Nobody's human.

If to be human means to be incapable of dehumanizing other people, then nobody is human.

People will say over and over again, "Well, of course women are people. Of course people with disabilities are human," even though their words and actions and legislations prove that they truly believe otherwise.

If people can say that so glibly, then what they really mean is that "Nobody is human."

If being human depends on looking a certain way, being able to speak the "right" language, being able to make the "right" expressions and gestures, then nobody is human.

If being human means having the "right" emotions at the "right" times expressed in the "right" way, then nobody is human.

And that's why people are so terrified of losing their prejudice, their hate. Because they know as soon as it can be proved, beyond doubt, that they're capable of hurting and hating people, for stripping people of their humanity, then THEY have become the non-human.

The kyriarchy, the dominance and submission paradigm, insists that humanity is not inherent, it is earned. It's not earned through love and compassion*, but human sacrifice. The sacrifice of the soul and the sacrifice of non-human humans.

Even love and compassion are co-opted  by the kyriarchy as long as those in power get to define what love and compassion are.

I'm supposed to understand that the deprivation of my freedom and self-determination is a sign of love and compassion, because those in power know what's good for me. I can never know what's good for myself because self-determination is only for humans.

And people who have more material privilege than me, people with more political power, people who are put in charge of my life, prove their humanity by "helping" me.

Police officers and jailors prove their humanity by brutalizing "criminals".

If nobody is human, anybody can be a criminal.

If anybody can be a criminal, then anyone interested in proving their humanity has to become a jailor, to prove that they are not a criminal.

I'm not a REAL racist. You don't see me wearing a white hood and burning crosses.

Real racists aren't human, after all. And I'm human.

I'm not a REAL racist, because I've read impressive, "objective" academic works about racism.

Real racists don't go to school or read books, because only humans go to school and read important books.



This is why it's important to say that all movements geared toward ending oppression are about liberation, not equality.

Because in the end, if we all become equal by this world culture's standards, then we all end up not being human.

*Even one's ability to feel or show love and compassion is not a standard for humanity. There are people who are incapable of love and compassion, and that does not mean that it follows that they are cruel and violent. There are people who are capable of love and compassion that doesn't look like love and compassion by current standards, or who show it in ways that nobody notices or cares about. The only way to fully accept all types of human as human is if we accept that nobody exists to love us, serve us, be useful to us, make us happy, or fulfill a function. (The exception being, of course, parents and caretakers, and then it's not a matter of their purpose being wrapped up in function, but in that when they give birth to someone (or create conditions in the world that make it impossible to not give birth to children we can't take care of, or create an environment where children who are considered incompletely human can't be cared for properly) we enter into an obligation to meet their needs completely and without expectation of having a "pay-off" for it. It seems absurd in the extreme to me that parents continue to choose to have children, and then complain about how demanding and unruly children are. More about this in a different post.)

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I'm not moving just yet, it turns out.