How to do it:

We all absorb dehumanizing messages growing up. Sexism teaches us that women are lesser. Transphobia doubles down, insisting the flesh between our legs defines us. Fat-phobia and ableism strip people of human traits like sexuality and intellect. Racism varies with region, often reflecting cultural guilt. In 2016 nearly half of American medical students believed that Black people feel less pain. Rooted in racist mythology that Black people are animal-like, so slavery wasn’t so bad, the real world result is that Black patients’ pain is systemically under-treated.

All bigotries dehumanize, but the forms vary. Some examples are obvious: calling a transgender person “it” is unambigous. Other forms are subtler. Most of us know depicting Michelle Obama as an ape was racism, but did you realize depicting Stephen Miller as a ghoul is antisemitism?

Maybe you’re thinking “but Stephen Miller IS a ghoul!” He’s a genuinely awful man, but minorities are routinely blamed collectively for our worst members, so it’s still important to avoid antisemitism. Rooted in the displacement of Roman guilt for crucifixion onto colonized Judeans, antisemitism shifts blame in illogical ways. Israel is a nation the size of New Jersey and there are more people in New York than all Jews alive today. Israel isn’t controlling the U.S. government, whether you’re MAGA trying to explain Trump’s betrayal, or someone on the left. Trace this outsized power to an original source like Farrakhan, and you’ll find a supernatural explanation: Jews made a pact with the devil.

Of course most of us don’t believe in supernatural power, or think Black people are animal-like, but bigots do. We don’t mean to normalize their outrageous beliefs, and often we don’t even realize we are, so how can we stop?

There is a fail-safe tactic: dehumanize no-one.

Yes, that means don’t share cartoons of Trump as a pig. Depicting Trump as a pig doesn’t do the same level of harm as depicting Michelle as an ape, because white men are individuals, not representatives of the whole. You might even argue that “Quiet Piggy” was an invitation, but we’ve been depicting him as a pig for nearly a decade, because that’s how we dehumanize fat people. When we dehumanize truly awful people, we almost always inadvertently drag some innocent community in on the harm. If we need to explain why our criticism isn’t bigotry, there’s a good chance we’re wrong.

So avoid dehumanizing anyone. Speak up when you encounter dehumanization, and if there is some community you think is a special case, whether it’s transgender women, Muslims, or the 85% of Jews who believe in national self-determination (“Zionists”), challenge any internalized biases. Everyone deserves human consideration and individuality. Erasing our human individuality is what fascists do.