Ouch, good and painful point.
Thanks to Tanja, I learned about the term ‘selective empathy’, one of the many biases in our brain. We took in a Ukrainian family and gave them our key on the first day, without knowing much about them.
Would we have done the same for a family from Yemen, Libya, Ethiopia, Palestine or Syria?
Apparently not, because there were plenty of opportunities to do so in the past years and it has never crossed our mind.
One way to overcome selective empathy is to notice when we think of people as “others” and to get curious about them.
Just like writing a book with 100 stories of homeless people in San Francisco helped me to rehumanize the homelessness crisis and empathize with the individuals on the streets, getting curious about the stories of refugees from non-European countries can help us to overcome our bias now that we’ve identified it.
Connecting with the unhoused people in San Francisco enriched my life incredibly, as I am sure my journey in connecting with refugees will too.
If you’re speaking German, one amazing way to break through your selective empathy is to join the German WOMEN’S HUB LOVE SESSION with Nahid Shahalimi on April 6th, about women in Afghanistan. Would love to see you there!