I am grateful for 5-hour Empathy, a fake product introduced last weekend in a fake commercial on SNL.*
*If you haven’t seen the sketch, the rest of this email will make more sense if you watch it real quick.
So 5-hour Empathy is not a real thing…but if it was, would you take it?
I am pretty sure that I would. But there was a time in my life when I’m pretty sure I would have reacted a lot like the people in the video. I’m not proud of that, but it’s also okay. There’s no point in shaming myself for my ignorance and fragility, especially when that ignorance and fragility is the intended byproduct of an unjust system.
What matters is that I moved forward. I agreed to wake up. There wasn’t any 5-hour Empathy for me to chug, but there were (and are) lots of books and films and conversations and service opportunities that have widened my worldview and helped me become actively anti-racist.
I’m still becoming, of course, and that’s okay too. And it’s also okay to find humor in our problems.
So, thank you, SNL, for being funny—and uncomfortably on the nose—about an important issue. And even though 5-hour Empathy is not technically a thing, I still try to take at least a sip of it every day.
Love > fear,
p.s. I voted this week! Have you voted yet? Please vote, preferably for people who’d drink 5-hour Empathy. And if you’ve got the means, donate here, and if you’ve got the time, volunteer here.