you won't emphatize with people who suffer for reasons you don't understand
That's part of the point I was trying to make. Privilege blinds you to the suffering of people who you may not even know are suffering.
I can see a person suffering without understanding why they are suffering. I don't need to judge the suffering as right or wrong in oder to emphatize.
Knowing about the fact that native Americans get slaughtered hundreds of years ago doesn't allow me to determine whether a native American I'm meeting is suffering. It's quite irrelevant to the question of whether the specific person is suffering.
I do much better by actually engaging in empathic listening. Instead of judging a person based on what happened in the past I can interact with them in the present.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
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