The first thing I noticed about Black Friday downtown: the annual morning holiday parade wasn’t televised again. The Store Formerly Known As The Bon Marché apparently didn’t renew its deal to have KING 5 cover it.
The second thing I noticed: the number of white people — including but not limited to overt radicals/anarchists — who were in (and provided some of the loudest and most over-the-top moments during) the Black Lives Matter protest during the afternoon and early evening.
The third thing I noticed: the requisitely laid-back and mellow musical acts on stage for the official Westlake Center tree-lighting ceremony after 4 p.m., and how — apparently under strict instructions — they made no mention of the 300-plus chanting protesters among the crowd.
The fourth thing I noticed (though I don’t have an image of it): how KING 5’s “official” coverage of the tree lighting ended with a shot of a “— the police” sign.
All in all, shoppers got to shop and protesters got to protest in Downtown Seattle that Friday. Police mostly refrained from escalating tensions. Protesters, with a couple of exceptions, didn’t try to smash stuff up for the sake of their own kicks.
Finding empathy
But the dueling spectacles of shopping and protest were overshadowed in that day’s news by yet another murderous shooting. Another, even deadlier, shooting took place just five days later.
Both of these shootings occurred at places dedicated to helping people: a Colorado women’s health center and a California nonprofit agency supporting developmentally disabled citizens.
Our country and our people are under attack by homegrown terrorism (with these two shootings as examples) and by institutionalized bigotry and inequality (the main target of the Black Lives Matter movement). Both trends are enabled — and sometimes overtly supported — by the hate-talk of some major politicians and media personalities.
To alter these trends requires more than protests, or even “disruption.”
It requires winning hearts and minds.
I’m not asking you not to protest; I’m asking you to protest with the aim to persuade.
I’m asking you to be fiercely inclusive.
I’m asking you to forge communications and coalitions across the often-artificial lines of race, gender, caste, etc.
I’m asking you to be kind and respective, even (especially) toward people outside your subcultural “tribe.”
As I’ve said before, “square” people are not the enemy. Churchgoers are not the enemy. And, yes, Christmas shoppers are not the enemy.
Indeed, treating people different from ourselves as less-than-human is exactly the mentality we need to collectively overcome.
We need a new concept of working together for a better future for all. Actually, it’s not that new of a concept at all — it’s empathy: the ability to feel for other people’s conditions and the desire to help, not out of “selflessness” but self-awareness, the knowledge that we’re all in this thing together.
Uniting to conquer
Seattle media legend Bill Nye, in a video recently posted at BigThink.com, has cited empathy as a major factor in human evolution. The ability to emotionally relate to one another has helped humans survive all these millennia.
Nye adds that scientific research into “how feelings exist in the brain” could lead to changes in society, including “new laws that are consistent with a scientific understanding of empathy.”
Local blogger Angel D, posting at DailyKos.com, claims that the world stands on the brink of a revolutionary leap in empathy and awareness: “…Humanity is part of a greater construct, a part of the Divine Matrix, or God Consciousness, the very fabric against which our particles are arranged to create the reality in which exist, our shared reality. I am a part of you; you are a part of me. We are not individuals existing in a million individual realities; we are all expressions of a single, greater consciousness. We are one with each other, one with God and one with the universe.”
D specifically cites the Bernie Sanders campaign as exemplifying such a “shift in awareness” — not into some passive state of tranquility but into an active, assertive drive for change: “It’s about not being afraid. It’s about standing up for what we know is good and right.”
But even if you’re not part of the Sanders camp, the idea still holds up. We need to unite — not divide — to make sure we have a real future.
CLARK HUMPHREY is the author of “Walking Seattle” and “Vanishing Seattle.” He also writes a blog at miscmedia.com. To comment on this column, write to MPTimes@nwlink.com.