Change is not insurmountable: One day of empathy can unlock a life of understanding and reform

It’s probably a truism that the key to reform any injustice – the key to unlock the resistance to change – is empathy. It’s that inherent human quality of understanding and being acutely sensitive to another’s pain without physically experiencing the same thing. It feels like you can relate…viscerally you get it.

And because you get it, the same human connection impels you to do something, whatever is in your power, to relieve the suffering of the other. Empathy is not only the feeling, it is the doing.

National Day of Empathy

Now imagine a whole country focused on criminal justice reform. The third annual National Day of Empathy is Tuesday, March 5. One day to bring together thousands of Americans – those suffering from the human family impact of an unequal and broken justice system and those lawmakers who have the ability to make reforms for the better. A worthy cause.

Of course the monumental effort doesn’t stop after one day…but it does bring an issue into powerful focus. When aware, when awakened, we each can do something.

Effective Empathy

Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation, which aims to reduce poverty and injustice and strengthen democratic values, shared his insight into effective empathy in a recent Time article.

“… I find that it is art’s defiance and empathy—its defiant empathy—that shakes me and wakes me. We are blessed with art, artists, and even art patrons that make us feel our most awake and hopeful.”

Walker goes on to describe a surprising connection between a wealthy art patron and a prison inmate. “Last year, I found myself sitting inside the gates of the San Quentin State Prison in California, with legendary art patron and philanthropist Agnes Gund. What was this 80-year-old-grandmother, and president emerita of New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, doing in a men’s prison? Simple. Aggie was there to learn.”

The year before, in 2017, Gund had sold one of her prized works of art, a Roy Lichtenstein, to establish the Art for Justice Fund, which is now investing more than $100 million towards criminal justice reform.

“That day at San Quentin, our guide was a man whose life could not have been more different from hers… These two people, with such vastly different lives, were standing shoulder to shoulder and committed to the same arc of justice.”

What Can You Do

What issue is speaking to you for reform? It may not be criminal justice, but there is much that needs change. Who, through their pain, is calling out to you, We Can Do Better Than This!

Change for good is not insurmountable. First, understand what’s going on and why something must be done differently, who is being affected now and what does it mean long-term? Then care so much about the people and their lives, the community, the future generations – because you won’t give up until you do something to change it.

This is defiant empathy. And it’s in you.

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Check our Calendar of Events for the rest of March right here.