“They weren’t seen as human. Then they were gone.”

By Shannon Rose

Photo by Sam Mann

“The first step in making another human your enemy is to convince yourself they’re not fully human at all.”

Dehumanization is not just hate speech. It’s not just bigotry. It’s a weapon — used by the powerful to divide, distract, and destroy.
It always starts quietly. With a word. A joke. A law.
And then one day, it’s too late.

The signs are flashing again.
And if we don't recognize them now, history will repeat itself — just as it always has.

A History We Promised Not to Repeat

We’ve seen this before — and the consequences are horrifying.

• In Nazi Germany, before the gas chambers and death camps, Jews were called vermin. Schoolchildren were taught that Jews carried disease. Posters compared them to rats. The genocide began long before the first shot was fired — it began with language.
• In Rwanda, Hutu extremists ran a radio station that broadcasted one message over and over: “The cockroaches must be crushed.” In just 100 days, nearly one million people were slaughtered — many by neighbors who had been taught to see them as insects, not humans.