Marty And Josina M. Makau: Film Analysis

In Dialogue and Deliberation, Debian L. Marty and Josina M. Makau explain that empathy and compassion are important dialogic skills. They explain that empathy helps us understand others and their perspectives. While compassion helps people feel heard. Compassion and empathy can be used to reform the criminal justice system Marty and Makau state that empathy and compassion are important in dialogue. They quoted President Barack Obama, he states that empathy is crucial because “understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles [is] an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes” (86). According to President Obama, empathy is important because it helps a person come to a fair decision about others. According …show more content…
In the documentary, Ron Carlson, whose sister was murdered, took the opportunity to talk to the person who killed her, Karla Fay Tucker. Carlson was angry and he hated Tucker for what she had done to his sister, he wanted her dead. But the anger got to be too much for Carlson and he asked God to help him forgive Tucker. He was able to forgive him, this allowed him to take the chance to talk to and get to know Tucker. Speaking with Tucker helped Carlson learn that Tucker was actually a genuinely nice person who believed in God, like he had. Speaking with Tucker allowed Carlson to better understand who Tucker was and it allowed him to have empathy for her. Another example is of Bill Pelke who believed in the death penalty when Paula Cooper killed his grandmother. Pelke found compassion for Cooper, after realizing that his grandmother would have had compassion for Cooper. He prayed to God to let him have compassion and he was able to, this helped him change his mind about the death penalty. Both Ron Carlson and Bill Pelke are now advocates against the death penalty because they found compassion and empathy towards the people that had killed their loved