The level of hostility on the part of whites. The message “I am human. I am beautiful,” on the part of blacks. http://www.pbs.org/show/black-america-mlk-and-still-i-rise/
(Can you picture dogs being unleashed on white children?)
My Jeff (a political scientist) defines politics as: “who gets what, when, where, and who says who gets what.”
We know which groups are dis-enfranchised in America. What’s shocking is the many ways those groups are DE-HUMANIZED, to justify their exclusion from “the good life in America.”
A friend sends me a link on “The Root of All Cruelty?” from the New Yorker. It explains a few things. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/27/the-root-of-all-cruelty
How can humans deny other humans basic respect (food, safety, a livelihood), and systematically block them from a human status, if not systematically kill them? Civilization gives us “normal” inhibitions against murdering people we do not like. To murder them, we have to overcome this inhibition, and see the victims as NOT REALLY HUMANS.
It is “normal” for humans to define people outside their group as Others. But if you convince your tribe that the OTHERS are ANIMALS, you can get respectable people to kill or torture members of an other-group. Engage in genocide.
The history of slavery shows that humans have believed it is acceptable to OWN OTHERs. You need a belief that some people are “natural slaves.” Not-humans.
We can make it more comfortable to exclude, punish, and kill OTHERS by calling them animals. (Sex offenders, the poor, illegal immigrants, dementia patients)
[For example, separating young children from their parents when they are apprehended illegal immigrants. It’s a form of torture.]
One way to DE-HUMANIZE is to HUMILIATE the target group. The Nazis did this by making high-status Jewish professionals sweep the streets. By sexually assaulting Jewish women. “The sadism of treating human beings like vermin.”
I want to get to the insights on MISOGYNY, of course. Rapists are men who degrade women and use them without compassion/mercy. Men can act like they “own” women.
The root of misogyny, per the author Kate Manne, is that men have come to expect good things from women, like attention, admiration, sympathy, solace, and sex and love. When they don’t get it, they must PUNISH the BAD WOMAN. They feel justified in violence, and even murder. They also want to SHAME and PUNISH women into BEHAVING LIKE MEN WANT THEM TO.
“An observation made by Margaret Atwood [The Handmaid’s Tale etc]—that men are afraid that women will laugh at them, and women are afraid that men will kill them.”
In a discussion of concentration camps, the point goes further: what looks like the dehumanization of the other is instead a way to exert power over another human.
[The full article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/27/the-root-of-all-cruelty ]
To summarize: a group resorts to HATE in order to gain POWER over an OTHER group. To incite HATE, you need to DE-HUMANIZE the OTHER. Thus normal, “civilized” feelings of empathy, benevolence, even affection, can be transmogrified into rejecting the OTHER as an ANIMAL of sorts. Someone you can USE, DOMINATE, OPPRESS, and even KILL.
To overcome HATE and DISCRIMINATION, you need to HUMANIZE the OTHER. You need to promote empathy, understanding, mutual respect. Have different groups communicate and share perspectives and life experiences. Have people see and feel a common humanity with members of an “other” group.
A favorite book is Allan G. Johnson’s Privilege, Power and Difference. My review and link: http://www.momox.org/blog/allan-g-johnson-privilege-power-and-difference
A favorite intervention is Intergroup Contact Theory. Google “intergroup contact theory” or see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_hypothesis
To summarize: HATE is about POWER. We know how it can be lessened. We have to want to lessen the hate.