it takes deliberate objectification of whatever the group is. people are taught that members of a certain group are "other" and then "other" becomes "subhuman" which then becomes "things." it happened in nazi germany. it happened here to justify slavery, an unjustifiable institution. it is happening here now on so many levels. even those who experience it as its objects can be persuaded to turn around and lay it on others. i refer you to voltaire, and i am quoting from memory so there may be articles missing or added, but approximately "those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

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I see your marginalized groups indifferent to the suffering of other marginalized groups --and I raise you any human indifferent to the suffering of any other human.

I get what you're saying. None of this makes any sense to me.

I live in rural Tennessee, and at Kroger the other day was a transgender woman in the store. While I think it's pretty odd, I felt bad for her b/c of the looks she was getting. I wanted to go up and talk to her to just find out more about her experiences and thoughts on society in general, but let the chance slip by. Hate and fear just sucks IMO.

The human eye is a wonderful device. With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.

-Nadia Makita-

I can't either. Or children of immigrants having no sympathy for immigrants... I think most people just don't give a shit about anyone else.

The fact that you even thought about it separates you.

Unless and until a nation cultivates and nurtures institutional and systemic support for the notion that it's NEVER right to sort people into different levels of personhood (including non-personhood) based on random characteristics like gender, race, talent, [ir]religion, political persuasion, etc., then we'll continue to repeat the same mistakes and be puzzled as to how that can be.

Generically, sorting people into different levels of "worthiness" or "human-ness" is called "fascism". How we treat immigrants or the poor today, how we treated Japanese-Americans during WW2, or black people or native Americans or women, is not substantively different or less terrible than how Nazis treated Jews just because we don't machine-gun people into ditches and bury them with bulldozers. Indeed, the Nazis studied aspects of American society, especially the genocide of native Americans and our entrenched racism, when designing the Third Reich.

We like to entertain the fiction that we are above all that, that for example Trump is fascistic perhaps, or even proto-fascist, but he's not really fascist. These are the same people who don't understand that the tent cities where immigrants, including children, are currently imprisoned are, legally, designatable as concentration camps. Indeed a member on this very site opined the other day that these children are not traumatized or suffering, but probably having the time of their lives!

Part of the antidote to all this is to do away with the specious notion of American exceptionalism, to quit claiming every time we do something dickish that "we're better than this". Actually, no, we're not. As my late wife was fond of saying, don't pay attention to what people say, pay attention to what they do. If we elect a cartoon stereotype of a fascist dictator, and allow him to commit such atrocities, then that's, in fact, who we ARE. If after two years of his perfidy, opposition candidates can marshal so little moral outrage in society that they can only eke out narrow victories, then that's in fact, who we ARE.

If we would simply admit that and start to deal in reality concerning it that'd be a good first step. If we continue the time-honored American tradition of denying our "shadow" then we'll never deal with it or turn from it. We'll sanctimoniously stamp out fascism in others and continue to practice it ourselves, so long as it's semi-deniable. We'll also tolerate it in others, as we are now with the Saudis, on the basic that money talks and bullshit walks.

There is an inherent need in the psychological make up of people to not be at the bottom of the social pile.
Everyone needs to feel they are better than someone else for some reason or another.
It is why cast systems have existed at some point or another in every society.
Even among the so called untouchables of the Indian cast system here is a hierarchy and to even the least in this stack, the men out rank the women and the women out rank one another based of beauty, or efficiency or skill.
Christians and Muslims see each other as inferior to themselves, same goes for Christians and Jews, Muslims and Hindus, Hindus and Buddhists and so on an so forth.
If racial, ethnic, religious and gender prejudice is over come, the tall man will laugh at the short man and the short man at the red headed man.
It is childish and serves only the most base needs of human nature to NOT be last in the pecking order.

Religion is often used (or mis-used) as an excuse for racism and other forms of prejudice. It promotes an "us versus them" mentality.

I have never understood this justification. It is beyond my comprehension.

It's something I've always wondered myself.
It seems like anytime a group gets together, somehow they start to point fingers at other groups.
that never made any sense to me.
George Carlin had a great one on that.

It's all fun and games until you're on the wrong side.

Im screaming its because of tribal instict and inherited homophobia, sexism, racism, transpobia, ect

I'm no Anthropologist, but I do think it has something to do with animal behavior. and humans are animals, we are pattern-seeking animals in fact, and we notice differences however subtle between ourselves and other people. in fact not only do we notice them but they are a very important part of our Behavior

I am with you, man. Not really sure how minorities don't have more empathy for each other.

However empathy is what the US is lacking for a long time now. Everybody wants to get theirs and keep it...fuck everyone else. Trump is just the peak of lacking empathy and is the exact opposite. Bullying those he feels he can and get away with it. However, the US has been trending that way for decades if not longer socially. Obama was reversing it slowly and I imagine the country will right itself over the next few elections

It takes focus off of them as the abused minority for a while.