“You don’t know how I feel! NOBODY knows how I feel!” Remember Rob Petrie’s brother Stacy (played by Dick Van Dyke’s real brother, Jerry) yelling that whenever anyone told him they knew how he felt? Have you ever had to deal with that person for real?
I have, and it gets old real quick. People who feel that way seem to be saying that no matter what you’ve experienced, no matter what you’ve thought, or how much you’ve studied a situation or an issue, you can’t possibly know how they feel unless you’re exactly like them.
Technically, I suppose that’s true. Unless I’m your clone and have experienced every single thing that you have, lived every moment the exact same way you have, I probably can’t fully comprehend how you feel.
That doesn’t mean that I am not sympathetic to your situation, or that I don’t have empathy for what you have been through. It doesn’t mean that I lack the intellectual capacity to comprehend how your experiences might have made you feel, or how they might have colored your perception of the world around you. It also doesn’t mean that I have no right to comment on a situation merely because I am not the same stripe as the people involved. I may not be a child in Africa, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t be horrified by the perils that the majority of them face, and that certainly doesn’t mean that I can’t recommend donations to wonderful organizations like Nothing But Nets or Doctors Without Borders because of the aid that they provide to these kids.
I have opinions on racial prejudice and bigotry; are my opinions and thoughts on such subjects invalid because I am a white woman? Am I not allowed to say that I deplore such attitudes without hearing that I have no right to speak of such things because “NOBODY knows how we feel!” Do I not get to call people out on their racist remarks because there is simply no way I can possibly speak with any sort of authority or even voice my condemnation of such behavior because it hasn’t been my experience? If I speak out on such things, am I merely playing lip service to ending prejudice, am I trying to prove my progressive credentials, and am I busily congratulating myself because I voted for Barack Obama, thereby personally solving every prejudice problem in the country? You know one of the things that has been my experience? It’s that sometimes people have such a Sequoia-sized chip on their shoulder that they can’t recognize when someone is on their side. Maybe it’s easier for them to say that NOBODY knows how they feel! and that no one can possibly relate, that no one can ever truly support them because no one else is like them. Maybe years of being the victim has left them unable to realize that not everyone wants to paint them into that corner...and maybe by their continued obstinacy in refusing to recognize that someone just wanted to be a friend to them, and was willing to discuss such matters—without being unfairly accused as being some sort of racist—they have effectively painted themselves into that very same corner, all on their own. You lost a friendship because of your unreasonable accusations? Congratulations. You’re a victim.
