Dehumanization, Status, and Cory Booker

This was published in the Des Moines Register as a Letter to the Editor in early 2020.

            It has become a radical idea, in our political discourse, to humanize people who are struggling. People with more resources have the power to decide their own fate, a power every American aspires to have. As a result, we, as a society, tend to treat them with more respect and empathy than we treat people who are fighting to make ends meet. We too often dehumanize the poor, saying that people without resources are lazy or cheating.

It’s dangerous to dehumanize people, and it flies in the face of our nation’s values to ignore the dignity of our fellow man. People who work three minimum wage jobs are human. People who rely on food stamps to feed their families are human. People with convictions, people who are addicted, or people who have a mental illness are human. Taking it a step further -- people we disagree with politically or religiously or culturally are human too. As a country, we need to be reminded to see the humanity in one another.

            One of Cory Booker’s campaign mottos is “I see you, I love you.” It is a step towards humanizing those whose humanity has often been denied. To be human is to be flawed, but still worthy of love, dignity, and rights -- Cory also says, “You cannot lead the people, if you don’t love the people.” I believe that Cory loves people, regardless of race, or status, or political party. In this partisan time, that is the moral leadership this country needs.