International Empathy: Solidarity throughout the Diaspora
“You better eat this food, girl! Don’t you know kids in Africa are starving? They’d kill for my home cookin’!”
This statement — and its many variations — punctuated most of my childhood meals. But this constant contrast of my reality to the reality of some of those a hemisphere away persisted beyond my dinner table.
The message was everywhere. I volunteered for Books for Africa, whose mission is to “end the book famine in Africa”, all while having access to my university library’s expansive catalog. I watched Feed the Children commercials featuring toddlers with swollen bellies in between advertisements for Big Macs and chicken fries. After seeing these and thousands of other images like them, I was sold. I bought into the idea that Africa was America’s antithesis. Relatively, the United States was the land of milk and honey, while Africa (the entire continent) was the land of rations.
As I began to travel and study more, I realized many of these views were too narrow. Africa, the oldest and largest continent on Earth, was bigger than its geopolitical problems. But after two decades of hearing news of disease and famine, part of me remained vexed by how so many of the continent’s inhabitants still had to struggle for survival. Occasionally, I would ruminate over these thoughts, but I couldn’t linger. After all, here in the U.S. we Americans had problems of our own, and they needed my attention.
As a Black American, I had been called in to the ranks of the Black freedom struggle. I carried my “wokeness” with pride. I spoke about the importance of intersectionality and the problems with respectability politics eloquently. I shut down conversations that cited Black-on-Black crime as the root cause of the plight in the Black community swiftly and without apology. I brought my outspoken nature to every space I inhabited. The most recent space was Global Health Corps’ Yale Training Institute.
I am currently a Global Health Corps Fellow. In light of the most recent incidences of police brutality, some members of our cohort decided to create a space where we could discuss our thoughts and feelings regarding racism and police brutality. Words used to describe how we were feeling included despair, exhaustion, hopelessness, and numbness. The Training Institute is one of the few times during the fellowship that all 140 of the fellows are together. During one particular meeting, a fellow from Zambia spoke.
She shared that she was afraid to be in the U.S., that she thought racism was an issue of the past, and that she really just wanted to go back home. In a meeting with around 50 people in attendance, she turned to address me. Tears were welling in her eyes. She began to shake.
“I feel so sorry for you,” she said, “How do you live like this? I am so afraid, and I’ve only been here for a week. But you? You’ve lived this way your entire life.”
This intimate moment shared between two strangers of the Diaspora was brought on by unspeakable tragedy. I wanted to cry. I didn’t. She was right, and I had no idea. An entire country warned their citizens about traveling to the U.S. while Black, and I still had no idea.
As an American, I had been taught that only other countries’ problems garnered international concern, and so as a Black American, I felt as though the struggles we faced must be confronted alone. My country had sanctioned my murder through lead poisoning, police shootings, and mass incarceration, and there was no international audience to share my pain or defend my humanity — or so I had thought. Through GHC, I have met fellows from around the world who detest American racism, and are joining the global outcry to bring attention to the plight of Black Americans.
Part of my education as a global citizen has required me to stop focusing exclusively on problems abroad, start checking innate nationalism, and learn to receive others’ empathy. My interactions with other GHC fellows have given me the opportunity to do that. And now, I can only hope that my fellow Americans will begin to heed the international community’s criticisms of and compassion for our country, a country that has been steeped in bigotry and racism for far too long.
Katherine Mitchell is a 2016–2017 Global Health Corps fellow at 1,000 Days in Washington, DC. All GHC fellows, partners and supporters are united in a common belief: health is a human right. There is a role for everyone in the movement for health equity. Join the movement today.
