Dear Brad and LL,
“Accidental Racist” is a song that starts conversations. I wanted to stop and take a minute to thank you both for that: the more people have conversations, the more likely it is for that weird thing called “listening” to occur, which is something musicians can especially appreciate.
“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” -Ernest Hemingway
Listening, I think, is a bit different from just hearing. Hearing can occur solely within the confines of the auditory canal. Listening involves the active participation of the mind and the heart. Listening is so much more than just waiting for your turn to talk; listening is dangerous: it often results in empathy. Empathy is an even scarier thing: it often motivates selfless action.
Which is why this lyric sort of bothers me:
“I try to put myself in your shoes, and that’s a good place to begin, but it ain’t like I can walk a mile in another man’s skin.” -Brad Paisley, Accidental Racist
Maybe you don’t have time to read much…
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” -Atticus Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Maybe reading is the place where empathy is incubated. I know, for me, as a child reading about the lives of Laura Ingalls, Jo March, Max, and Pooh and Piglet, and that tree that loved so selflessly, I found myself taking their struggles and triumphs in and holding them like treasures. Scary beasts like the Grinch and Boo Radley somehow acquired three dimensions complete with hurt but beating hearts in the pages of the worlds in which brilliant authors had created for them.
I had kids of my own, and we’ve come to know others so unlike ourselves, and yet so deeply human-so much like ourselves, that our hearts seem melded to theirs as we have sat together reading aloud their stories. Cassy, Frodo, Jiro, Ralph, Tien Pao, Estaban, and Buran, among a host of others, have shown us that while our geography, our faith, our politics, and our history may differ, the human heart is a thing worth treasuring and nurturing, regardless of the shell it in which it resides.
By reading quality literature as a child, I think an accidental empathy for people is developed, and I am watching that empathy arise in my own children. Whatever else they learn in our home, it is my hope that that empathy will under-gird their decisions, and help them become more human human-beings.
“for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one’s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.” -Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Likeness of Being
It’s a funny thing, accidental empathy: it’s sort of addictive. One finds themselves constantly looking for new shoes to walk in: the more you encounter humanity, the more beautiful it becomes. As an adult, I continue to voraciously read fiction. As an entertainment choice goes, reading for pleasure is more intellectually and emotionally satisfying than any movie or television show could possibly hope to be. (I won’t compare it to music, though. Music is a whole other level of accidental empathy.) As an adult, I’ve placed my feet in the shoes of Abileen and Aminata, Celie and Charlie, Quentin and Oskar and Denver, and these and so many more have strengthened me, and helped me understand a bit of what life was like in their shoes.
LL says we should all “conversate and clear the air.” He’s right. But, LL, you also said,
“If you don’t judge my gold chains, I’ll forget the iron chains.”
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.” -James Baldwin
Please, please, dear God, please, never ever forget those iron chains. A Mr. T Starter Kit you put on of your own free will does not equal iron chains enslaved black people bore without choice. Remember those chains. If you forget they were there, you won’t be able to tell your children about the struggles overcome in their own history. Let’s work together to honor those who were scarred literally, and those generations who have come after bearing spiritual scars that also cut so deeply, in addition to those who gave everything the could give to relieve them of that awful burden. Use those deep brown eyes to look into some green and blue ones, boldly and honestly, and quietly, in order that the person you look upon might know that you are choosing not to take the easy road. Instead, walk the path of Atticus, the path the courageous take. Listen. Without the static of generalizations and stereotypes that are turned up too loud. Open your heart, because that’s the only way we can really understand one another. And then, with hearts and minds and ears open, let’s all go to the museums and learn. Let’s stand in a slave quarters and imagine raising our children there. Let’s take Atticus’ advice.
And, then come home, gather your children around you, and read.
“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” -Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee