Dehumanizing Always Starts With Language | Brené Brown

Images often follow after language.

• During the Holocaust, Nazis described Jews as subhuman. Jews were called rats and depicted as disease-carrying rodents - from military pamphlets to children's books.
• Hutus in the Rwanda genocide called the Tutsis cockroaches. 
• Serbs called Bosnians aliens.

We can rehumanize in the same way as dehumanizing - with words and images.

• Be careful when you push the people whom you disagree with into the territory of moral exclusion.
• Find the face of God in everyone you meet, including politicians, media and strangers.

We will all, at some time, experience a real, face-to-face conflict.

Do we have to put up with someone tearing us down or questioning the right to exist? Is there a line that shouldn't be crossed?

The line is usually drawn at physical and emotional safety.