Empathy and #Black Lives Matter

by Joy Court

June 2020

It seemed particularly pertinent that Empathy Day (June 9^th) fell during a worldwide movement of protest at the unlawful killing of George Floyd and Empathy Lab’s call to action has never seemed more relevant:

• Empathy is our ability to understand another person and feel their emotions. It's a force for change because it makes us want to help people.
• Empathy Day helps us understand each other better by using books to step into someone else's shoes. When you read, your brain reacts as it would to real events. This makes books the perfect empathy boosting vehicle. Train your brain with stories!

The Black Lives Matter movement started in 2012 in USA after the killing of a 17-year-old African-American, Trayvon Martin, by a member of neighbourhood watch, George Zimmerman, who was acquitted for the crime after a notoriously racially biased trial. The movement seeks to “eradicate white supremacy, stop violence inflicted on Black communities, and create a safe space for Black communities, imagination, and innovation.”  Through the Twitter hashtag #BlackLivesMatter this has grown into a global movement campaigning for universal human rights and to combat racism in modern society. This is certainly a message which speaks to the BAME community in the UK just as powerfully.

How to support young people who could be distressed by what they see on the news and to help them understand the issues will be a top priority for schools, teachers, librarians, parents and care givers. There is considerable and understandable anxiety about saying the right thing and not inadvertently exacerbating the problem. It can be difficult for any of us to step outside our white privilege to fully understand the barriers and inequities that the black community face in our society.

As the Empathy Lab founders proclaim, books are an invaluable tool for developing understanding, for ‘walking in another man’s shoes’. Books can provide “windows , mirrors and sliding doors” in the famous quote by Rudine Sims Bishop and listening to author Mohammed Khan talk about this concept in  the Empathy Conversation recorded on June 9^th  is illuminating: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=3164283320276576&ref=watch_permalink

But do we have enough of the right sort of books to help us inculcate the development of anti-racist, egalitarian, empathetic human beings? Two recent pieces of research would answer that with a resounding No! CLPE (Centre for Literacy in Primary Education) have conducted two rounds of Reflecting Realities research with the most recent showing the just 4% of books published for children and young people have BAME protagonists and just 7% feature a BAME character. This has to be viewed against the fact that BAME pupils make up 33.1% of the school population in England.  The Booktrust Represents project  looks at the issue from the perspective of who is creating the books and examined the representation of authors and illustrators of colour in children’s books published in the UK over an 11-year period, between 2007 and 2017. Just 8.62% of books were created by persons of colour during that time and under 2% of them were British.  But the project did not stop with research. Every school in the UK has been sent a copy of the Breaking New Ground directory of British BAME authors and illustrators and  you can also download the brochure and find out more about support for schools here https://www.booktrust.org.uk/what-we-do/programmes-and-campaigns/booktrust-represents/support-for-schools/