I Have No Empathy for Black Folks with No Empathy.
The world can be an awful place, where terrible things happen all the time. So many people die in corners throughout the globe every day.
It is impossible to feel the weight of every death and every atrocity down to one’s core at all times, because it we all did that none of us would survive.
If we all had this level of empathy for all things, at all times, we would all come apart from the mental and emotional strain of it all. So, by putting ourselves at an emotional distance from many acts of malice, we protect ourselves.
That is empathy in excess.
But when empathy is considered as a compass, aiding in determining one’s own standards that is when it is can do the most good, and be of best use.
Labeling myself as a Gen Xer brings me a level of annoyance, but it’s a beneficial tool for the sake of this article.
As a Gen Xer, I have grown up during a time when the outlook and understanding when it concerns the LGBTQIA+ community has changed significantly. Once upon a time, homosexuals were the butt of jokes, generally mean-spirited jokes. There were no labels; people were either called gay, homosexual or worse. But I never internalized any of that messaging. I wasn’t raised in the church, and I was never taught to look down on or…
