OPINION: Embracing empathetic citizenship
The late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said that the most important office in the land is that of private citizen. Why would Justice Brandeis make this remark? After all, it is counterintuitive that private citizens be valued so highly. How can the office of private citizen be more important than that of president, or member of Congress, or Supreme Court justice, or elected officials at state and local levels?
Engaged citizens hold government accountable. Engaged citizens are what movements, pushing government to do better, are built on. And engaged citizens are critical to keeping all the community-based organizations that work alongside government running.
But beyond being engaged citizens, we should aspire to being empathetic citizens. One of the themes that unites the deserved criticism leveled at Republican candidates for the presidency is an overarching lack of empathy. Empathy is particularly important as it undergirds the movements for social and economic justice that are central to confronting the challenges of our times.
With respect to social justice, empathetic citizenship animates movements. We ought to be empathetic to the objections of the LGBTQ community and reject the onerous, anti-LGBTQ laws proposed or passed in North Carolina, Mississippi and Tennessee. We ought to be empathetic to the fears of the undocumented residents of our neighborhoods, and reject the cruel proposals for mass deportations, self-deportations and deportation through attrition. And we ought to be empathetic to the dreamers, young people who seek an education and to contribute to life in the U.S.; young people, some of whom, only know America as home.