias that became an urgent issue for me with the end of my father’s life.

It was a beautiful early summer day in Seattle, and my father, Rocelious Givens, Jr (aka Roy), was tired, but happy to be with family. He had recently celebrated his 73rd birthday and was looking forward to fully retiring from the business now being run by my oldest brother. As he sat in the overstuffed chair belonging to my sister Marsha, he laughed as he watched his children and grandchildren’s playful interactions. My mother Leora, the tireless matriarch of this large clan, commanded everyone’s attention (as she usually did), telling birth stories and related memories of giving dolls and quilts to her beloved granddaughters; the three of them smiled, knowing her attention was partly due to the fact that they were outnumbered by their male brothers and cousins.

A cake that spelled out “Happy Graduation!” marked the occasion, while my sisters and I served fried chicken and potato salad on festive plates. My nieces enjoyed the attention, and my father sat silently, smiling with a grandfather’s pride. My nieces Melissa and Linsay each took turns opening presents and laughing with delight. My father had always been surrounded by girls, starting with his sisters Laura and Bernice, then followed by his four daughters who were born before his two sons. The universe added an exclamation point by giving him me, his last child, who would finalize his legacy—the nine members of the Givens family. I’m sure he could not imagine a better life, a finer future, as he enjoyed this day.

The graduation party had begun to wind down as the evening light ebbed. A stabbing pain disturbed my dad when his heartbeat seemed to jump and sputter unevenly in his chest. Too much food and not enough rest, he thought. The trip was taking a toll and his signal to Leora was definitive. They needed to rise early the next day to make it to Spokane for his meetings regarding the business. A concerned look was exchanged between Marsha and Leora. Dad had promised to see a doctor when he visited Spokane, one who might give him answers about these “spells” he was experiencing, but that would be another day. Today, he received thanks from his granddaughters, promises of help with the new house from his daughters, and instructions from his beautiful wife to pack his suit for the journey ahead of them.

As I drove away that evening with my husband and baby son, Andrew, I was glad that I had had the opportunity to talk with Dad about their new house and their move to Seattle. I was excited that my son would have more time with his grandfather. None of us could foresee that this was the last time we would see him alive.

A few days later, Mom and Dad would return to Spokane, where my brother Roy awaited his return to oversee the transition of the company, Pantrol, the business he had started in 1974. My dad had reached a milestone in his life—retirement, building a new house in Issaquah, Washington, father to seven children, and grandfather to eleven, all in varying stages of life and careers. My mother was focused on their plans of moving back to the Pacific Northwest from Mesa, Arizona, where they had spent the last 11 years as snowbirds, traveling back and forth between Arizona and Washington.

A few days later, in their trailer just outside of Spokane, Dad awoke to watch the morning news as he always did. Mom went to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee and came back to find Dad unresponsive. He would be dead before the paramedics could arrive. His diagnosis—a massive heart attack. His passing would leave us with more questions than answers.

I’ll never forget that day, June 13, 2001. It started with a phone call, and ended with the knowledge that my life would never be the same again. Despite my anguish, this event would bring into focus the many facets of my life. My father wasn’t particularly old at the age of 73, but I would soon learn that being a Black man in America had put a burden on him that would contribute to his sudden death.

Once my grief had subsided, the daughter and the researcher in me began to ask a jumble of questions:

•Why didn’t we have any warning signs? (They were there if we had known how to look for them.)

•Why didn’t his doctor see this coming?

•How could this happen to someone who was in a relaxed retirement?

•What role did life in a racist society play in his passing?

•How could I protect myself and other members of my family from heart disease?

•How was his death related to the politics of race, something that I studied in other countries?

The questions didn’t stop there, and the seeds for this book were planted. I began taking a closer look at my family’s history, digging into our genealogy to understand the factors that impacted our health, education, and living circumstances. I felt like I had been sleepwalking through my life up to that point. At the age of 36, it was time for me to take a closer look at the reality of being African American in the 21st century.

I would go on to lose several other family members in that first decade of the new millennium—most of them to preventable illnesses. It breaks my heart to this day that I had such a profound lack of understanding of the impact of structural racism on the people I love. I realized that I needed to put the story of my family in context. I had been interested in the politics of race throughout my career—now it was time for me to get a better understanding of the impact on my own life and family.

When I was an undergraduate at Stanford University in the early 1980s, it seemed like a time of great possibility for improvement in race relations. I thought that opportunity would continue to grow for the foreseeable future. As a first-generation college student, I was well aware that I was not the norm at a place like Stanford, but I assumed that the burgeoning tech sector in what was becoming known as Silicon Valley would provide opportunity for all. One of the stories I will focus on in this book is my experience in education. I start here, with my development as a researcher, and the connections I made with my own experiences with race.

Researching racism

As a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the 1990s, I focused my research on issues of race and immigration politics in Europe. I became an expert on radical right parties and the rise of racist, anti-immigrant political parties in countries like France and Germany. Today I am an internationally recognized expert on comparative race politics, immigration, and the radical right. My expertise is important to understanding political developments across the Atlantic, but how does this expertise impact my understanding of developments here, in the United States?

Throughout my career as a political scientist, I have connected the research that I do to political realities, and at times, my own activism. As I have watched the rise of racism, populism, and demagoguery since the mid-1990s, it has become even more important to connect my research on these topics to actions that can alleviate some of the divisions that we are seeing in society. I have not been a passive observer. My research is connected to my identity as an African-American woman living in a country that is in an ongoing struggle with the racial constructs that have created the inequalities that people of color face, and the resentment of many people who see their dominant place in society slipping away.

What was lacking in my understanding up to this point was being able to connect my own story and the story of my family to the outcomes that I was researching and experiencing. When I began studying the politics of immigration and race in Europe over 25 years ago, I had the expectation that the anti-immigrant racist movements and parties I was studying were an anomaly. Although there were few African-American students in my graduate school cohort at UCLA, my expectation was that we would continue to see growth in the diversity of graduate students and faculty going forward. Although I knew I would face challenges as a Black woman in academe, I expected that those challenges would decrease over time, as I gained expertise and credibility. Unfortunately, they didn’t, and as I will detail...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Note on the author
• Prologue: Writing in a time of crisis
• 1. Bridging divides: From racism to empathy in the 21st century
• 2. Getting to radical empathy
• 3. My family’s story: The isolation of internalized oppression
• 4. Racism and health disparities
• 5. Finding empathy in the academy
• 6. Love and marriage
• 7. Radical empathy in leadership: Creating change
• 8. Creating change at the national level: Restorative justice and working off the past
• 9. Revisiting the path to radical empathy
• Epilogue: The long road ahead
• Notes
• Suggested reading