The following are some statements heard every day in this country:
All immigrants are illegals.
All Muslims are terrorists.
Gay people just want to turn everyone gay.
People on welfare or minimum wage just need to work harder.
If you're homeless, you're an alcoholic or a junkie.
Black people don't care about family.
And the list goes on and on....
We're all guilty of it. We say things, or assume things, about people every day, and never realize the negative atmosphere we are contributing to.
We spend so much time demonizing others that we never step back and try to see things from their perspective. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has an amazing TED Talk about the dangers of just seeing people from one lens, about insisting that each person has a single story about him or herself. When we refuse to see a person as a sum of their parts, and insist that we "know" about them because of one aspect of who they are, we are denying them their humanity.
This lack of empathy is at the root of all of our problems as a country, and as a world.
We're so focused on the sound bite, the snapshot, that we forget to truly see people for who they are, and it makes us that much poorer for it.
It takes so little to listen to people.
Just. Listen.
No comments:
Post a Comment