Empathy with an Edge
Empathy is simply defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. It was a big thing in my kids’ D.C. elementary school, SWS @ Goding. Students are intentionally provided with opportunities to acknowledge and honor one another’s backgrounds and stories. Lessons about conflict resolution always begin with understanding the perspective of the other person. The message is that empathy is fundamental: you can’t really be a healthy, functioning person without it.
Despite these important lessons taught to young children, the perception of empathy has been manipulated - by some “adults” - to be non-essential, a sign of personal weakness, and even an interference with rational decision-making.
But when I think of the most empathetic people in my community, that’s just not the way I see it. To empathize with another person is to intentionally - willingly - share their pain.
This takes strength.
The most empathetic people I know don’t just express empathy - they act on it. They work to alleviate the source of the pain, and stand up for the people experiencing it.
This takes courage.
This year’s theme for First Shift’s 5th Annual Dance Like a Mother is “Empathy with an Edge.”
The “edge” is when your empathy pushes you to bold action. When you wake up in the middle of the night anxious about the future and you realize your empathy is not enough. That you can't allow the suffering to continue - and you are not going to tolerate the excuses or justifications of the perpetrators.
At First Shift, we regularly have opportunities to take action on our empathy. Our clients come to us in terrible situations, facing job loss at a time they are already overwhelmed and have a child or loved one - or several - relying on them, for which they are the *only one.* Platitudes or empty encouragement is not going to make them feel better or solve their problems. So we act. We call out employers who cause suffering and pain when they violate our clients’ rights. We negotiate. We threaten and follow through. We don’t take no for an answer - about the stool for the pregnant restaurant hostess, the backpay for the fired mom with autistic kids, or a few extra days of leave for the school employee who just lost her partner to cancer.
“Empathy with an edge” is accompanying people who experience pain, exclusion, and other-ness, and being the one to declare, No More:
Blowing the whistle on a hospital system that engaged in systemic racism against its patients even though it cost you your job and your reputation, like the client of one of our DLM sponsors.
Joining with other parents to create a physical barrier in front of a school entrance to protect immigrant families, like the spouse of one of our board members.
A whole community protesting the deportation of a mother and her three children who are their neighbors, like the people of Sackets Harbor.
Calling out politicians who claim to stand for gender equality, but then attack and exclude members of our community . . . because of their gender, like one of our founding board members.
It is solidarity.
It is showing up.
It is speaking truth to power.
It is being a badass.
Everybody can do this. Our suffering world needs us to do this. Do it.
By Laura Brown.
Sackets Harbor Protest, April 2025
