This is one of your best pieces of writing. It is filled with the painful realities of a world numb to empathy and compassion, yet you firmly stand within it to teach. As painful as it was to read, just as our world is painful every day, the mention of Assata Shakur propelled me to order her books. Thank you for that…still and always so much to learn. Keep writing. Your voice and perspective are an important part of the liberation that most of us desire…💙
So powerful -- thank you. This especiallly "t’s not enough to teach someone how to feel; they need to know what to do with that feeling. How does empathy move from the heart to the hands?"
Thanks for this moving and entirely true post, Frederick.
I wish I knew the answers to these questions you pose. So many of us are looking for these answers.
"It’s not enough to teach someone how to feel; they need to know what to do with that feeling. How does empathy move from the heart to the hands? How does it become action, something sharp enough to cut through the vines of indifference that choke the air we breathe? What is empathy if it doesn’t come with a consequence for those who refuse to change?"
I wrote to my friend Obie on death row Tuesday morning, aware that the state of Missouri would murder Marcellus Williams that day, as Texas would murder Travis Mullis, a white man who declined any further appeals due to his culpability. I think of Adam Foss, the prosecutor who spoke at a Restorative Justice conference I attended in 2018 who, as a Black man in the USA, introduced himself as an endangered species. Your essay elucidates the taxonomy he offered. I spend a lot of time facilitating restorative learning circles in jail, where we talk about compassion and empathy and accountability and while I am deeply moved by the accountability those of us in circle take, I am aware of all of the people who prop up the systems and the institutions that refuse any accountability for the death, oppression, and violations of dignity perpetrated daily.
I deeply appreciate what you wrote, and I understand that you had to write it, even though you may not have wanted to have to write it one more time. I agree that words alone will not dismantle anything nor will empathy unaided by action. I do believe that our words can stir empathy and I pray our bodies can ignite action.
I would never pretend to fully understand, as a white man who has known the privilege, but I do feel some of the weight you've so painfully, poignantly and powerfully described. Thank you for this heavy and touching piece.
Absolutely beautiful and powerful writing. So grateful to have read it. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart and soul. May we all make it so or at least die trying.
Your writing is vivid and clear, emotive but honest, moving both head and heart. This is the best piece I have read in its very empathy with its subject matter.
Don't, please, give up on empathy. True empathy is what humanity needs. Empathy that doesn't move from the heart to the hands is an illusion, incomplete or flawed. True empathy is true understanding - understanding so deep and strong that one feels, knows, sees as does the other. Your words show that you have that. In writing as you have you build and strengthen the empathy of those who listen to your words and feel their pain and sincerity. I believe that from such as that action does result.
Unfortunately, (too bland a word), - devastatingly, empathy is not the action and the action resulting from it rarely, if ever, comes quickly, let alone immediately. No lasting & universal change does. However, we must believe that it will come and that, indeed, it *is* coming - that we are part of the process and that just as each drop of rain contributes to a stronger flow and even perhaps a flood powerful enough to wash away mighty walls that have prevented escape for years, so each of us who empathises increases the flow and builds the momentum. There will always be obstacles that we have to go around or over or push out of the way but, in the end, there will be a changed landscape and fertile ground in which new and stronger life can grow.
You inspire and replenish my energy to continue and I, as I feel do many others, get overwhelmed, tired, exhausted even with attempting to remain whole within the chaos and insanity that masks and diverts attention from root causes and real understanding - real and true empathy. We who care and act as best we can to achieve full and lasting change, we need your words, your inspiration, your honesty, your pain, your conviction for it replenishes our will and determination to maintain the struggle.
So, thank you for your heart and mind and the words they produce. They are the embodiment of empathy and that empathy does have great value and achieve that long overdue change that is needed for a diseased humanity to become cleansed and healthy.
As much as I can, I accept responsibility for what my group, white people, has inflicted upon this world after fighting for an advantage of power in a deadly game that only we even knew we were playing. For continuing to weaponize that advantage with narratives of scarcity to turn us all against each other, and for the specificity with which we aim that power at Black and Brown folk and the deadly consequences, as you so justly point out, that result from it. No one life, let alone billions of lives, deserves that burden.
And I am truly sorry. I offer you this sincere apology as a first action, but I promise it won’t be the last.
Your humble and so well written words take us from the personal to the greater crime of what has been done in the US to an even larger crime of what is taking place on the world stage. Thank you so much for expressing this so well.
This is one of your best pieces of writing. It is filled with the painful realities of a world numb to empathy and compassion, yet you firmly stand within it to teach. As painful as it was to read, just as our world is painful every day, the mention of Assata Shakur propelled me to order her books. Thank you for that…still and always so much to learn. Keep writing. Your voice and perspective are an important part of the liberation that most of us desire…💙
Thank you 🖤
https://deathpenaltyaction.org/
So powerful -- thank you. This especiallly "t’s not enough to teach someone how to feel; they need to know what to do with that feeling. How does empathy move from the heart to the hands?"
Thanks for this moving and entirely true post, Frederick.
I wish I knew the answers to these questions you pose. So many of us are looking for these answers.
"It’s not enough to teach someone how to feel; they need to know what to do with that feeling. How does empathy move from the heart to the hands? How does it become action, something sharp enough to cut through the vines of indifference that choke the air we breathe? What is empathy if it doesn’t come with a consequence for those who refuse to change?"
You 'put to pen' the thoughts in my heart. Thank you. We feel, we love, we are not divided. We ARE united. I FEEL IT EVERYWHERE!!!!!
No matter how much the bastards try to divide us. That only works on the NPC people.
I wrote to my friend Obie on death row Tuesday morning, aware that the state of Missouri would murder Marcellus Williams that day, as Texas would murder Travis Mullis, a white man who declined any further appeals due to his culpability. I think of Adam Foss, the prosecutor who spoke at a Restorative Justice conference I attended in 2018 who, as a Black man in the USA, introduced himself as an endangered species. Your essay elucidates the taxonomy he offered. I spend a lot of time facilitating restorative learning circles in jail, where we talk about compassion and empathy and accountability and while I am deeply moved by the accountability those of us in circle take, I am aware of all of the people who prop up the systems and the institutions that refuse any accountability for the death, oppression, and violations of dignity perpetrated daily.
I deeply appreciate what you wrote, and I understand that you had to write it, even though you may not have wanted to have to write it one more time. I agree that words alone will not dismantle anything nor will empathy unaided by action. I do believe that our words can stir empathy and I pray our bodies can ignite action.
I would never pretend to fully understand, as a white man who has known the privilege, but I do feel some of the weight you've so painfully, poignantly and powerfully described. Thank you for this heavy and touching piece.
Absolutely beautiful and powerful writing. So grateful to have read it. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart and soul. May we all make it so or at least die trying.
This is incredible and all so so true. Thank you for your words and for your courage. They have meant so much to me
Your writing is vivid and clear, emotive but honest, moving both head and heart. This is the best piece I have read in its very empathy with its subject matter.
Don't, please, give up on empathy. True empathy is what humanity needs. Empathy that doesn't move from the heart to the hands is an illusion, incomplete or flawed. True empathy is true understanding - understanding so deep and strong that one feels, knows, sees as does the other. Your words show that you have that. In writing as you have you build and strengthen the empathy of those who listen to your words and feel their pain and sincerity. I believe that from such as that action does result.
Unfortunately, (too bland a word), - devastatingly, empathy is not the action and the action resulting from it rarely, if ever, comes quickly, let alone immediately. No lasting & universal change does. However, we must believe that it will come and that, indeed, it *is* coming - that we are part of the process and that just as each drop of rain contributes to a stronger flow and even perhaps a flood powerful enough to wash away mighty walls that have prevented escape for years, so each of us who empathises increases the flow and builds the momentum. There will always be obstacles that we have to go around or over or push out of the way but, in the end, there will be a changed landscape and fertile ground in which new and stronger life can grow.
You inspire and replenish my energy to continue and I, as I feel do many others, get overwhelmed, tired, exhausted even with attempting to remain whole within the chaos and insanity that masks and diverts attention from root causes and real understanding - real and true empathy. We who care and act as best we can to achieve full and lasting change, we need your words, your inspiration, your honesty, your pain, your conviction for it replenishes our will and determination to maintain the struggle.
So, thank you for your heart and mind and the words they produce. They are the embodiment of empathy and that empathy does have great value and achieve that long overdue change that is needed for a diseased humanity to become cleansed and healthy.
Take care. Stay safe. ☮️
Making me cry in a café. It's hard.
As much as I can, I accept responsibility for what my group, white people, has inflicted upon this world after fighting for an advantage of power in a deadly game that only we even knew we were playing. For continuing to weaponize that advantage with narratives of scarcity to turn us all against each other, and for the specificity with which we aim that power at Black and Brown folk and the deadly consequences, as you so justly point out, that result from it. No one life, let alone billions of lives, deserves that burden.
And I am truly sorry. I offer you this sincere apology as a first action, but I promise it won’t be the last.
"Words alone can’t dismantle power; they can’t topple the machine."
I am not a Maoist, nor am I a Marxist-Leninist, but Mao was correct when he said that "Power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
Your humble and so well written words take us from the personal to the greater crime of what has been done in the US to an even larger crime of what is taking place on the world stage. Thank you so much for expressing this so well.
Incredibly devastating TRUTH.