Anna Deavere Smith Is The Most Empathetic Person In America

Anna Deavere Smith may be the most empathetic person in America. The renowned playwright and actor is a master at what many of our fellow African-Americans, particularly African-American women, have had to do from an early age: perform empathy, often well beyond the call of duty.

From day one, they operate in a world built to render them and their pain invisible, a world that demands they empathize with the very people who inflict that pain on them. Empathize with the Trump voter, they are told, the voter who elected a leader bent on strengthening institutional bigotries of every stripe. See life through their eyes, the world instructs, as if it were somehow uncommon for us to be forced to see life through the white gaze.

Given this imbalance of perspective, black women who act for a living, like Smith, make an extraordinary sacrifice. They surrender their bodies and voices for an art that articulates the perspectives of others, often in stories told through the lens of white people. Smith goes even further. Her specialty is verbatim theater: a literal impersonation and recounting of the actions, words and movements of people she interviews about a particular subject. Imagine someone not only having to read about that Trump voter, but portray him or her on stage, recounting their exact words.  

Source: Yahoo News