Oaklanders for Peace > Oaklanders for Peace:  Community Dialogue/Peace Keeper Training 2
 

Barack Obama Promotes a Culture of Empathy This will not be easy. Because the change we seek will not just come from overcoming the ingrained and destructive habits of Washington, it will require overcoming our own fears and our own doubts. It will require each of us to do our part in closing the moral deficit - the empathy deficit - that exists in this nation. It will take standing in one another's shoes and remembering that we are our brother's keeper; we are our sister's keeper...

The second Community Dialogue and Peace Keeper Training  will be held at  Eastside Arts Alliance 2277 International Boulevard from 5:30pm - 8:30pm. This dialogue and training is for youth and the arts community.

Cephus Johnson (Uncle Bobby) says, "Empathy is really significant about this whole thing"

"Edwin talks about the word empathy. Very powerful when you really think about it because, the way I understand the word, empathy is basically putting myself in another persons shoes. Seeing if I can experience and feel what they have experienced.  And that is what this is about. I think this represents that biggest component of this movement, and that is, we're going to stand in each others issues and work together to try to bring about some form of change. 

So to me empathy is really significant about this whole thing. You know it's interesting that we talk about that.  The greatest joy I had just recently in this room was when Mutima said, 'Pick somebody different, that you don't even know, that's totally different from yourself, and you sit in front of this person, and you begin to dialogue.' You know what I'm saying, I'm an African American man, raised up in the hood and have a whole different outlook on life, and I have to sit in front of an older white woman, you know what I'm saying? And try to relate - that's powerful, because what we can actually do then, is we are actually transforming. In reality, I got a whole bunch of drivers that I bring into my life and never ever be able to connect to a person totally opposite from me.

So when we begin to shed that, changes take place and that's what this is all about. Allowing us to share with people we don't event know and are totally different, and we're drawn together because we're all asking for the same thing and that's what's so key about this, and that is that the system become just, so that we can all feel that we are part of.  And the only way for that to happen is that the we all got to have some form of empathy, and yet be able to transform so that we can connect and we can all live together and be happy. I hope that happens on earth." Cephus Johnson

 Full Oakland Peace Keeper Training from Edwin Rutsch on Vimeo.