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Summary: Pushing The Boundaries Of Civic Engagement

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Through the ideas of group empathy, civic engagement, and community building, Seeing Us in Them: Social Divisions and the Politics of Group Empathy by Valentino and Villalobos, and Shawn Ginwright’s Hope, Healing, and Care: Pushing the Boundaries of Civic Engagement for African American Youth share similar perspectives on care in relation to political community and therefore their likeness can be compared. Seeing Us in Them: Social Divisions and the Politics of Group Empathy focuses on practicing care through “group empathy”, and Hope, Healing, and Care: Pushing the Boundaries of Civic Engagement for African American Youth provides two ways of committing to care in political communities through civic engagement and community building. According …show more content…

In addition, people of color and white people can exhibit “group empathy” outwardly, which will then in turn, create caring policies and political communities for everyone involved. Ginwright highlights that developing inner-city and urban youth are affected by hope, healing, and care, which can either help the future of the communities, or harm them, depending on whether hope, healing, and care are diminished through the policies formed by the political communities. He explains that civic engagement in urban youth can be strengthened through community organizations that will allow for groups to come together and let young people connect with their peers and other adults within their community. The relationships that will form in community organizations may include people who come from different backgrounds, allowing for “group empathy” and care to spread through the organization, and therefore, through the community, illustrating how these two readings play off of one …show more content…

Other traditional means of civic engagement that are provided in Hope, Healing, and Care: Pushing the Boundaries of Civic Engagement for African American Youth are volunteering and campaigning, and more modern forms of engagement that are mainly used today with urban youth are assisting others financially, and conveying opinions through artistic expression (Ginwright, 34). The bringing together of different communities to stand up and protest the same political and social issue of segregation highlights similarities between these two pieces of literature on political community. Community organizations and groups heal and support, though empathy is needed to fully connect with other people. The awareness of political and social problems illustrated by Valentino and Villalobos example of the “sit-in movement” directly reflects Ginwright’s idea of “critical consciousness”, which he sees as a pathway, “...to healing and restoring civic life in black communities” (Ginwright,

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