Where Can Compassion Take Us?
James Whitfield
Kirkland, WA
January 2021
What is the role of compassion as we face our current cultural reckoning? Let's look again to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to provide some clues.
During the famous "Mountain Top" speech the night before his assassination, King referenced the stabbing he suffered years earlier, as well as violent attacks he experienced while in the Birmingham marches. Both were acts of violence against him and his cause, yet he maintained the attacks arose out of the throes of affliction rather than ascribing them a hateful rationale. Consistent with the highest ideals of his faith tradition, King positioned even the most dire conflicts as wounds in need of healing rather than wars in need of winning. Have you asked yourself what that might look like in your own life?
King's approach was consistent with his commitment to ushering in the Beloved Community, a state of reconciled, just relationships he described as his ultimate ambition. This is also the aspiration of Be Culture. And while we would never claim our work has had the same effect as King, pursuing the same goal has pushed us to engage some tough questions.
One of the most crucial, difficult, and rewarding puzzles to resolve within each new context is this, “what can the people involved do to build a thriving, equitable growth environment?”
Everyone wants to be loved. But what that looks like to one person is often very different than what it looks like to someone else. When facilitating culture change for racial equity, this requires putting ground rules in place to respect the needs of People of Color while authentically unpacking the wide variety of experiences and perspectives that exist.
“Everyone wants to be loved.”
Leading with love and compassion compels us to manage the tension among several requirements. One of them is to acknowledge that profound harm has been done, and if left unchecked, will continue to be done, in the absence of equitable practices. Healing is hindered when we ignore or cover up the symptoms. People of Color have been hurt, generationally, by systemic racism. The spaces Be Culture hosts are unequivocal about that reality.
The conundrums posed in plotting a path to Beloved Community requires complexity beyond the prevailing binary of empathy vs. enmity. We must seek healing for the pain caused by inequities. In addition, we must seek healing for people who may be afflicted in ways that they contribute to that pain. And we must also seek healing for the social relationships that centuries of delayed justice have torn asunder.
This is a heavy lift. For instance, in the same space we must uncover problematic system effects while calling participants to see the ways they personally contribute to these outcomes. We must invite people to bravely share perspectives that may conflict with others in the room while ensuring that everyone has the safety required for learning. We must provoke uncomfortable growth spurts while building new muscle to sustain that growth into maturity.
King didn't pretend the knife didn't nearly kill him. He didn't make excuses for the vicious canines or the thundering fire hoses. Those were real attacks causing true pain. And they were the consequences of decisions by real people. Compassion for these people does not excuse the fact that their behavior was wrong. And yet, compassion compelled King to proceed without ill will and to pursue their healing as the solution to his, and their, pain.
“We must provoke uncomfortable growth spurts while building new muscle to sustain that growth into maturity.”
Be Culture invites you to proceed similarly—to acknowledge the far-flung pain of this cultural moment. The pain of racism, anger, fear, despair, fatigue, loss, confusion, and more. Given our histories and social positions, we may not face the same kinds or amount of pain. Some may even think they are not affected at all. Yet the social illness continues to show its symptoms.
And questions we all could pose to ourselves include what will we do to build environments for healing? How do we engage others in ways that prioritize justice and reconciliation? How do we see one another compassionately without overlooking the causes of our pain?
The answers to these questions start with the willingness to ask them in the first place. This willingness is one of the reasons so many in our world celebrate Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This is the difficult and uncommon way of love. And if we can muster the compassion to see our challenge as cultural healing rather than cultural warfare, we can proceed over the mountain top and enter the Beloved Community.