In conflict I’ve noticed it’s common to dehumanize the enemy. It makes it easier to literally strip their life away. We, another Human being, take the chance they have to live a full life because they’re the “enemy”. NOTE: THIS THREAD DOES NOT APPLY TO ARMED COMBATANTS.

That’s right, it’s another thread . So in this quarantine I’ve been watching a lot of shows and playing a lot of games, and one show in particular really got to me. The Expanse. It may be a fictional show about the future of the solar system, but it is still relevant.

To boil it down, in the show there are three factions (4 if you include backstabbing politicians and corps, or 5 if you include the main issue they have to solve). They are Earth, Mars (both together called Inners), and the Belters.

Earth basically expanded and colonized Mars. Eventually they wanted independence because everything they produced was still property of the United Nations, and they felt they were being overworked and undercompensated. So they kicked Earth out.

Since then, Earth and Mars have been on a razor’s edge to wiping each other out (at one point Earth had a fleet enroute ready to turn Mars into glass with nuclear weapons). However, they managed to work together to colonize the Asteroid Belt and mine ice, iron, and other ores.

Eventually, people made cities in the mined asteroids and thus the Belters were born, the major colonies inside of Ceres and Eros, along with other large asteroids. Earth and Mars also managed to set up farming greenhouses together on Ganymede and split the moon up.

However, at least 173 years later, Mars and Earth are STILL at each other’s throats and ready to turn the other planet to glass and their fleets into slag. The Belters, essentially slaves producing ores and ice for the Inners, are getting angry.

In the show, after a bunch of arcs happen and a few climaxes are reached, there is a ship carrying refugees from somewhere. The refugees consist of “Earthers”, “Dusters” (Martians), and Belters. At one point in the journey, the ship (a Belter ore hauler) decided to unload cargo.

Except this cargo isn’t boxes. It’s Humans. These were REFUGEES caught in the middle of a conflict they had NO part in, but because they were born on Earth or Mars they were jettisoned into space where they asphyxiated to death. These were farmers and Agritechs. Not soldiers.

The Belters were so angry because of a few people in power that made decisions, and as such dehumanized EVERY Inner. Granted, there are a lot more things going on behind the scenes, but the fact remains that people were angry because they perceived every sinner was oppressive.

So where are the parallels in real life, you may wonder? There are a couple. Hitler comes to mind. He blamed the Jews for the issues Germany was facing. And as a result the Holocaust occurred.

In 2001 after the 9/11 attacks Muslims and Arabs were targeted by racist attacks. Many of these victims were American citizens who had never stepped foot outside of the US much less the Middle East. But because of the actions of a few, anyone like them were targeted.

And my favorite one, the racism divide in the US. I’ve come across too many “I hate all white People” comments, both in real life and social media. They HATE all white people on sight because of the actions of others.

Now this thread isn’t to solve islamaphobia, racism, or anything like that. It’s to get you thinking: WHY do we do this? Why do we dehumanize people we perceive to have done wrong against us, whether they did or not, and in some cases resort to violence?