The first thing I want to get into is dehumanization, why I have a problem with it, why I believe it to be morally and ethically wrong to do, and how it relates to the present day situation in the USA.
“Othering” is a form of dehumanisation. It can be as innocent as "well, they are just different than us", to something a bit more extreme like blaming certain things that negatively affect your life on "others", to boycotting their businesses, or in extreme cases violence and murder. In your eyes, they cease being equal human beings with equal rights, but instead become… something a bit lesser. It can be mild, or extreme. It can make you turn a blind eye to ICE holding cells, and the human rights violations which have taken place within them. It can make you turn a blind eye to massive amounts of tortue committed in Guantanamo bay, because after all, they were just tryyyyiiing to fight the enemy after all. Those people were suspected terrorists, and terrorists are bad, and we have to catch them, so I guess that means we have to torture a bunch of people.
In this way, tortue may become acceptable to you, because a set of circumstances have been created which make it okay. This is how human rights get eroded, and how certain groups of people lose their human rights. As long as it’s done on an “other”. This is why “othering” is such an effective tool.
First, during his campaign, one of Trump’s key messages was that of dehumanising language directed at Mexicans, specifically Mexican immigrants. It’s true, there ARE a tiny amount of Mexicans coming through with less than clean records. An even tinier amount still who probably, yes, have ties to the cartel. And the cartel is bad. Very very bad. This is something that nobody would argue. But what he is doing is establishing a link between the very worst aspects of Mexico, Mexican immigrants, Cartels, and linking it to literally every Mexican immigrant. This is dehumanisation in a nutshell. It’s designed to prey on people who feel a certain way, and further radicalise them. It’s designed to gain their support, and approval. The fact that Donald Trump was able to use this messaging and win an election is really fucking chilling, as an outsider.
This is not the type of thing people should be winning elections on. This is the type of thing that creates an “other”, the one to be blamed for all of one’s problems, the enemy, the bad people. This is the type of thing that makes people not be upset about children being separated from their families by members of ICE. Because they’re not human beings, they’re rapists and thugs and illegal aliens. Or criminals trying to illegally cross the border, what have you. (Despite the fact many of them are disaffected South Americans fleeing from countries ruined by USA meddling, lol).
Trump didn’t invent the idea of dehumanising Mexicans, that started with the term “illegal aliens”, but he sure expanded on it.
You will notice a trend about “others” when we get into genocide.
Fast forward to 2020, and the #BLM protests. Take all the riots, looters, counter protesters, agent provocateurs, etc. And then throw in a whole bunch of actually reasonable, normal people (of all races) who just want to make the world a better place. Dehumanising this ENTIRE GROUP based on the actions of SOME OF THEM, is WRONG. It will lead to a DIRECT uptick in the idea that violence against such people is acceptable. I don’t know how many videos there are of police beating the shit out of innocent people at this point, including some dude captain America (irony) slamming an Australian reporter in the stomach with a shield, and then chasing him with a club.
This is not okay. And what is even more not okay, is the person in the riot gear and with the shield THOUGHT HE WAS DOING THE RIGHT THING. THAT IS THE POINT. THIS IS DEHUMANISATION IN ACTION. This man wasn’t trying to calm down protestors, he was fighting an enemy. To him it was very real.
This is why dehumanising language is problematic.
The current administration, specifically Eric Trump, referred to protestors as “animals”. This wasn’t just at any rally however, this event was at the center of the world stage, with everybody watching. Tensions have never been higher, at least in my lifetime, and probably most people’s lifetime, in the USA. People are watching, especially Americans. Policeman are watching. Forces members are watching. Black people are watching, white people are watching, mexican people are watching, you get my point.
Eric Trump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtHMV5P4ZOc
So, what is problematic about this? It serves several purposes, intentional or not:
To dehumanise the “enemy” in the eyes of anti-protestors, specifically policeman and forces members, who do in fact have deadly weapons and a pretty free reign to use them.
To further radicalise people who are upset, who are looking to ANYTHING to grab on to which can calm them down, and feel like everything will be okay. Being called “animals” is not going to do that, it is going to make them angrier.
Why does it do these things? History can tell us. You don’t have to go that far into the past to see a DIRECT link between dehumanising language and horrific atrocities. In fact, I would argue that in EVERY SINGLE CASE IN HUMAN HISTORY dehumanising language has been MASSIVELY at play.
What does dehumanising language do? It quite literally makes it easier to kill people. It serves as a bridge between hateful thoughts, and hateful actions. It’s not easy to kill a person. People are not inherently racist. Go to any pre-school and you’ll see children of all different colours getting along just fine. I fully believe that hate, and racism, is taught. It is not ONLY a ‘natural consequence of the world’. It’s also taught, and learned behaviour.
“Brain plasticity” refers to your ability to learn new things, essentially when you are at your youngest you have the highest amount of brain plasticity a.k.a the highest threshold to learn new things. As you age, you slowly lose this. There is a sharp decline in this once a human exits teenhood and enters adulthood. Not to say the adult lacks brain plasticity, just that the teen and ESPECIALLY the children, and ESPECIALLY the young children have far more. My point is that you are really impressionable when you are young, and your parents are the ones who you learn most of your behaviours from. And you are really really good at learning. It’s why kids who start young on musical instruments tend to perform better than kids who start in their teens.
I mean hell, you can convince 4, 5, and 6 year old kids in Santa Clause, you don’t even have to try that hard! And if you throw in a little bit of smoke and mirrors, you can make them believe he visited them in their house!
While this is sweet, there is also a dark side to this. You can just as easily make the child believe things which are wrong, which are hateful, which will often shape their worldview for the rest of their life.
Things like intolerance, the idea that being gay is inherently wrong, that women are inferior, that type of thing.
I’ve had a pretty negative view of religion in the past, and I’m slowly changing that, but I still believe religion plays a big factor here. Simply because religious parents tend to teach their children religious beliefs from a really young age, which usually stay with them forever. It’s like teaching a child Santa is real and then never telling him he’s not. That’s a pretty disrespectful metaphor, but try to forgive me, I’ve personally had some very bad experiences with religious families when I was younger, specifically Catholics.
And unfortunately, SOME of those religious beliefs, taught by SOME of those parents, can be pretty hateful and shitty. SPECIFICALLY to people who are gay. I’m going to stick with this angle because it’s a good one and I believe it proves my point quite well. I'm not gay, but what they did do was essentially exclude me because I didn't believe in god. They were Australian, very zealous Catholics. They would let me play outside with their boys, both of whom I was good friends with, along with another kid. But because I was the only one who didn't believe in god, when everyone would go inside to have hot chocolate or watch T.V, I would be told I have to go home now. So try to forgive my deep misgivings towards religion, I am biased.
Here are articles referencing studies which support my point.
Religious children statistically more likely to be mean than their peers
Religious children show “less altruism”
Back to dehumanisation. My point is that hateful behaviour can absolutely be learned, and taught. I’m going to talk about hateful and racist propaganda specifically in another post, but what I’ll say is that propaganda never went away, in fact it’s literally everywhere, ESPECIALLY targeting American eyeballs. I’m referencing hateful subreddits, hateful insular internet communities, /pol/, hateful facebook groups, etc. These places tend to take in people who are on the fence about an issue, and don’t really understand why they feel that way (take for example somebody who just read a “black on black crime” statistic) and they look to the group to confirm what they are thinking to be true. This is where propaganda comes in, specifically dehumanisation.
In the simplest terms, I’ll describe it like this.
Hate is a lot like a drug. It numbs pains, it can make you feel good. But much like a drug, it can also be addictive.
So, that takes me to pain. In my eyes, there are only two things that heal real, deep pain. Time, and love. The term “time heals all wounds” exists for a reason. But love also does that. And people who are both in pain, and lacking in love, often turn to hate, as it is the only option left they have to numb their pain.
That is why a place like /pol/ probably features a lot of lonely, isolated people who are in a great deal of pain.
So where does dehumanisation fit in? Essentially, if you take a group of people who are in pain, and using hate to deal with it, and you put them into a room together, and then throw in some dehumanising language and an “other” to unleash their rage on, first you get hatespeech, then you maybe get beatings, murders, lynchings, you can even get genocide if enough people all buy in.
It’s no secret that white Americans in the south were in a LOT of pain after the civil war ended, and the black people who had previously been their slaves (or continued to be in many cases) were the cause of it all. Not THEIR desire to OWN the black people, to them the " Union and the N****** " were to blame for all of it. Fueled by hate - which was created by immense pain, this lead to a culture of lynching and open racism against blacks. Successful blacks in particular were targeted.
The most horrific example of this would be the Tulsa Race Massacre, which occurred in 1921.
The attack was carried out mostly by disaffected southern white Americans who felt they had been wronged. To them this wasn’t a hate crime, or a small scale genocide, but “revenge” or “deserved” because they were “ just n****** ” and of course, that makes them less than human if you feel that way. It is far easier to kill people you do not view as human, or to simply mistreat them, or to not care about their needs.
If you feel that this has happened to you, and that you are using hate as a coping mechanism for personal pain, my advice to you is to get a pet. A cat or a dog. Having something in your life that loves you unconditionally is something every human being needs in order to be a happy, normal, fully functional person. Every single person needs this. And those without a human to give them this unconditional love should ABSOLUTELY find an animal to give it to them. The difference it makes is IMMENSE. The feeling of being loved releases all sorts of chemicals in your brain, and you need these chemicals. You literally need them. If you don’t get enough of them you go crazy.
Okay.
I want to discuss a few specific genocides, as there are really too many, and no matter which ones I pick i’d be leaving out some key examples. If you want to see a list of all the recorded genocides in human history, you can do so here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide
I’d like to throw in that Trump has praised Erdogan in the past, and been generally on good terms with him. Make of that what you will.
Erdogan is one of many Turks who still to this day deny the Armenian genocide ever occoured. All documents relating to it are kept in a literal locked vault, and nobody is allowed to see them. Full denial of a genocide, over 100 years later. Not fucking okay.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/world/europe/erdogan-armenia-genocide.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide_denial
Moving on to the actual genocides themselves, what I want to point out is the similarities, what lead to them, and essentially try to figure out how and why they happened.
https://www.armenian-genocide.org/young_turks.html
“ The most ideologically committed party in the entire movement, the CUP espoused a form of Turkish nationalism which was xenophobic and exclusionary in its thinking. Its policies threatened to undo the tattered fabric of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. “
An “other” is targeted, for the perceived benefit of the nation.
“ Taking advantage of the political confusion reigning in the aftermath of the First Balkan War “
This is important. “Political confusion” makes it easier to manipulate people into acting against their own interests and committing violent acts, all while telling them it is for both their own benefit and that of the nation.
I don’t want this to drag on forever so I’ll leave it there, but if you aren’t familiar with the Armenian genocide, please do read up on it. It’s important to understand the world we live in, as we are all a part of that world. Of course, that is why Nationalism is so intoxicating, because it allows you to not give a shit about bad stuff, which would otherwise cause you distress and make you feel bad.
“Who cares about what’s happening in Africa? They’re a bunch of stupid n****** anyway, and it’s probably their fault too. Whites invented civilization, after all.”
“Even if we did knowingly lie about Saddam having weapons of mass destruction to gain public approval for a war in a foreign country, it doesn’t MATTER because it’s a shithole anyway, and it was before we ever got there.”
Those are just two examples of why extreme nationalism can cause you to lack empathy for other human beings, and also manipulate you into defending things such as lying, and murder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_in_Nazi_Germany
Next, lets look at Nazi propaganda, specifically dehumanising Nazi propaganda. As we all know, that didn’t end well for the “others”.
However, the situation is more complex than that. After WW1, Germany signed something called the “Treaty of Versailles” which was a major contributor to certain feelings among Germans. Many blamed the Jews and the Communists for the "cowardly and embarrassing" defeat of a very proud and powerful army and nation after WW1.
This would have been okay, had they not been forced to sign that bullshit treaty.
What resulted was:
Loss of national pride
Low wages
High unemployment
De-arrangement of the military
You can read about it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles
Then, the great depression hit. Things got so much worse. Germany was one of the hardest hit countries in the world. Many Germans had been tricked into buying securities (stocks) with borrowed money, believing in the American idea that every man woman and child not only can, but deserves to be rich. Well, they did during the 20s, anyway. But I’ll save that for another post.
My point is this: it was extremely fertile ground for “othering”, and essentially placing the blame for extremely complex problems onto one group. An enemy. The “others”.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/defining-the-enemy
This is troublesome to me because due to covid, I feel like we are in for another great depression. Not as extreme as the first one, but it's gonna suck for a lot of people. If trump wins re-election you can bet your ass he's going to "other" the shit out of some people and try to use that to shift any and all blame off of him.
Here is an article which goes into more detail about Nazi Propaganda, and how its SINGLE MAIN GOAL was to “other” people in the hopes that they would become targets. It worked. But it didn’t start with the holocaust, first it was the boycotting of Jewish stores, next it was a riot in which Jewish stores were trashed, and then a few years later they started getting deported, and then a few years later they were being captured, marked, put on a list, documented, told they were “being moved to a new settlement” and shipped to places like Auschwitz-Birkenau
And if you think that isn't relevant, I disagree. Dehumanizing can take MANY forms, it can be nazi propaganda posters or it can be choice of language. And as much as I hate to admit it, that includes calling cops Pigs. It's not a good road to go down. Think of them instead as extremely human beings who think they are doing the right thing, surrounded by a sea of literal psychopathic bullies who use the job to get away with murder (often literally). And when good cops DO try to speak out, they are often harassed, beaten up in the locker rooms, forced to work in an awful area with no backup, abused (with the blue wall of silence making it their words vs everyone elses), or simply fired for some trumped up bullshit reason. But even the shitty psychopathic evil cops are human beings, which means they have human rights. Which means that they should absolutely be tried and convicted for their crimes, but they should still be given food, water, a comfortable bed to sleep on, internet access (i think in the future this will and should become a human right), etc. Capital punishment is not the answer, ever, and in the case of policeman it would radicalize the shit out of all the blue lives matter folks, like you have no idea. It would not be good. Try them, but treat them with humanity. Because their are human beings, not animals.
But what I’m trying to say is it wasn’t a quick process, and it started with dehumanising propaganda. Make no mistake, Trump’s attitude towards Mexicans, and now protesters, is VERY dehumanising.
Am I suggesting that there will be a “black purge” if he wins re-election? Of course not. But I do think life will get worse for those people who are black and mexican. I think there will be an increase in violence both by the police and civilians against black and mexican people, at least in certain states. Because that is what history tells us will happen. When you take angry people, people who are angry often for very LEGITIMATE REASONS, and give them an "other", bad shit starts to happen.
Loss of jobs and a poor economy, for example, and then you direct their anger at an “other” instead of what the real problem is.
I would say MOST of the people who voted for Trump did so against their own personal interests. These are the people who fall victim to conservative propaganda. Instead of them voting for their own interests, such as workers rights, they get caught up on things like gay marriage and abortion and vote against their own interests just so they can suppress the rights of "others". There are some who knew what they were doing, people in the upper classes who didn’t want to pay higher taxes.
I consider that to be an immoral position, and highly unpatriotic.
To me, there is nothing in the world more patriotic than being willing to take less to help your countrymen. THAT’S being a patriot. Not voting in a person who dehumanises a large portion of the popular because you just don’t really care, you just want to pay less taxes because that will benefit YOU.
And you will find, typically, it is ALWAYS accompanied by manipulative language, usually “food on the table” and “feed my kids”, and whenever you address the idea of them taking less it’s “taking food out of my daughters mouth”, when in reality, you’re just taking a little bit of money out of a bank account. These people do not struggle to feed their kids, they struggle to afford the cool Lexus instead of the middle of the road Lexus.
Then you have the people who ARE poor, who DO work minimum wage jobs or slightly above, and they vote for trump, either not knowing, caring, or understanding that he will actively campaign to make their lives worse, fight the raising of minimum wage, suppress worker rights, and give more power to corporations who cannot be trusted to self regulate themselves, who actually treat their workers like shit. For example, Wal-Mart.
But if you give them an “other”, and tell them that by defeating this “other” their lives will be improved, you can manipulate them into voting for you.
You get richer, they get poorer, you’re laughing all the way to the bank while they scream about “illegal aliens” and “thugs”.
Back to genocide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes
Take Imperial Japan. A sickening mix of extreme nationalism, feeling of racial and ethnic superiority, and EXTREME dehumanisation of their enemies. Lead to some pretty sick shit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching
These were not human beings to them, they were N******
Dehumanising in action.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide
Notice the bit about “extreme jokes”. So no, not all ‘edgy humour’ is harmless. It can be used as a weapon. It can be used to manipulate. It can be used to dehumanise, and “other”.
I repeat. EDGY HUMOUR CAN BE DANGEROUS. IT CAN BE USED TO RADICALISE PEOPLE INTO FORMING HATEFUL VIEWS.
No, I’m not advocating for taking away free speech, or taking away edgy humour. I’m simply trying to educate people that it IS NOT harmless. That’s all. Be aware of the power it has. Think of it as a gateway drug to racism, misogyny, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades
“Othering” on full display. Religious genocide. Yes, land reclamation was a major factor, as well as Ottoman expansion, I get that. But it went FAR BEYOND that, and yes it was a genocide.
Wow, that sounds a lot like Jihad to me.
See the similarity?
THIS IS WHY YOU DO NOT MIX CHURCH AND STATE. DO NOT DO IT. IT IS BAD, AND LEADS TO BAD SHIT.
Is Trump trying to start a holy war? Of course not. Should he be mixing Church and state? FUCK NO.
“Islamification” was probably the PRIMARY MOTIVATING FACTOR for the Armenian genocide.
Religious motivation was a MAJOR factor in the Rwandan genocide.
Am I saying a genocide will happen in the USA if you re-elect trump? No, but I’m saying he is doing bad shit, actively “othering” millions of people, and doing nothing to calm the situation down.
Vicious dogs? Are you kidding me? You mean like the kind the slave owners used to release to track down and kill escaped slaves?
Uhh yeah, the KKK liked to use vicious dogs too. All the time. Not a good look. Not one bit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples
More “othering”, more genocide, more dehumanisation. Total extermination of culture. This took place in the USA and especially Canada.
We didn’t close our last residential school until 1996. NINETEEN NINTY FUCKING SIX.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system
Racism didn’t ever “end”. It’s still alive and well, and people are trying to stop it. That’s the crux of the whole issue. People want to be treated fairly, and you have a man calling them “animals and thugs”. That’s not good.
In closing, electing a man who literally campaigned on dehumanisation, at least partially, is very very bad. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s not fucking good. I won’t even get into his active stonewalling of climate change activism, getting rid of the EPA (environmental protection agency), refusal to actively commit to reducing carbon emissions “until China does it”.
Oh and he also chose this guy to be his finance minister. “Draining the swamp” indeed.
Which is it America, are you a world leader or not?
Are you the moral compass of the entire world? Because if you are, you should be LEADING THE WAY on fixing climate change. Not being fucking pussies and saying “but China does it too”.
But then you would have the NERVE to turn around and tell people that you are the WORLD LEADERS?
Of what? Death and destruction? Proxy wars? Having a big military?
WHERE WERE YOU DURING THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE? WHERE THE FUCK WAS YOUR MILITARY THEN? WORLD LEADERS? AND YOU ELECT A MAN WHO CALLS CLIMATE CHANGE A “Chinese hoax”
ARE
YOU
FUCKING
KIDDING
ME?
I’m sorry, I get a bit worked up sometimes.
Until you start leading the way on stuff that actually MATTERS, like reversing climate change, and ending racism, you don’t get to call yourselves world leaders anymore. In my humble opinion.
I’m not saying America hasn’t done good things, GREAT things, you have. But you’ve also done a lot of bad shit, and you have currently elected a man who is DOING bad shit, and if re elected will do EVEN MORE bad shit.
And please don’t FUCKING TELL ME that he defeated ISIS. Your military did that, specifically your military generals. Trump just took credit for it and used it for clout.
Anyway, dehumanisation is bad, and leads to bad things. All humans are humans, and all humans have human rights. Dehumanisation often leads to those being violated in sick horrible ways.
Thank you for reading.