Morality is a Long Game - emptywheel

"He took it, managed to decipher my terrible penmanship, and wrote me a reply. I didn't ask him weighty questions about politics, I think I probably asked his favorite color. People's favorite color was a major interest for me when I was eleven. He wrote some questions for me, (perhaps also my favorite color, which was blue.) and soon we were in a conversation, the kind of sweet conversation where a thoughtful grown-up pays attention to a child."

"Not to what the child is doing, or how they are behaving, or how they are ranking in school and life, but attention to what the child wants to talk about. This is what I remember most about the conversation on that flight - his genuine interest. That he treated me like a person. Jackson had no way of knowing it, but I didn't get treated like a person very often at that age."

The author recalls a personal encounter with Jesse Jackson on a flight to San Francisco in 1984 when she was eleven years old and flying alone. Despite being surrounded by press and campaign staff, Jackson engaged in a genuine conversation with the young girl through written notes, asking about her interests like her favorite color. The author emphasizes that Jackson's kindness lay in his authentic attention to her as a person, not judging her behavior or achievements, but simply listening to what she wanted to discuss. This personal interaction stands out in her memory as a meaningful moment of human connection during a difficult period in her childhood.

Read at emptywheel