Empathy Was Optional. Consequences Aren’t.
There is a pervasive tendency to frame suffering as something external, a tragedy that happens to others, as if it is entirely separate from the choices, cultures, and systems that shape it. This perspective, often rooted in polite analysis, distances responsibility from those experiencing hardship, as if suffering simply falls from the sky. But in the case of America, that narrative doesn’t tell the whole story. The systems that uphold comfort and wealth have long been built on the quiet acceptance of injustice, both abroad and at home, where apathy, cruelty, and indifference to the suffering of others have been normalized.