here's
a subtle but significant difference
between compassion and racism. And so it's very easy to confuse the two.
According to Webster, “compassion” is “a sympathetic consciousness of
another's distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” And “racism”
is “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits
and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority
of a particular race.”
Now it's clear from the foregoing that for one to feel compassion, she
must know the object of that compassion personally. She must be aware of
the specific nature of that person's difficulty. And she must be willing
to directly do whatever is necessary to help that person alleviate the
distress involved.
On the other hand, for one to be a racist all she need do is believe
that all the members of a specific race are limited or defective in some
manner, and that because she is not of that race, she is superior.
And so I submit that when one's compassion is directed at individuals
she knows personally, when it's the result of first-hand knowledge of the
cause of that person's distress, and when it's followed by action specifically
directed to alleviate that distress, it's probably real compassion that
she's feeling.
But conversely, when one's compassion is directed at all the members
of another race, when there's no first-hand knowledge of distress being
experienced by all the members of that race, and when said compassion is
followed by action intended to alleviate the imagined distress of the entire
race in question, then it's probably not real compassion that she's feeling.
Instead, it's probably the phony kind of compassion that a lot of people
use to mask what is really their own racism.
Think about it. |