When empathy isn't mutual, it enables hate and then violence. Single group empathy is self-defeating bigotry. As a Jew, the growing incidence of antisemitism terrifies me. So does mindless mob violence. Acquiesce to state-sponsored mass murder terrifies me the most. The Holocaust is unique because it represents all of that at an unimaginable scale. However, from the massacres of the Crusades to the Armenian and Rwandan genocides, it's a repeated phenomenon. U.S. history is replete with hate-driven ethnic murders of Native-, African-, and Asian-Americans. So, the rise in hate and violence against immigrants, Muslim, Asian, and LGTBQ people terrifies me too. We should each know that when any hatreds get a pass, "I could be next!" Our humanity demands both empathy for and defense of one another. No exceptions!
Single Group Empathy is Self-Defeating Bigotry
Single Group Empathy is Self-Defeating…
Single Group Empathy is Self-Defeating Bigotry
When empathy isn't mutual, it enables hate and then violence. Single group empathy is self-defeating bigotry. As a Jew, the growing incidence of antisemitism terrifies me. So does mindless mob violence. Acquiesce to state-sponsored mass murder terrifies me the most. The Holocaust is unique because it represents all of that at an unimaginable scale. However, from the massacres of the Crusades to the Armenian and Rwandan genocides, it's a repeated phenomenon. U.S. history is replete with hate-driven ethnic murders of Native-, African-, and Asian-Americans. So, the rise in hate and violence against immigrants, Muslim, Asian, and LGTBQ people terrifies me too. We should each know that when any hatreds get a pass, "I could be next!" Our humanity demands both empathy for and defense of one another. No exceptions!