Which Lives Matter?

This chapter puzzles out why the conviction that there are “higher” and “lower” kinds of beings is so stubbornly rooted in the human way of life. It traces the origins of such a way of thinking. The chapter reveals that racial supremacist beliefs are part of a much larger framework, within which the relationship between race and dehumanization becomes much clearer. Racial thinking and dehumanizing thinking both rely on psychological essentialism, but both also rely on hierarchical thinking. Racialized people are typically thought of as lesser human beings. Because they possess an inferior racial essence, they are thought to be by their very nature at a lower level within the rank of the human. But dehumanized people are thought of as possessing the essence of a subhuman animal. That is what makes them less than human rather than lesser humans.