Empathy

Empathy is something that I have always struggled with. The line between trying to understand where a person is coming from and overstepping that boundary is a thin one. Growing up in the Bahamas, I have been raised alongside black Bahamians. Me, a conchy joe (white Bahamian), knew that in a way I will always be stigmatized as an outsider. As much as my accent sounded Bahamian, the pigment of my skin suggested otherwise. Trying to wrap my young 8-year-old head around this fact is something that was quite puzzling to me. In my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking “Aren’t we all the same?”

It was only when I was about 10 years old when I was introduced to the racial tensions that had been present in the Bahamas prior to our independence. Being an ex-colony of England, oppression over the black community was prevalent until 1973. Learning about the scars that many of my friends’ parents were still healing from immediately took my breath away and shifted my mindset. I indeed will never be able to know what that sort of oppression feels like; however, I can try to understand the reasoning behind many Bahamians’ pain. Through this sort of realization, I feel that one can at least morally say that he or she is in the right. In the day and age of hypersensitivity it sometimes does feel like one has to tippy toe around certain questions; yet, I believe that if these questions are coming out of a genuine place, they should not be scrutinized. If one tries to empathize, he or she should be treated with positive energy as making the world a better place begins with conversation.