Reserve Your Empathy for People, Not Institutions
Hello friends, and welcome back to Productivity, Without Privilege, brought to you by readers like you. Thank you.
I’m your host, Alan Henry, and I have a book that hopefully you all know about already, Seen, Heard, and Paid: The New Work Rules for the Marginalized. It’s the end of the summer by most accounts (and for my friends in the southern hemisphere, it’s the end of a long winter,) and that usually means that at this point we’re watching the daylight fade, slowing down just a little bit, but also well aware that with the cooling weather means the demands and obligations of the end of the year are right in front of us.
So I think now is a great time to pause for a second and focus on something important: the power of, and importance of empathy.
This week two things happened: first, I caught myself editing a couple of articles (from different writers mind you, so this isn’t a dig by any means) where they gave in to the temptation to describe companies as people, saying something to the effect of (but not this exactly) “The depth of the Uber breach will force the company to think twice about their security posture” and me changing it to “its security posture.” After all, Uber may be a company that’s made up of people, but it’s a company. Not a person. It doesn’t get “they” or “their,” a company is an “it” unless we’re referring to the people who work there.
Conversely, a colleague of mine who wrote an excellent feature wound up getting harassed for a headline that was maybe missing some context, but—and this is the most important part—not her fault. The article explicitly addresses the thing they were harassed over, and the whole affair is another great example of how so often social media encourages people to react to headlines and never read articles.
Now, I could do a whole newsletter about why that is, why it’s no one’s fault really—social platforms are designed to encourage this, and journalists also too often use this defense as a crutch to say “just read the article” when they could choose a more descriptive headline or not bury the critical point a dozen paragraphs deep in said article, so trust me, there’s blame to go around. But this time, it wasn’t the journalist’s fault, and it wasn’t even the editor’s fault, and now the writer may be in trouble as a result, which I absolutely hate.
So let’s talk about empathy, and why you should reserve your empathy for people and not institutions.
I know this won’t be unfamiliar to many of you, but I have, generally, little faith in platforms beyond their power to reach people. Instead, I believe in the power of people, and the power of communities, to define important issues and uplift voices, and if you’re here, I’m willing to bet that you do too.
So when an organization or an institution messes up and does something stupid, I’m completely understanding when it turns out to be one person’s error, or a single, stand-out mistake. That is, assuming it’s not a pattern of behavior from said person. But when it’s a pattern of behavior from an organization, like the editorial direction a media outlet chooses to take, or the deliberate choices of an op-ed editor, or a media exec who fails upwards into VC cash to start new media companies that will eventually lay off their employees within weeks, I have significantly less sympathy for said organization.
But when it comes to the individuals at those organizations, I’m generally of the mindset that if they acknowledge and understand the errors they make, they should be allowed to grow and learn from them. (If they double down, of course, like so many prestigious journalists tend to do, because heaven forbid they ever admit to being wrong, then all bets are off.) And I’ve seen more than a few people, not just journalists, but writers, artists, and other creators suffer through unnecessary dogpiles defending themselves when the answers to the questions they get are either in their work or would be easily understood if they were able to engage with their critics in good faith.
But that’s the problem: good faith demands empathy and empathy demands we slow down and understand that criticism is intended to drive everyone to do and be better.
So that’s what I want to encourage you all to do as well. Never hesitate to make your voices heard, and never hesitate to engage, as long as you know you’re engaging in good faith. Now I’m not saying be nice, I’m saying go in with good faith. That’s an important distinction, and often one that will make the difference between a defensive person recognizing that you have a point, albeit reluctantly, or someone dismissing you out of hand. Individuals, in my opinion, deserve a little breathing room, especially the room to make mistakes. But institutions deserve no such breathing room, especially when institutions are too often the ones eager to promise to “do better” and “make change” without explaining what better looks like or what those changes actually are. (Spoiler: they’re catchphrases designed to make the controversy go away so they can go back to business as usual.)
Even I hold my tongue sometimes when I have strong words for a company, outlet, or organization. Why? Because a: you never know where you may wind up working someday, and b: I never want to complain or criticize from a perspective of bad faith, even if I’m right.
And while I certainly do love being right, I also really love being right and forcing positive change. I think you will too.
[ Worth Reading ]
The Martha's Vineyard migrant flight has echoes of a dark past: Reverse Freedom Rides, by Gabrielle Emanuel: I live in New York City, which means that conservative states bussing people they don’t see as people to my city and then dumping them off like so much cargo is nothing new to me. But I knew there was something familiar about it when it happened in New York, and when it happened to Martha’s Vineyard this past week, I finally read someone discussing why I felt they were so familiar: they’re reminiscent of the “reverse freedom rides,” where southern governors and legislators lied to Black Americans with promises of jobs and a better life, only to dump them with none of the help or resources they were promised. At least in 2022, the migrants being essentially trafficked by Texas and Florida’s governors (and the people helping them) arrive to find support and, most importantly, empathy. But they still face a long road ahead of them.
The Mystery Behind the Crime Wave at 312 Riverside Drive, by Michael Wilson: This one is a very New York City story, but I still find it fascinating, partially because it’s an illustration of how difficult it is to help people who don’t neatly fit into the boxes that we’ve created for social services. In this case, one man kept calling 911, thousands of times, for crimes that weren’t happening, from a phone that was dozens of blocks away from where he said the crimes were taking place. And while he certainly had access to help, it’s difficult to truly give or get help when what you’re doing also ties you up in the legal system this way. The story makes me wonder how many other people are in similar situations around the country, or around the world, that we just don’t hear about.
A Journey Through Black Nova Scotia, by Shayla Martin: I mentioned this story on Twitter, partially because it’s important to me personally but also because I think it’s a great story: it’s a trip through Nova Scotia’s incredibly deep and diverse Black history, of which my ancestry is a part. Often people think I’m joking when I say there’s an entire city in Nova Scotia where I’m essentially related to everyone who lives there somehow, but it’s very true, and when political events in the United States get dicey, the family group text lights up with things like “you know how to find your way home, right?” And looking at the photos, I miss it more than ever.
[ See You, Space Cowboy ]
I don’t often recommend products in this space because, well, this newsletter isn’t sponsored or anything, and I don’t want any of you to get the wrong idea about these recommendations. They’re really just things I like and would suggest, there are no sponsorship deals, affiliate links, or anything like that here, and if that ever changes, you’ll know well in advance. But this week, my search for Black-owned coffee brands led me to BLK & Bold Coffee, which I’ve now tried several times and can heartily recommend.
Yes, it’s Black-owned and operated. Yes, the company is a certified B Corp. Yes, the company donates 5 percent of its profits to projects aimed to help at-risk youth in marginalized communities, and they have a great list of the projects they support. But they also make really really good coffee.
I especially love their Smoove Operator dark roast and their Rise & GRND medium roast breakfast blend, which I’ll be drinking probably as you read this newsletter. They do coffee subscriptions or single bag orders, so you can try it, and if you like it, you can get it on the regular. They also say they’re sold in Walgreens, Target, and a few other retail locations, but let’s be real: you’re more likely to buy online, right? They’re also over at Amazon too, so you can pick some up with your usual…whatever you buy from Amazon on the reg. (I did, in fact, add some to my Subscribe and Save, so…I’m not above criticism here.)
Anyway, if you’re a coffee drinker, give it a whirl and let me know what you think!