The Importance Of Empathy With Equal Right '

Empathy with Equal Right? “All seats provide equal viewing of the universe.” -Museum Guide, Hayden Planetarium.

Empathy is being able to understand someone's feelings, ideas, and opinions (putting yourself in their place). People have been trying to fighting for civil rights for many years. Even though the Civil Rights Act was passed back in 1964, totill this day, people are fighting to enforce those rights. We all have our motives for wanting equal rights. All these groups that have fought for civil rights are seen as “minority” groups. Why? Because we do not fit the standard look “light skin, eyes, and hair” in other words “white” which meant we are inferior to the mainstream white culturethan them. So by not having an equal seat to view
the world then not everyone will be able to understand why they are fights for rights. Because one does not know how to be empathetic.
One example is the book Forgotten the Names of the Clouds You’ve Lost your Way by Russell Means and Bayard Johnson it talks about Indians and how they are seen and compared to. How they were seen as dirty indians aka savages.This is what they were seen as savages.Why? because according to the others they were seen as criminals because they were “lawless”,no structure. They were compared to animals how once they were truly “free” meant they were “clean”. As them being like this they would be “unfit” to society. Indians have a different culture than westerners. They have different morals, beliefs, values than the western people. So by this the western people may not know why they might be fighting for rights that fit their culture. It is because it is seen as “bad” because it does not fit the western morals or beliefs.’
Also in the article/letter a father wrote to his son’s teacher shows how the father is trying to educate the teacher on his son.
Wind-Wolf is a 5 year old indian (native) child was labeled as a “slow learner” by his white teacher.The reason why the teacher called him this is because this boy was barely getting introduced to the western culture. He is coming from an indian background. The father is trying to teach the teacher where Wind-Wolf comes from. The reason he is doing this is because windwolf is being bullied for being different and the teacher does nothing to stop that for example the “the teacher insisted on calling him wind and because of that the class laughed at him causing more embarrassment”. Also the teacher said he is a “slow learner” just because he was taught different not like his other peers. Like the way he was taught to count or distinguish colors, he learned via his mother and aunt pretty much the village and the knowing how many months there are in a year.Lastly grizzly bear just wants the teacher to try to understand why windwolf is a “slow learner” he wants the teacher to know he doesn’t want windwolf to be a dropout because his school wasn’t able to understand his background he doesn't want windwolf to be ashamed of his
background.
Last in is the situation that is going on with the Dakota Pipelines. The Native American have been protesting about the pipeline going through sacred grounds that was just discovered. The company is arguing that the sacred spots are not part of their land , but the natives are arguing that, that piece of land was taken from them without their consent In a way you can say yes that the dakota pipeline is preventing natives from their rights. For example when these sacred spots where discovered the native americans put in a petition to court to prevent the construction for the pipelines. But before that judge could rule the company had already started construction. One of the rights that the natives feel that is being “taken” is the right of freedom of religion. The reason for this is a violation more knowing that abusive history of the natives. Also if the pipeline were to be finished they would require the natives to relocate because of the pipeline. This is also a violation of the native american rights because once again land is being taken away from them and they are trying to get some land back , so in other words they had lost their land, given some and now they are trying to take land away. Lastly the native americans have been protesting and in a peaceful way, but the company had brought in dogs that attacked some of the protesters, the victims have had commented that to the company but they did not responded when they did they tried to make it seem as the protesters were the one who were “looking” for it.
In conclusion all of this is important because we the minority group make up a large part of the U.S.
We all contribute something to this country so shouldn’t we all get treated the same? This country is made up by minority groups many jobs are done by those people.Would we the minorities, have the spot we have now if we wouldn’t have fought for civil rights? So good pay ,opportunities etc.. probably not. In some cases “white” people have fought aside with the minority groups and were able to experience some of the feelings they felt. Which made them realize how messed up they were being treated.So if those people against the minorities were able to feel and understand what they were going through that could have been easier to obtain civil rights.But civil right has helped people now see and try to be more open minded to situations of their own or others. Like even till this day, yes we have accomplished some rights but we are still fighting for them we are trying to actually be put into place and followed and to not just be looked over just because it has to do with minorities. So empathy has a pretty big deal with civil rights. Having people be able to understand “put themselves in that person situation”. So one can try and be open to and empathic to
others.