The Privilege of Empathy
Barack Obama and Ta-Nehisi Coates express divergent views on race and empathy. Barack Obama is of the opinion that empathy can bridge the gap between the racial divide that permeates the fabric of this country. In his book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, Obama (2006) regards empathy as one of his core values that he learned from his mother:
Like most of my values, I learned about empathy from my mother.
She disdained cruelty or thoughtlessness or abuse of power, whether it expressed itself in the form of racial prejudice or bullying in the
schoolyard or workers being underpaid. Whenever she saw even a hint of such behavior in me she would look me square in the eyes and ask, ‘How do you think that would make you feel'? (p. 66)
Additionally, Obama ( 2006) was reared in a rather unique multicultural environment where members of his family of origin resembled “a UN General Assembly meeting” (p. 231). One could argue that the former presidents origin and rather unique upbringing had a profound impact on his views regarding race. “I’ve never had the option of restricting my loyalties on the basis of race, or measuring my worth on the basis of tribe” (Obama, 2006, p. 231). Having been raised by a White mother, whom he loved, and being a member of a family with multiple racial identities, it is not difficult to surmise that Obama’s views on empathy and race were developed as a matter of emotional, psychological, and perhaps even physical survival. The unique environment in which he was reared may have indeed forced him to develop his views. “That’s what empathy does----it calls us all to task, the conservative and the liberal, the powerful and the powerless, the oppressed and the oppressor. We are all forced beyond our limited vision” (Obama, 2006, p. 68).
Ta-Nehisi Coates renders an opposing view then that of the former president. Coates puts forth the notion that the fear of losing one’s life to violence envelopes the Black populace and causes such despondency that the ability to demonstrate empathy is not even a remote possibility. Coates views the racial divide between Blacks and Whites as insurmountable and that exercising empathy cannot possibly repair the racial disunity.
In his book, Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates shares some of his views on race. “But race is the child of racism, not the father. And the process of naming ‘the people’ has never been a matter of genealogy and physiognomy so much as one of hierarchy” (Coates, 2015, p. 7). Coates (2015) reaches the conclusion that the perpetrators of racism or White supremacy will never have to justify or be held responsible for their actions:
The destroyers will rarely be held accountable. Mostly they will receive
pensions. And destruction is merely the superlative form of dominion
whose prerogatives include friskings, detainings, beatings, and
humiliations. All of this is common to black people. And all of this is old for black people. No one is held responsible. (p. 9)
Coates (2015) further articulates the reality of racism that may be lost in the rendering of the phenomenon via the use of visual representations and areas of study:
But all our phrasing----race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy----serves to
obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains,
blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks
teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always
remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs,
the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the
body. (p. 10)
In her article, The Social Construction of Whiteness: Racism by Intent, Racism by Consequence, Teresa J. Guess provides a compelling analysis of the origin, development, and maintenance of the system of racism or White supremacy. Guess argues that the concepts of "race" and Whiteness or White privilege are social constructions that stem from the brutal system of chattel slavery, scientific racism, individual racial bias, and institutional racism that served the political, economic, and social aims of Europeans. Thus, the concept of a racial hierarchy became and continues to be the central governing ideology of the country.
Guess (2006) writes:
Rather than emerging from a scientific perspective, the notion 'race,' is informed by historical, social, cultural, and political values. Thus, we find that the concept 'race' is based on socially constructed, but social, and certainly scientifically, outmoded beliefs about the inherent superiority and inferiority of groups based on racial distinction.
(p. 654)
Guess (2006) suggests that the social reality of Whiteness as the norm in American society was developed and maintained through direct and indirect violence. Therefore, it stands to reason that direct or indirect violence must continue to be utilized in order that the social reality of Whiteness as the norm or White supremacy be maintained. Examples of direct violence, as in the form of police brutality and indirect violence as in the form of institutional racism, continue to exist in the country today. Thus, complete domination and control must be maintained by any means necessary lest the white power structure be dismantled.
Barack Obama's view that empathy can join Blacks and other non-Whites and White people in racial harmony appears far-fetched because the very identity of the White populace is hinged on the definition of White racial superiority that Guess outlines in her paper. Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015), on the other hand, suggests that the ability to demonstrate empathy toward White people is difficult, if not impossible, particularly when the lives of Black people are continually being taken by violence that is arguably informed directly or indirectly by racism. Coates’s analysis of racism or White supremacy demonstrates how despair, degradation, physical pain, and death establish the embodied physical and emotional reality of the victims, Black people, and why the ability to empathize with the perpetrators, White people, in an effort to create racial unity is fundamentally an impossibility. The fear and despair that Black people feel is real. Empathy cannot mitigate this. Empathy cannot stop the violence. Empathy is an entitlement, an advantage, and a right. The fear of death will always win over the demonstration of empathy.
The social construction of White racial superiority informs the therapeutic dyad where empathy and despair are familiar and critical themes for both the patient and the psychotherapist. Patients are often in a state of despair when they enter therapy. The function of the psychotherapist is to help the patient resolve problems in living such as difficult feelings, beliefs, and behaviors. Empathy is at the heart of the treatment and is critical to positive therapeutic outcomes. However, the ability to exercise empathy with a White patient who expresses White supremacy in the therapeutic dyad with an African American or non-White psychotherapist can cause considerable feelings of despair and other countertransference reactions in the psychotherapist thereby inhibiting the ability of him or her to provide adequate treatment.
Empathy is a privilege. Having privilege implies that one has the right, the liberty, and the freedom to express it. Barack Obama may have been able to demonstrate empathy due to his unique upbringing and position in society. However, for the average Black person, the ability to express empathy is contingent on freedom from police brutality, racial discrimination, driving while black, institutional racism, violence, mass incarceration, unemployment, inadequate education, pain, anguish, White supremacy, micro aggressions, harm, hatred, and death. Without such freedoms, the ability to exercise empathy may be impossible or extremely difficult. Despite the physical reality and limitations inherent in the day-to-day existence in a racist society, the African American psychotherapist must work to create the psychological freedom in order to express empathy to White patients who express racism in the therapeutic dyad. The capacity to exhibit empathy in a racialized society or in the racialized therapeutic dyad is indeed challenging. It requires not only the right, but also the ability to do so.
References
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. (2015). Between the World and Me. The Text Publishing Company. Melbourne, Australia.
This book is written as a letter to Coates's son regarding the author's thoughts, views, and impressions related to being Black in America.
Guess, Teresa J. (2006). The Social Construction of Whiteness: Racism by Intent, Racism by Consequence. Critical Sociology, 32 (4), 649-673.
This paper discusses the social construction of race, Whiteness, and the effects on race relations.
Obama, Barack. (2006). The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. Crown Publishers. New York.
Barack Obama discusses a number of subjects that contributed to his 2008 presidential campaign.
Web-Based References
Barack Obama - WhiteHouse.gov
https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/barack-obama/
The Official Website of Ta-Nehisi Coates
ta-nehisicoates.com
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/books/17kaku.html