Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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MAY 17-23, 2017 UCW 5 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM MARGARET DICKSON, Columnist. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomin- gweekly.com. 910.484.6200. Talk about stepping into a big fat awful mess! One Duke University religion professor knows firsthand what that feels like. The upshot is that he is now a former Duke University religion professor. Earlier this year, Paul Griffiths responded to an invitation by a department colleague to all divinity school faculty members to attend voluntary two-day racial equity training. Wrote the professor doing the inviting, "Those who have participated in the training have described it as transformative, powerful, and life-changing. We recognize that it is a significant commitment of time; we also believe it will have great dividends for our community." Responded Griffiths, "I exhort you not to attend this training. ... It'll be, I predict with confidence, intellectually flaccid: there'll be bromides, clichés, and amen-corner rah-rahs in plenty. When (if ) it gets beyond that, its illiberal roots and totalitarian tendencies will show." I have to wonder why Griffiths would respond to an invitation with such venom, but he did, and an email firestorm ensued and became public, with Griffiths eventually tendering his resignation. I also have no idea whether racial equity, diversity, sensitivity or any other way we choose to describe such training is indeed helpful, but goodness knows, we need to try something. Since 2016 and certainly related in part to last year's ugly presidential election, hate crimes have surged in the United States. Depending on what source you read, reports say such crimes have risen as much as 25 percent in major cities. They are up an astounding 62 percent in Washington, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, whose director said the rise cannot be explained away merely by better reporting. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, attacks have been made on transgender individuals, African-Americans, Jews, Hispanics, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and others, with Jewish people on the receiving end of the highest number of reported hate crimes. In a "who could have imagined it" fact, American Jews of German heritage are seeking dual German citizenship. The German consulate in New York confirms an increase in the number of American Jews seeking citizenship allowed by German law, up from 50-70 people in 2014 to 235 in March of this year alone. Some of those people had family members who died at the hands of German Nazis. Our nation has many troubles — racism, the widening economic and educational gaps, and fear of the "other" among them, and many Americans are profoundly angry about our situations in life. Many of us also are taking it out on those we perceive as "other." So what we are really talking about here is learning empathy for people who are not like us. Can we teach empathy through training like that so disparaged by the former religion professor? We have no choice but to try for the good of our nation. Steve Mueller, founder of Planet of Success, offers some tips on developing empathy, another way of saying count to ten before we judge or lash out at someone different than ourselves. 1. Walk a miles in someone else's shoes. The Cherokee proverb is well known but not so well practiced, because it is hard to put ourselves in another's mindset. Everyone has reason for their words and actions, and it takes work to discern those reasons, but understanding is more than worth the effort. 2. Replace anger with compassion. If we can understand why someone is reacting a certain way, we will be less likely to overreact in a negative fashion. And sometimes not reacting at all is the wisest course, because reacting means the other persons controls the situation instead of us. 3. Don't judge too hastily. We all have biases and prejudices. Perhaps the other person is acting from his or her biases. Perhaps we are. 4. Ask others about their perspective. Our mothers told us that we will never know unless we ask in class, and that is true in life as well. We may think we know the answer to why someone else believes or acts as he does, but we really do not know. Give him a chance to tell us. Mueller's advice sounds pat and patronizing, I know, but we have to start somewhere. I refuse to believe that what is happening in our country now represents the people we really are or the people we aspire to be at home and on the world stage. Walking in Someone Else's Shoes by MARGARET DICKSON OPINION 1400 Walter Reed Road, Suite 130 HOURS: M-Sat 11:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m. • Sun: 11:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m. 910•867•8700 Authentic Italian Cuisine www.LittleItalyFay.com (All American Expressway & Owen Drive) Fri/Sat: 11:00 a.m. - 11:00 p.m. Authentic Italian Cuisine UP & COM I NG W EEKLY 'S Sirloin Steak topped w/ Crabmeat with a side of Ravioli