do you have a direct link to what MLK said about empathy?
I like to track down all those comments for my website as a reference.

thanks

Their ideas are ingrained and they are often unwilling to be introspective as you say. We may not like their ideas, but we recognise that they are human beings no less than we are.

It’s not really so much about them. It’s about us. Will we reduce our humanity because of other people’s attitudes and behaviours?

We can accept their humanity while vigorously opposing their ideas and actions. To do less is to jeopardise our own humanity.

This kind of detachment takes a lot of effort and practice and we can’t always pull it off, but I believe it is worthwhile in the end.

From a practical point of view, it is more effective and healthier than the alternative.

Aren’t we more likely to act effectively if we are clear-thinking and determined rather than blinded by indignation and impatience?

And…who gets high blood pressure from the angry feelings? Not the Tea Partiers :)

MLK, Jr. said something about empathy and love back in the late 1950′s (Pacifica Archives has the talk he gave) and pointed out that empathy only works if you honestly want to have a relationship with the other (who is working for the system; he also said love mans not allowing ourselves to confuse the “apparatus of oppression” with the agent of it–which still just doesn’t compute to me; I’ve walked away from things that violated my values and feel sacrificing for the good is what’s required. If you’re an agent of oppression, you picked your quiksand, I’m not about to let you off the hook for that choice–MLK, Jr. was just a better guy than I). Sure, there are some people in the Right that I do want to have a relationship with and for them I struggle to apprehend and possess the requisite empathy. But for others, I have no interest in any relationship with them. I don’t respect them, I don’t care about them, and it’s real easy to want them just plain gone so I don’t have to bear the brunt of their misbehavior, hate, etc.

E.g., when a tea partier began to spout off with a white supremacist vitriol about Obama, sure our common ground is that we don’t like what his policies and decisions have been and the consequences of them (well, some, he was pretty looney about some consequences–I’ve gone hungry and been homeless to foreclosure while that dude has not and still owns his house) but I will NOT tolerate white supremacist polemics as a solution to disagreement with Obama. That violates my core values. I cannot see “the good” in such a person. The Neo-Nazi sickness gets in my way, and it feels very dangerous (to my personal and family’s safety) to try to see any good in such a human being.

Frankly, because of that, I simply am at a loss when it comes to what to do with the common ground, whatever that may be, when the solutions are diametrically opposite. When it comes to hate, it’s no longer a matter of opinion; there can be no compromise coming from me with white supremacy, homophobia, etc. And I have yet to see someone from such an ilk change their mind either. So, all that to share that Empathy is a pretty tough road when it comes down to it. It’s a lot easier to write about it than to actually practice it.

Recent studies in neuroscience have discovered that our brains are actually wired to be feeling other people’s experience. The research is showing that people are actually quite a bit more influenced by each other’s experiences than we thought before. All the more reason to model kindness and empathy to one another across differences.

I saw the love and hunger for truth of this young farther and responded. It works. The rub of course is that hunger and lovein most of us lies buried beneath our socialization to empire (Freedom), materialism, cynicism,narcissism etc. Perhaps a contemporary JC would say “Heal Thy Enemy as thou wouldst heal thyself,” — a tall order to say the least, but I suspect the one of the few things worth talking about in this context.