The Power of Dehumanization
Channel: Paths to Understanding
Date: 2021-03-15

The reality is that assuming the worst about other groups brings out the worst in us. 

One of the most profound and disturbing realizations for me in the last 6 years, is how the same techniques of dangerous speech are used to maintain the caste system based on racism. Violence is not just expressed in genocide, but also in enslavement, exploitation, denial of opportunity, and basic services. 

Not only are we all potentially capable of being deceived and manipulated by dangerous speech. We all have been. My work to counter the dehumanization of Muslims has helped me to see that I have been raised in a larger culture that dehumanizes Indigenous, Black, Brown, Asian, LGBTQIA+, people with differing abilities and so many more. 

Evin Staub teach us that a key factors in determining whether or not a society will walk the road of dangerous speech and mass violence is whether people move from being passive bystanders, to being active ones. 

Opposition from bystanders, whether based on moral or other grounds, can change the perspective of perpetrators and other bystanders, especially if the bystanders act at an early point on the continuum of destruction. Ervin Staub, Roots of Goodness

In other words, people engaged in authentic allyship can contribute to the interruption of violence, especially when they are from the majority in-group.