When I think of the word “democracy”, a couple different concepts come to my mind immediately. ‘Community’, ‘participation’, and ‘republic’ are the three of them, and what binds all of them together is the idea of people. We as individuals, as groups, and as a society have a duty to make sure democracy survives. Without us, there would be no democracy. So ideally, I believe that we are all responsible for it, but if we don’t communicate and participate, our so called “democracy” is going to vanish. As American citizens we have multiple rights that we can exercise to actively participate in our democracy. Voting, serving the jury, and running for office are just a few examples. The sad part though, is that a lot of times, citizens choose not to participate. We have the right to voice our opinions and thoughts, but I hear people say all the time that they don’t want to participate. This devastates me, because it reminds of the past, and how some individuals wanted to participate so badly, but could not. After reading the first article, an individual named Zora Neal Hurston faced a lot of difficulty trying to participate, and the Jim Crow Laws were the main reasons for it.
By creating this article and voicing her opinion, Zora Neal Hurston is somewhat participating in democracy. Her political excerpt becomes a voice for not only her life, but for the many lives constrained under the Jim Crow Laws. I wish she could have participated fully; but because she was African American and a women, she could not vote. Her voice was still important in order to have an effective democracy though. A true democracy revolves around all people, no matter their skin color or race. This also plays into the fact that we need to think of democracy as a process because nothing can be 100% agreed upon, and nothing can be 100% accurate. In Zora Neal Hurston’s case, I feel as if democracy was not like a process. Rich white folks made policies without the entire community participating in creating them, and it specifically affected Zora Neal Hurston because she couldn’t be an active participant in “the presence of numerous Jim Crow laws.
It is very necessary to have an effective voice like hers because it reminds us of the diversity that thrives in our opinions and in our community. It’s a reminder that there are going to be multiple perspectives on political topics.In today’s society, I do feel like this is “the way of life”. However, I still find a lot of people ignoring the duty to actively participate.. In order for our society to be more polished, we need everyone to vote and actively participate. This also runs hand in hand with the idea that democracy should extend to your workplace. My family runs multiple businesses, and I always find that the more the employees voice their opinions and perspectives on business tactics, the better our environment becomes. Not all of our policies are 100% amazing, so when the employees come together and try to find better solutions, I always see a better future for our business. As stated in the article, with my own experience, I can agree that our business meetings and cooperative tasks “encourage, a sense of pride, equality, and responsibility that strengthens the business”.
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After reading all of the articles, I do believe that the term “dehumanization” revolves around denying someone their “personhood”. I believe so because dehumanization is defined as “the ability to see fellow men and women as less than human” (Resnick, 1); and denying someone their personhood means revoking their “ability to assert rights.” Both of these definitions have a common factor, and that is the idea of seeing an someone as “lesser than”. Both of these terms come hand in hand because they deny equality and citizenship, in my opinion. In today’s society, I do feel like we have forgotten how strongly and quickly our language can dehumanize and deny people of their personhood. For example, “illegal” is one of those terms, and our society has normalized it’s negativity in our everyday language.We have so easily tied the idea of being “illegal” with the ideas of denying personhood and dehumanizing people. The sad part is that a lot of times people don’t even know they’re referencing such inhumane ideas. In Resnick’s article, there’s a statement that says “every day, good people who don’t see themselves as being prejudiced bigots are nevertheless falling prey to it.”
Spakovsky’s article, on the other hand, has a completely different view on this. Actually, the article finds that there is nothing wrong with using the phrase “illegal alien”. In fact, there’s a sentence in there that specifies ““Illegal alien” is the correct legal term that should be used” (Spakovsky, 1). What confuses me though, is that the article also states the term ““Undocumented immigrant” is a politically correct”” term. So why aren’t we using it? If we already know how negatively affected our society becomes by using terms like “illegal alien” why haven’t we switched it to “undocumented immigrant” since it is also an equally correct term?
This devastates me to the core. We should never allow this normalization to continue, and it’s the vocabulary we use that repeatedly sparks this negativity. As explained in the Human Rights Watch article, we need to correct the way we speak to one another to diminish the correlation of dehumanization to legalness. By switching the usage of “illegal aliens” to “undocumented immigrants” we can easily start getting rid of the negativity. When you actually pay attention to the phrases, you realize that they create two completely different atmospheres. The first phrase, “illegal aliens” entices an inhumane and “lesser than” atmosphere, while the second phrase “undocumented immigrant” keeps the ideas of personhood and humanity in tact. By simply changing our vocabulary we can stop the normalization of thinking “illegal” relates to “denying personhood”.
I do believe that if an individual is denied their personhood, for no reason, they are being denied their natural rights. As human beings, personhood should always come automatically. This is not something that has to be worked for or earned. It is given- naturally. However, on the same note, I do believe in the action of due process as well. I feel like, under certain circumstances and extreme cases, that it may be acceptable to defy natural law. For example, innocent killings and mass murders may be some types of extreme situations.
Works Cited
- Spakovsky, Hans von. “‘Undocumented Immigrant’ Is a Made-Up Term That Ignores the Law.” The Heritage Foundation, www.heritage.org/immigration/commentary/undocumented-immigrant-made-term-ignores-the-law.
- “Politics of Dehumanization in the United States.” Human Rights Watch, 27 July 2018, www.hrw.org/news/2018/07/27/politics-dehumanization-united-states.
- Resnick, Brian. “The Dark Psychology of Dehumanization, Explained.” Vox.com, Vox Media, 7 Mar. 2017, www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/3/7/14456154/dehumanization-psychology-explained.
