Facing Our Violent Histories: Teaching Empathy in a Divided World

In a world shaped by violence, we must learn to teach peace by practicing empathy and reflecting on our own roles in history.

One of my international conflict management students at Kennesaw State University recently approached me with a question: How can they be sure that they are not—like the “white theory” dudes they study—imposing their own worldview on the Global South communities they are researching?

In a classroom where half of my students are white, we also have discussions about how to avoid reenacting the colonial idea of “the white man’s burden” when doing volunteer work with marginalized communities.

In our current atmosphere of uncertainty in the U.S., where conscientious citizens are mobilizing to advocate for and come to the aid of the people who are most vulnerable to the surrounding chaos, many (like my students) are mindful about not behaving like ‘white saviors’ or flaunting their white privilege.

As a woman of color from the Global South whose scholarship and practice centers around decolonial feminist peace, my response to my students and others who ask me is: Their whiteness does not affect the good work they do. However, not understanding and fully accepting this whiteness as it informs their work probably does.

Decolonial feminism calls for critically reflecting on our own role in generating knowledge (aka conducting research) within the academy, as well as the changes that our scholarship hopes to effect in the real world.

When applied to our everyday practice, being reflective like this can help us reduce the harm we might unintentionally cause to vulnerable communities and people affected by violence. It helps us understand who we are and how our intersectional identities and ever-changing relationship with existing power structures informs our own positioning in the social hierarchy.

This realization is a powerful tool because it allows us to reflect on how our positions of privilege may shift in response to changing socio-political contexts. 

[Students’] whiteness does not affect the good work they do. However, not understanding and fully accepting this whiteness as it informs their work probably does.

While women of color suffer from health access-related disparities because of a mix of social and structural factors, all women, white or non-white, face gender bias in medical care and get gaslighted about their health-related concerns. Racial-ethnic gaps lead to disparities in quality and access to reproductive healthcare in the U.S. where all women face the increasing threat of having their bodily autonomy stripped from them.

Thus, if a white woman feels enraged at her own marginalization and victimization in one context, she should reflexively be able to empathize with what a woman of color feels in a related context—the circumstances of which may be different, but which is also a result of the hypermasculinization of politics and society.  

Reflexivity enables empathy by helping us understand the pain of the other—not by becoming the other, but by understanding our own pain.

My scholarship around relational marginality emphasizes the need to reflect on our positions of privilege that change as different aspects of our social identity—based on gender, race, culture, location and so on—intersect differently in different situations. When you are from the dominant social group, but feel powerless because of your gendered identity (as in the case of a woman unable to access the reproductive healthcare she needs), you should be able to empathize with how a person of color or a migrant or a differently-abled person feels when they are in a similar situation of helplessness, just because they belong to a less-dominant social group. 

Such empathy can help overcome the fear of acting as the white saviors, because people are then coming from a place of alignment rather than privilege. In the 19th century, colonizers believed it was the white man’s burden to ‘civilize’ the rest of the world. Today, scholars argue that this mindset still shapes Western humanitarian aid—which often ends up helping oligarchs and oppressive leaders rather than the people who actually need support.

It is the same system that allows the ‘original’ migrants to push out more recent ones, because it tells them there are not enough resources to go around and that their livelihoods are at stake.

Rather than imposing a Western model of development from above, a decolonial approach asks us to look at and strengthen Indigenous ways of peacemaking and address local developmental needs.

Similarly, for those working with vulnerable people in the U.S., a decolonized approach means truly understanding their realities and offering support where it’s genuinely needed. This work starts with decolonizing ourselves—recognizing how our shared colonial histories shape the hypermasculinist violence, hatred, and the ways we respond to them today.

Colonial capitalism once enabled the decimation of native populations in the U.S. and the influx of migrants from all over the world. It is the same system that allows the ‘original’ migrants to push out more recent ones, because it tells them there are not enough resources to go around and that their livelihoods are at stake. Fear breeds hatred and aggression against the other; it kills compassion in society and turns the less compassionate citizen against the more compassionate one. 

In my book Gendering Peace in Violent Peripheries: Marginality, Masculinity, and Feminist Agency (Routledge 2023), I discussed how critical reflection in conflict-habituated societies can uncover the ways in which fear is weaponized by the ruling class to divide people. Fragmenting society diverts people’s attention away from the need to build institutions that meet the basic needs of everyone and the imperative of implementing humane policies for all citizens and non-citizens.  

Hope for a humane future—rooted in true self-knowledge and genuine dialogue with others—should guide all acts of allyship. Empathy matters, not just for the marginalized and vulnerable, but also for ourselves and even for neighbors who may see the world differently. Our resistance works best when it’s strategic and thoughtful, not about canceling everyone who disagrees. Small, deliberate steps toward each goal will get us closer to the change we want to see.

Empathy, not just for the marginalized and the vulnerable, but for oneself and one’s neighbor (even if they voted differently from us), must drive our critical resistance.

Studying deeply divided and conflict-habituated societies for as long as I have, I have come to appreciate the “cautious radicalism” that Irin Carmon identified in a 2015 New York Times article as being the hallmark of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG)’s approach to long-lasting change. RBG succeeded as a feminist crusader by being “a principled but canny fighter” who had “no patience for confrontation just for the sake of it.” She avoided wasteful emotions like “anger, resentment, envy and self-pity” and, devoted her energy to “productive endeavors” that created radical change in incremental steps. 

Given the forces that we are up against, we cannot hope for radical, immediate or even country-wide changes. But we can begin—at the individual level, in every classroom or dinner gathering—by looking deeply into ourselves and our histories of violence. Accepting and confronting these histories is the first step toward making reparations to ourselves and those around us.

Ms. Classroom wants to hear from educators and students being impacted by legislation attacking public education, higher education, gender, race and sexuality studies, activism and social justice in education, and diversity, equity and inclusion programs for our series, ‘Banned! Voices from the Classroom.’ Submit pitches and/or op-eds and reflections (between 500-800 words) to Ms. contributing editor Aviva Dove-Viebahn at adove-viebahn@msmagazine.com. Posts will be accepted on a rolling basis.