People are People

When I look back at how my political views have evolved in adulthood, I think the biggest shift has been seeing criminals as people. It was a subtle shift—I can’t pinpoint when or why it happened—but it does seem to be at the root of how I view a lot of issues.

Before, I would have agreed that criminals are people, but they are people who did something wrong and deserved to be punished. They crossed a line, and they belong “over there,” in other places under other rules. But then came the exceptions. What of people falsely accused? What of laws that aren’t quite moral? What of crimes where the penalty seems overly severe for the crime? What of rehabilitation? The exceptions mounted up, added with an exposure of the overreach and inhumane treatments of the justice system, until finally I had to concede: people can do wrong, people can commit crimes, people can be evil, but they are still people. There should be consequences for wrongs, but there should never be dehumanization of a person.

A child in the womb is a person. A kid who smokes weed is a person. An elderly dementia patient in a nursing home is a person. A refugee is a person. A man who shoots up his school is a person. A child taken from her parents and kept in a detainment warehouse is a person. A homeless veteran is a person. A wealthy elite who influences lawmakers to take from the poor and benefit the rich is a person.

We all have inherent dignity of being a person. The catechism says, “The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God” (CCC 1700). It can be harder to remember that when faced with someone who hurts others, who rapes, murders, manipulates, who has little regard for others’ dignity. But it is necessary.

Once we determine we can take the dignity of someone, it becomes easier to diminish the dignity of a group of people, then wider and wider group of people. Soon, anyone different is somehow less than we are. “Those” people are fine without heat or without nutrition. “Those” people don’t need family or culture or connection. “Those” people don’t feel emotions. “Those” people don’t deserve representation or rights or respect. “Those” people don’t deserve to live.

When people in power—and their far too many followers—refer to people as animals, they are denying those people’s inherent dignity and making it easy to hate, exploit, and harm them. Germans called Jews rats. Rwandans called Tutsi cockroaches. Most recently, the current president said, “These aren’t people. These are animals.” It’s not the first time he’s used that rhetoric. It won’t be the last.

Being able to dehumanize others, to disregard them, to without empathy from them, also dehumanizes us. It hardens our hearts. It makes us fearful and aggressive and cruel.

People are people. Be compassionate.