Flags, Mascots, and Outrage: Empathy Is the Key
Troy D. Smith
I talked in this column before about the differences between
liberal and conservative approaches. Liberals, I pointed out, are usually
focused on changing things –from their perspective, for the better and moving
toward the future. Conservatives, on the other hand, want to keep things the
same or change them back to how they used to be –in effect, to “conserve” the
status quo. This makes conservatives real strong on maintaining tradition.
Liberals are also real big on trying to be more “tolerant, accepting of
different cultures, and willing to accept new ideas and new ways of doing
things.” (Yes, I just quoted myself.) There is also the difference in how the
two groups think the government should spend money, but we are not going to focus
on that part much this time. Instead, we are going to take a couple of examples
that are in the news right now, both nationally and in the Upper Cumberland,
and see how liberals and conservatives approach them and what that tells us.
Spoiler alert: the key is empathy.
Recent studies indicate that the more empathetic you are,
the more likely you are to lean left. Now, bear in mind, empathy is not the
same thing as compassion. Conservative people can be extremely compassionate
when it comes to helping people in need. Empathy has more to do with
understanding how those other people feel. This comes down to the previous
definition of terms. Conservatives want to preserve the status quo, and believe
everyone else needs to get with that program. Liberals are more likely to value
several perspectives on things rather than a straight this-is-good,
that-is-bad, nothing in-between approach. One frequent by-product of this is
that, as a result, Democrats have usually been more easily divided than
Republicans. This is what led Will Rogers, a century ago, to say things like
“Of course Democrats don’t agree with each other, if they agreed with each
other they’d be Republicans” and “I am not a member of any organized political
party, I’m a Democrat.”
Let’s get to our examples. The first one: athletes kneeling
in protest during the National Anthem. Many conservatives go crazy over this
one. I know senior citizens who are lifelong football fans who refuse to watch
an NFL game because athletes are allowed to protest in this manner and still
have jobs. More specifically, when black athletes and their non-black allies
protest the pervasive police killings of unarmed black men. To many
conservatives, this is such a profound flouting of tradition –and lack of
respect for that tradition –that it is unjustifiable. They tend to see it
simply as “hating America,” and not –as liberals tend to do –as a peaceful,
even respectful, gesture protesting the fact that, in that specific area,
America needs to be better. People incensed by kneeling have probably never
read the stirring words of Frederick Douglass’s (I hear he’s doing great
things) 1852 speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” They may have a
hard time wrapping their minds around the fact that the great (and Republican) baseball
star Jackie Robinson said, in 1972, “I cannot stand and sing the anthem; I
cannot salute the flag. I know I am a black man in a white world.” Never having
experienced what it is like to be treated as a second-or-third-class citizen in
one’s own country, white conservatives rarely seem to imagine how they would
feel and how they might want to attract attention for their cause. Or, perhaps
even more telling, when white conservatives feel their absolute right to
exercise power and say what they want with no social consequences is being
impinged, they cry to the heavens about how persecuted they are –without ever
seeming to realize that other groups have suffered and are suffering far worse
indignities than they are.
There were white people just as incensed, and saying many of
the same things, about African Americans peacefully sitting in protest at lunch
counters in the sixties. Many today are primarily angered at the “disrespect”
and violation of tradition in this form of protest (kneeling). Now, we have to
admit, there are a large number of white Americans today who would be incensed
at any form of black protest, peaceful or not, and who are enraged at any
mention of the Black Lives Matter movement. And we also have to admit to
ourselves, white American neighbors, that a lot of people who have chanted
“Blue Lives Matter” were among the seditious mob who tried to beat cops to
death with fire extinguishers and flagpoles a couple of months ago, so there is
more going on there. By more, of course, I mean blatant racism. But I know that
is not true of all conservatives. So let’s look at my other example, and then
tie them together.
Protesting Native American sports mascots is not a new
thing, as many people seem to think. Lakota activist and future American Indian
Movement spokesman Russell Means was leading protests in Cleveland against
their baseball team’s name and mascot in the 1960s. Other major league sports
teams were being regularly criticized by Native American organizations by the
early 1970s. While many people argue that American Indian-themed school mascots
are meant to honor indigenous people, most Native Americans find them to be
offensive on several levels- appropriating and trivializing Native culture and
identity, reinforcing insulting stereotypes, and profaning things that many
Native people hold as sacred. For example –and you probably didn’t know this
–the ceremonial long feathered headdresses worn by Plains tribes, and appearing
on many school mascots, have a very specific meaning. It is both spiritual and
social. Only certain people in a tribe earn the right to wear them, and each
feather represents an act of courage or service to the community. Dancing
around in one without earning it is kind of like dressing as the Pope but
covered with Purple Heart medals. Which many conservative Americans would find
extremely offensive.
Nothing, though, is as insulting to indigenous people than
the mascot used until recently by the Washington NFL team and still used by
public schools around the country. That particular word has never been
considered an “honor”- dictionaries literally define it as insulting and
offensive. It is a racial epithet of the sort that used to be publicly applied
to various minority groups but which now get bleeped out on television
(appropriately). And yet when Native individuals protest such mascots –even
“the R-word” –they are frequently harassed, intimidated, and even targeted with
death threats (I’ve seen it happen).
Empathy would teach you that Native Americans’ feelings on
this matter are very similar to your own feelings when your treasured cultural
traditions are treated in a way you find insulting. But too many people only
see how things affect them or their group, without trying to imagine the
feelings of the other side. I wish everyone would try an experiment for a week
or so- every time you want to say “political correctness” substitute the phrase
“human kindness and decency” and see how your sentences sound.
--Troy D.
Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at
Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.
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