I walked over to their table to thank them for giving me the opportunity to minister to them. I had not been a person to this family. I was merely an object, a functionary in a role. Unthinkingly we often turn people into objects. Those who wait on our table in a restaurant sometimes are treated rudely because we do not see them as persons.
Racism feeds on depersonalizing others.
A man becomes a racist, filled with prejudice, when he turn others into faceless objects of contempt. In times of war, a nation turns the enemy into objects. Soldiers try to forget that they are shooting at men who are husbands, fathers, and sons. Instead derogative terms are used that de-personalize the enemy making the killing easier. One of the reasons that pornography is so ugly is that it turns people into objects that exist to provide pleasure for another without any relationship.