Whether one is black or white in St. Louis, opinions about Mr. Wilson’s guilt or innocence, and views on the underlying causes of the Ferguson unrest, stem from individual experiences and reflect the experiences of those around them.

When black and white don’t cross paths very often, agreement is hard to find. So is empathy.

But for St. Louis to learn from what happened on Aug. 9, and from what has continued to happen to a greater or lesser extent each and every night since, we have to try to learn from each other. We can’t do that by retreating to the safety of our own enclaves, posting social media thoughts to closed networks where people who look and think like us “like” our opinions rather than challenge them.

In my Christian faith tradition, empathy begins with a simple act of witnessing, telling one’s story so that others can understand the experiences that educate your views. In some ways, the ongoing protests since the death of Michael Brown have been a form of witness.