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| Official portrait of Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement Valerie Jarrett. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| Official photographic portrait of US President Barack Obama (born 4 August 1961; assumed office 20 January 2009) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Another important point is that empathy is not the same as personal experience and most people understand that if at least by intuition.
Even if Obama or Ghandi, or O'Riley or whoever didn't have the same life experiences as person BLANK it doesn't mean they can't understand what they've been through.
Sure Obama's life is very different than many black youth growing up in rough parts of America (for starters he's 50 + years old) but as far as those communities are concerned he's lived his life in a way that is sufficient to display a great deal of empathy for them and their struggles.
After all, despite what you may think of him, you have to recognize that in his early twenties right out of some pretty good colleges with a but load of charisma and intelligence he decided to go into community organizing in America's crumbling inner city in the 1980's when they were (by all objective measures) a lot grittier than today.
People like to vilify him for community organizing but when you're a 20 something and it's the go-go 80's where all of the action and power playing is happening on Wall Street and corporate America it says a lot about empathizing with the less fortunate for you to pass all of that up for what especially at the time was a rather thankless job. Let's try to remember that despite our personal bias most people very high up in politics did in fact get into it because they care about people, even if you think they are wrong on everything else (I even admit this about GWB who I can't stand).
copied from politico talking about Bill O trying to blast our President and Valerie Jarrett
Even if Obama or Ghandi, or O'Riley or whoever didn't have the same life experiences as person BLANK it doesn't mean they can't understand what they've been through.
Sure Obama's life is very different than many black youth growing up in rough parts of America (for starters he's 50 + years old) but as far as those communities are concerned he's lived his life in a way that is sufficient to display a great deal of empathy for them and their struggles.
After all, despite what you may think of him, you have to recognize that in his early twenties right out of some pretty good colleges with a but load of charisma and intelligence he decided to go into community organizing in America's crumbling inner city in the 1980's when they were (by all objective measures) a lot grittier than today.
People like to vilify him for community organizing but when you're a 20 something and it's the go-go 80's where all of the action and power playing is happening on Wall Street and corporate America it says a lot about empathizing with the less fortunate for you to pass all of that up for what especially at the time was a rather thankless job. Let's try to remember that despite our personal bias most people very high up in politics did in fact get into it because they care about people, even if you think they are wrong on everything else (I even admit this about GWB who I can't stand).
copied from politico talking about Bill O trying to blast our President and Valerie Jarrett
