Understanding racial injustice is elusive, but imperative

Conscious efforts to recognize others’ pain may be imperfect, but they can be transforming experiences

As an oncologist, I spend a lot of time thinking about grief.

Because I face difficult conversations with my patients frequently, I’ve thought a lot about the limits of what I can say with integrity when faced with others’ pain.

Because I can’t say “I know how this feels” I’m often left wondering what I can say instead. One option would be to pass by the pain without comment. But studies show that if I don’t discuss my patient’s pain and distress, the care I offer will be poorer as a result. How, then, to respond? My experience tells me the best I can do involves a paradox: I must first attempt to put myself in my patient’s shoes and then recognize that the attempt will never allow me a true understanding of my patient’s pain. Still, the attempt itself, if sincerely made, will equip me to say, “I’ve tried to put myself in your shoes” and the recognition of the limitations of such an exercise then allows me to say “but I can only try — I recognize I can’t really understand what it’s like.”

And then, finally, “but I want you to know I care enough to make the attempt.”

I’ve reflected on all of this over the last few months as the nation’s attention has been newly fixed on the deaths of African Americans in sundry walks of life. George Floyd’s death has drawn the most attention, but he joins a long list that includes Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Aurbery, Dominique Fells, Elijah McClain and many others.

In thinking on this list — and on the generations of racialized pain it represents — I recognize I can and must try but will always fail to fully understand what it must be like to:

• Worry that if my son is pulled over for some trivial offense — or no offense at all — that the interaction could end with his pleading for mercy or even dead.

• Worry that others will not believe I have dutifully earned my achievements and may think my presence is mostly to fill a quota.

• Feel that the world is stacked against people like me, in ways overt and subtle, and learn as I grow that that is, in fact, the case.

• Understand that even well-intentioned people judge me the second they meet me in ways of which they aren’t aware because of the pigment of my skin or the texture of my hair.

• Recognize that the very people who benefit from the same stacked deck will often feel threatened by my attempts to bring attention to the same.

All of this is to say: I can try to understand what it is like to experience life as a person of color in America but that understanding will forever elude me.

Still, that elusiveness notwithstanding, the attempt matters. With every book I read or speech I listen to, my empathy will grow. That empathy will never be complete, but conscious attempts to better appreciate the source of another person’s pain can nonetheless transform me.

In addition, these attempts can spur me to fight for change. Most people cannot look upon another’s suffering without feeling called to make it end. That’s what has made the horrific video of George Floyd’s death so powerful — and why works from “A Letter From Birmingham Jail” to “Between the World and Me” have such power to move us and inspire us to act.

Thus, the more we increase our forever-imperfect understanding, the more we will naturally stand up and be counted as allies, recognizing that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

I can begin this process by making correcting my own implicit biases a lifelong endeavor. I can then move within my circles of influence to ensure that such biases do not determine the way decisions are made or the process of figuring out who makes them. Then, as a member of a representative democracy, I can ensure my voice is counted as speaking out in favor of antiracism.

We must allow the empathy born of the forever incomplete attempt to increase our understanding not to lull us into self-satisfaction but instead to spur us to become agents for change.