Magnolia Preparatory Academy: All About Empathy

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

All About Empathy

GOING TO CHURCH: Last night, we found our sweaty selves in church pews waiting for a professional football player.

What? Why?

Former Seahawks' player Michael Bennett is on a book tour. Its title, "Things That Make White People Uncomfortable."

Bennett has a Super Bowl ring, is a three-time Pro Bowl defensive end, and is an in your face kind of activist. He is a tireless philanthropist, including donating all of his endorsement money and the proceeds from his jersey sales to fund health and education projects for poor and underserved youth and minority communities, and recently expanded his reach globally to support STEM programming in Africa.

Weir Harmon, executive director of Town Hall Seattle, handled the introductions for the evening, as well as reading audience questions later in the program.

The evening's interviewer was Jesse Hagopian, educator and author. Hagopian teaches Ethnic Studies and is the co-adviser to the Black Student Union at Garfield High School, and co-editor for the forthcoming book, Teaching for Black Lives, and is the editor of the book, More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing.

Bennett had some friends in the house, including former teammate Bobby Wagner.

Here's what Annabelle has to say about the event. ...

Michael Bennett’s book, “Things That Make White People Uncomfortable,” is focused on talking about racial issues that most tend to gloss over or glorify. The most recent Seattle Town Hall “Inside Out” event was about this book and allowed Michael Bennett to expand on some of the chapters and reasoning behind them. He described how the “N word” affected his childhood - he thought it was just a pronoun until someone in his class said it with hate, obviously directed towards him. He did some research and realized that this was a hate term, and he believes that by using it we are disrespecting the slaves and colored people that were beaten and referred to as that for their entire lives.

Michael also talked about how he believes that women and children may have even more struggles, and he is a feminist because women should have the same opportunities as men and shouldn’t feel even more oppressed. He mentioned that while he was writing his book, he took a lot of advice from his wife and they largely worked together on it.

The event is archived on YouTube, and it’s definitely worth a watch. It’s a very powerful message and teaches quite a bit about the history of stereotypes. The book can also be purchased on Amazon and through other book retailers.

And here's CJ's take on the evening. ...

Last night, in the sweltering summer sun, my family walked from our car to a the Seattle First Baptist Church in Central District. We had come for a presentation given by former Seahawk and Super Bowl champion Michael Bennett, accompanied by Jesse Hagopian, a history teacher at Garfield High School, also in the Central District. Bennett's presentation was to promote his book "Things That Make White People Uncomfortable" (TTMWPU). This is a bit of a misleading title, for reasons explained later.

Prior to the actual presentation, the audience was told that we could write questions down on slips of paper and hand them to volunteers coming through the pews, and (hopefully) have Bennett answer them. I asked the question "If there is one thing you want the audience to take away from this, what is it?" Bennett was not asked my question by the volunteer who read the questions aloud to him.

Throughout the talk between Bennett and Hagopian, a common theme was "empathy." At one point, Bennett said that he will sometimes hear about injustices committed against native Americans, against women, or against transgender people, and, while he is none of those three things, he can feel empathy for people other than him who have been wronged. In addition, Hagopian brought up a chapter of Bennett's book in which he names every unarmed American killed by police officers over the year prior to the book's publication. Bennett acknowledged that while many of the people named are black or brown, a portion of those named were Asian or white. Bennett said that all of their deaths meant tragedy for friends and family members.

Personally, I believe the name of the book (as well as the presentation) is misleading. During the 45-or-so minutes of the talk, Bennett did not say anything that made me uncomfortable. I cannot picture a reasonable human being uncomfortable at the thought of having empathy for people who are different than you.

However, I was uncomfortable at the event. Not because of anything Bennett said though. ...

but because of the face-melting heat in the old church with no AC.

And now, a couple of words about the venue. The event was held at Seattle First Baptist Church, 111 Harvard Ave.

According to the church's website, the church has three building, including its historic Sanctuary, for which the cornerstone was placed in 1910, and the first service took place in 1912. It has been renovated several times over the years, with the addition of a chapel, stained-glass windows

The church actually pre-dates its building, however. Per their website, Seattle First Baptist Church was founded in December, 1869, by 11 members who first met in the home of Abigail Hanford. New members were baptized in Elliott Bay. Brr!