HOPE LIVES BETWEEN US

Foreign Policy Association fellow Kirksey aims to guide readers to an understanding of how everyone and everything is connected—and how this fact can foster positive change.

The author, who was born in Rockford, Illinois,noticed early on how adults can teach children unconscious biases. He uses an example of adults rolling up car windows and locking doors when “driving through a neighborhood of people who looked different or spoke a different language.” They aren’t explicitly teaching kids in the back seat to fear those who are different, he notes, but it’s a lesson they implicitly learn, nonetheless. Some people may not ever have the chance to interact with people who live outside their community, so this brief guide aims to overcome learned fears and help readers realize that everyone is connected by shared humanity. This idea, the author says, is “a subliminal understanding that we are strands in the web of life and our well-being is dependent on facilitating the well-being of others,” and people should embrace it by “always seek[ing] we instead of me” to achieve what he calls “intuitive coexistence.” Kirksey’s warm prose is occasionally broken up by visual diagrams, including one of a “stair-step learning model” that demonstrates how to move from “unconscious incompetence” (illustrated by the dictum “ignorance is bliss”) to unconscious competence (in which one’s empathy is “on autopilot”). He also effectively employs personal and historical anecdotes to help illustrate his sometimes-heady points. At the same time, he includes plenty of concrete examples to help readers get started in their own transformative journey, as when he emphasizes the importance of smiling or sharing a kind word. Although the author’s ideas and reflections are certainly grand, the book’s narrative tone never feels overwhelming and, in fact, remains consistently approachable.

An inspiring treatise on the importance of empathy.