Those People
- Joshua Rumple
- Jul 13, 2020
- 5 min read
There is one idea out there that I find to be more dangerous than most: an Us-versus-Them mindset.
In short, what I mean is that there is a proverbial ‘other’ that we blame things on. As an extreme example, look at how Jewish people were treated in the years up to and through the Holocaust. They were the ‘other’ that was posing a threat to the Germans, the ‘us’.
Or we can look at the current political climate in the United States, where we are often polarized between conservatives and liberals, being forced to choose one side or the other, to see anyone who has a different political ideology as ‘them’.
We can see it in ourselves when we start saying things like, “Can you believe what they are doing?” or “Well that’s not what we believe.”
If you hear yourself or others use the words ‘them’, ‘we’, or other similar words, you may want to critically assess your intentions and motives for being in that conversation.
The idea is so prevalent that it is almost universal in scope when it comes to how humans think. Very early on in our development, we begin to think in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’. We bond to our mother from birth, almost confusing our self with our mother. From there, we learn about our family, discovering those who are safe and those who are not. Every stranger becomes a ‘them’ while our family and friends become an ‘us’.
This is a good thing for our development. We should distinguish between people we know and strangers. It is a fundamental aspect of what makes us human, as we figure out who is in our tribe, our clan, our people. Inherently, this creates an Us-versus-Them mindset.
But we cannot stay there.
Strangers do not pose any greater threat than those whom we consider to be a part of our ‘Us’. In fact, we are far more likely to be assaulted by someone we know as opposed to someone we don’t. For one example, according to the American Journal of Emergency Medicine:
“Sexual assault by a person known to the victim accounted for 646 (76%) cases.”
So why are we more afraid of strangers than we are of people we know? I don’t have an answer for that, but it is something to keep in mind.
Still, the idea that there is an Us-versus-Them pervades almost every aspect of society, and it is dangerous. It gives rise to racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, and any other ‘-ism’ you can think of. When someone is different, no matter how minor the difference, we so easily see them as the ‘other’, someone who is not ‘us’. Inevitably, anyone who is ‘other’ becomes a danger to us, at least according to our flawed imagination.
The first time I realized this was when I was in high school.
For a little while in high school, I worked at a store called Meijer. For those of you not from the Midwest, Meijer is almost exactly like Walmart, but it doesn’t feel as gross inside. My job was to work in the Health and Beauty Care department, making sure the shelves looked nice and helping with any customer questions. I have plenty of stories from my time there, most of them humorous. Some of them were horrifying.
This one was both.
A lady came up to me while I was making sure the toothpaste shelves were organized and clean. Seriously, people carelessly knock boxes over, put things back in the wrong place, and generally cause a mess. I still have a hard time walking through a store and not fixing the shelves because I want them to look neat.
While I worked, a lady came up and was looking at the toothpaste. I asked if she needed any help and her response was to ask why I thought the toothpaste was so expensive. I had never been asked something like this before, so I was caught off guard. Whatever my response was, it wasn’t good enough for her because she already knew the answer.
“It’s because of the Mexicans. They’re coming in here and taking our jobs.” How she connected it to the rise in toothpaste cost is beyond me, but she was confident it was because of immigrants from Mexico.
According to her, it was their fault.
It was ‘them’.
And now we have to pay more for toothpaste.
Against ‘us’.
To say I was surprised is a tremendous understatement.
Authoritarian leaders have often risen to power throughout history by finding someone to blame. Often, these leaders defeat their enemies through brutality and horrifying tactics. Leaders such as Nero, Constantine, Andrew Jackson, Hitler, Stalin, Kim Jong Un, and many others have weaponized Us-versus-Them.
The United States is not above reproach. Our very existence is due to the attempted genocide of Indigenous peoples, the enslavement of Africans, and the ongoing military conquest of the world. We placed Japanese people into concentration camps during World War II, children in cages now on the Mexican border, and millions of people into prisons (Black and Latinx folks at a significantly higher rate). This is who we are, and it is the very worst part about who we are.
When a leader is able to demonize entire groups of people, it becomes remarkably easy to justify violence against them. When people are called animals, we have already de-humanized them, paving the way to commit horrific acts of inhumane injustice against ‘them’. We can justify placing children in cages, allowing the police to murder innocent lives, and drop bombs on civilians half a world away.
These are just some of the devastating consequences of us operating with an Us-vs-Them mindset. We see others as a threat to our way of life, justifying any violence against them because ‘they deserve it’.
If we fail to recognize this, we will continue to perpetuate the violence in the world.
As musician and activist Andre Henry says frequently, “It doesn’t have to be this way.” We can choose to be better than this.
I believe in you. I really do.
I think it is antithetical to my faith to have an ‘Us-versus-Them’ mindset. For me, the goal of faith is to continually increase the borders of my own heart until everyone can fit inside. My goal is to build a bigger and bigger table until everyone is fed.
In Christ, there is no ‘them’. Even our enemies are worthy of love.
Perhaps, we can even reach a place where there are no enemies. It’s idealistic, sure, but is it not something worth trying.
This is a moment to do so.
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