We seen where calling people
"animals" can lead
I
don’t think I’m alone in believing there’s an intrinsic value to human life.
That
is, any human, no matter who they are or what they’re like, has worth simply
because they’re human. On some basic level, all of us are equal and precious.
That’s
why many of us would save a human from a burning building before we’d try to
save a dog. And why we’d go to extreme lengths to save the human if it’s at all
possible.
No
doubt you have people you love, people you like, and people you dislike. There
are people you wouldn’t want to have as a neighbor, co-worker, or friend. But
even when you dislike someone personally, and wish to avoid them, you wouldn’t
deny their fundamental humanity.
Or
at least, I like to think most of us wouldn’t. Apparently, though, some of us
would.
I’ve been deeply uneasy with some trends that seem to rank some people as more valuable and others as less. One of them is the idea that immigration should be based on “merit.”
What
does merit mean? Merit as a human being?
What’s
actually meant by proposals to allow immigration based solely on “merit” is
that only the wealthiest and most educated people can come to the U.S.
Calling
that “merit” implies that one’s worth as a human is dictated by their wealth
and education. I don’t believe that’s true. I believe the poorest and most
destitute refugee has equal worth to the wealthiest billionaire.
Beyond
their intrinsic worth, immigrants who lack money and education make tremendous
contributions. Not least, they put food on America’s tables.
Immigration
crackdowns in Alabama, Georgia,
and California led
to crops rotting in the field when undocumented immigrants were unavailable to
pick them, and nobody documented was willing to do the job under the pay and
working conditions being offered.
An
even more troubling devaluation of human life was Trump’s assertion that
Central American gang members are “violent
animals.”
Obviously,
few of us would defend or invite members of a violent gang into the United
States. The problem here is that Trump has routinely tried to associate all immigrants
— and particularly those from Latin America — with criminality.
He’s
done this from when he first entered office, when he created a
phone line for people to use to report crimes by immigrants.
First
of all, we don’t need a phone line for that. We already have a phone line. It’s
called 911. Or, in a non-emergency, you report crimes to your local police.
Third,
and most troublingly, calling human beings animals is one of the steps toward
genocide. (Specifically, according to Greg Stanton of Genocide
Watch, it’s step three: dehumanization.)
Nobody,
even the Nazis, began with concentration camps. They began by creating an idea
of us vs. them, dehumanizing Jews by calling them “rats,” and then gradually
more extreme steps like forbidding intermarriage or forcing Jews into a ghetto.
Let’s
not go there. Immigrants have an intrinsic worth as human beings. We can debate
how many people to let into the country, how best to do it, or what sensible
precautions to take.
But
whatever we do, our immigration policy — and our politics — should recognize
every person’s common humanity.