"When you see blatant dehumanization, what story do you have to tell yourself to be okay with that?"
– Brené Brown
Racism by its very nature is dehumanizing. Racism was designed specifically to dehumanize.
Racism has been working by design for hundreds of years, dehumanizing and dehumanizing group after group after group, person after person after person after person.
Dehumanization comes in many forms, from the seemingly (but not) minor to the blatant and fatal.
From being dismissed and overlooked and ignored, to being belittled and bullied and discriminated against, to being attacked and beaten and murdered, dehumanization always has negative consequences.
We all see it happening all around us. Some of us are more attuned to it than others. Some of us can recognize its more subtle manifestations more easily than others. Some of us are committed to humanizing more than others.
But to say we don't see it is a lie. To say it's not happening is harmful. To gaslight people who are being dehumanized is dehumanizing.
The effects of dehumanization are traumatic, long-lasting, and intergenerational.
So what do you do when you see it? What are you doing to intervene, to change the narrative, to disrupt the status quo, to break the cycle?
What are you doing to humanize?