When the face doesn't fit

• Autores: Laura Spinney
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2952, 2014, págs. 39-41
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Adolf Hitler did it when he referred to German Jews as viruses, parasites and rats. In Rwanda, Hutu extremists did it to the Tutsis, calling them cockroaches before killing half a million of them in the bloody genocide of 1994. Dehumanization has long been thought of as a precursor to extreme acts of violence, but it is alarmingly common, as anyone who follows the news will be aware. To take just two recent, high-profile examples, Italy's first black cabinet minister, Cecile Kyenge, was compared to an orang-utan by a fellow politician, and in France a candidate for the National Front party likened the black justice minister, Christiane Taubira, to a monkey. Here, Spinney wonders why people have a tendency to see outsiders as less human than themselves.