On Friday, my Honors English teacher explained the different to me and the rest of the class. I don't remember the example well, but here it is in a nut-shell. She described how it must be hard for young, black teenagers to grow up and become something of themselves in today's society, with all of these tests and statistics proving how most of them will end up in jail or dead. Now, she said she can empathize with the black teenagers, because she can understand their situation and she can understand how it is to be in their shoes. However, she can't sympathize because she wasn't actually in their shoes and felt what they are feeling. Basically, to empathize is to understand, sympathize is to actually have felt it or went through the same situation. We can all empathize with how it was to live through the hurricane in NO, but how many of us can sympathize? How many of us went through something similar?