Time to Bridge the Gap

There is a lot of heated discussion on social media right now about white people not understanding the plight of black people. “You can’t possibly understand my life because you are white,” the saying often goes when a white person is expressing empathy and support.

Anger ensues, sadly, and the conversation often breaks into a heated argument. The white person, who wanted nothing more than to express support, ends up with hurt feelings and confusion. Their offer of help was not only rejected but was met with anger.

The problem that white people need to understand is this: you are both right. To get a better grasp on this, please consider the following analogies. They are rather simplistic compared to the shootings of blacks by police officers, but they are germane.

It is true that we cannot understand the feelings associated with discrimination unless we have experienced similar situations. Consider several minority groups: physically or mentally disabled; Muslims; LGBT; even abused women or rape victims. Try to imagine circumstances where their lives may differ from the main population.

I broke my heel three years ago within a few hours of arriving on the first day of a nine-day trip. Initially I was in a wheelchair. I very quickly learned things about being physically handicapped that I had not previously noticed — mainly public restrooms. My first observation was that in nearly all public restrooms, the handicapped stall is the last one. That makes perfect sense from a design perspective: it is against the exterior walls where handrails can easily be installed. From the perspective of the person steering the wheelchair for the first time ever, it is navigationally frustrating.

The second thing I learned about public restrooms is that women overwhelmingly prefer the handicapped stall. It’s roomier, I suppose. That often left me waiting when there were ample vacant stalls and only one other person in the restroom. Only once did I get an apology for having waited. I’m not sure if it was out of embarrassment or rudeness, but it was quite obvious that they’d made me wait. It was a frequent occurrence. Even after I was no longer in the wheelchair, I was on a knee scooter and required the handicapped stall.

Another inconvenience was parking during the holidays. Nigh on impossible to find a spot! By this time, however, I had gotten to be quite the daredevil on the scooter — at my well-seasoned age even — so I wasn’t bothered with the parking situation.

Have any of those things ever occurred to you? Sitting in the restroom, doing a little wheelchair dance while waiting for the one and only stall that can accommodate you while some rude person is using the convenient stall — hoping you don’t pee your pants — while she takes her sweet time. Thankfully for me it was only a few months. Some people live out their lives in that predicament.

What about women in abusive relationships? How often have you heard someone ask, with complete exasperation in their voice, Why doesn’t she just leave him? Abusers threaten the women who say they’re going to leave, and sometimes they kill them before they have a chance to leave. If they actually do succeed at leaving, sometimes they go back and kill not just the women but their children too. That happened less than two weeks ago in Las Vegas. A woman filed for divorce and petitioned the court for an order of protection. The court denied her protection order. Her husband gunned her down in a parking lot, then shot their three children in the head before killing himself. It’s a common occurrence.

Walk a mile in her shoes, then you can truly know her feelings. If you haven’t, you really can’t know what she has lived. Just as you can’t know the fear of a black person encountering a policeman.

Consider similar questions for other groups. How might their lives be very different from your own? They tolerate discrimination and treatments that we probably cannot even fathom. It is only the most egregious treatments that make the news, so we don’t hear about the lesser affronts. We don’t know what other violations against their humanity they endure — merely because they are different than what we define as the norm. Nor can we know how they feel when they are treated differently, not really.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are Helen Keller. How can you possibly perceive an orchestral movement or the aurora borealis? Our filters through which we interpret the world was formed under an entirely different set of circumstances than other subsets of society, just as the example of Helen Keller. We cannot feel as others do.

This does not mean, however, that you can’t passionately advocate for them. You absolutely CAN advocate, but I believe it’s more important that you empathize with them. It also doesn’t diminish the level of caring you feel for them.

The message I want to convey is this: they are correct that you can’t understand them, at least not fully. Acknowledge that. They will respect you for it, I believe. I hope.

We can show compassion. We can show that we care. I believe this is our best route back to a cohesive society: the white people in our society showing empathy, compassion and advocacy not just for the blacks but for all groups who are not “just like us.” I think it’s important that we not only do this on our social media channels, but every day as we meet people face to face.

Reach out. Say hi. Give a smile. It’s free, and you will be richly rewarded.

Together we can bridge this gap.