I regularly drop stuff off at a local thrift shop whose proceeds help an area animal shelter. The shop's owner is passionate about giving animals a chance -- an unusual attitude in a red-voting town that considers cat ownership odd at best.
She was depressed about the news out of the Gulf Coast, and started talking about all of those poor people who lost everything. Then came the big "but": "But those looters just had to ruin it for everybody." Ah, mmmmkay. Then she claimed that no one knew this disaster was coming, and I gave her the dKos smackdown: facts, facts, facts. And then she gave me a look that said I was crazy to think that the government bears some of the blame for this tragedy.
This woman is a good person, doing good work. So what's with the talking points? Why did the right's memes win out over her compassion? After some reflection, I came to this conclusion: Whether they realize it or not, some conservatives don't think that their fellow Americans are people. This perversion of personhood trickles down from the top and rots at the bottom.
Come on in and sit a spell.
We've had plenty of anecdotal evidence that Bush just doesn't connect -- the inappropriate affect, the bullying nicknames, his off-key comments about Trent Lott's new porch -- but also that he has something that makes a segment of America say, "Hell, yeah!" and bond with him. We can post for days about other government officials putting policy and CYA above the needs of the dying, homeless, and starving. We Kossacks see the humans in the mass of humanity, and know that these could be our faces after an earthquake, a nuclear power plant meltdown, a tornado, or, God forbid, a terrorist attack.
Some conservatives see this too; after all, not all of the Katrina donations have come from Democratic voters, and many traditionally conservative churches are stepping up to help. (And don't forget about the Mennonite Disaster Service, folks.)
But others, the "I-got-mine" crowd, depersonalize the evidence in front of their eyes. People who didn't leave New Orleans "were asking for it" (what, like rape victims?). People taking survival essentials are lumped together with looters. Real people have the foresight and resources to escape; anyone who doesn't is a lazy fool. There are the worthy and the saved, and then there are "those people." The common denominator here is that some Americans become lesser human beings, making it okay for some conservatives not to be compassionate at this time of terrible need.
And this trend gets to conservatives who are good people, too, because the basic tenets -- plan, work hard, provide for your family -- are so in tune with the Protestant work ethic. Those who believe in these things, or at least have their trappings, have full personhood. Those who don't, don't. They're "those people." Political identification gets bound up with ideas of personhood, even though a Republican's personal beliefs may be at odds with the policies that Republicans pursue. The conservative movement acts like a club that grants personhood. (As for the economic conservatives, they're bean counters for whom people are an abstraction, or, at best, wallet-carrying widgets being bitch-slapped by the free market's invisible hand.)
It's not just about race. It's not just about class. It's about how conservative thinking is undermining the great American sentiment that all men are created equal.
I am not a widget. I am not a consumer profile. I am not a statistic. I am not just one of those damn liberals, or just one of those damn gun owners. I am an American, a real person, and a human being -- and so are the hundreds of thousands who have lost everything to Katrina. They aren't "those people." They're us.
Don't let conservatives -- of whatever stripe -- forget that.
