Last week I was walking down a sidewalk when I encountered a
mole that had left its hole and somehow waddled across a sidewalk, fell over
the curb and was now in danger of being run over by a car, or eventually
expiring from a slow death due to a lack of its natural environmental supports.
I took out a paper napkin out of my pocket and picked it up; I was surprised by
its rather smooth coat of hair. I placed it on the sidewalk and tried to nudge
it up the grass embankment toward the its burrow, which apparently it had
mistakenly bored through into daylight. Its legless appendages made climbing
excessively difficult, so I had to pick it up again and place into near its
hole in the ground. The mole’s blindness still prevented any progress in this
pursuit, so I had to gently nudge it with my foot until it finally scrambled
back into the safety of its home.
While I was engaged thus, a car drove into the parking lot
of an adjacent business. An employee got out of the car and seemed “interested”
in what I was doing. I don’t know if she actually knew what I was doing; she
seemed more focused on me than on any interest in the helpless animal I was
trying to save from certain death. When I had accomplished my mission I
continued on down the sidewalk as before; however, I couldn’t help but to
observe that this other person seemed “relieved” that I was moving on, although
she did an unconvincing job of concealing it in that patronizing way that some white people
have toward those of lesser social status. I knew her “interest” only went so
far as she was certain I was no longer posed a “threat” to her car. I blurted
out that I was more “human” than she was, which I could tell took her by
“surprise,” because I’m not really a human being, but a subspecies that only
thinks in terms of satisfying “natural” requirements, not anything of a
“higher” order.
Of course being “human” can be a complicated thing. Some
people lust for money; it gives them a “thrill” just by the idea of
accumulating it, even if it is far beyond their requirements and comes at the
cost of reducing the living wage of many others. A greedy squirrel may hoard
nuts and bury them in seemingly random places where it may never find them
again; is this a “human” or “animal” trait? What is the difference? Some might
say that being “human” is something that rejects efforts to divide people into
widely (and wildly) varying levels of existence. It seems that there is little of
what the dictionary defines as “compassion, sympathy, or consideration”
for fellow humans among those whose existence is defined by their self-serving
cupidity.
I know a person named Solomon, who
obviously comes from a very different culture than this one. I never asked him
his religious affiliation, but he is one of the few people I have met who
actually believes that God expects him to share what for him passes for good
fortune with others he perceives to be less fortunate. It apparently makes him
feel right with his maker. He is not a billionaire philanthropist, but makes a
humble living driving a short-haul truck. Not far from where I encounter
this individual is the Regional Animal Shelter in Kent, and every time I walk
past the place the paranoia I always feel emanating from the people within makes
me think they think that I am less than the animals they keep; at those times I
allow myself to wonder how animals these “compassionate” humans “put to sleep”
every month.
It’s not hard to rationalize what makes a person “human” if
you are on the receiving end. To some people you are no more than “The Invisible
Man” of the Ralph Ellison novel—not worthy of human consideration, only that
which consumes their primal fears; how do this arrogant lack of humanity makes
them so much more “human”? We may also ask the same about people with
gangbanger pretentions, who want to beat you up or kill you if you don’t
“respect” their “humanity”; yet it is difficult to discern what it is that they
call “humanity.” Women can be either your best friend—or your worst enemy;
sometimes you think the worst in humanity is represented in the latter case.
If you are a certain “ethnicity” in this country, every day
you can feel demeaned in some way, based on the stereotypes and prejudices people
possess. If you want to arouse a “passionate” response from me, make a false
accusation or imply that you think I have “criminal” intent. At work, I can’t
help but to observe that things that other people do without being cause of
“suspicion” become so when someone sees me doing them, and new “rules” are
applied to alleviate “concerns” stemming from those stereotypical or
prejudicial attitudes someone has of me. Another thing I cannot help but to
observe is that every time someone uses the word “Mexican,” it seems meant to
have the same demeaning connotation as any racial slur or insinuation of something subhuman—and it seems perfectly
“acceptable” and “expected” to do so.
I admit that I can’t make the claim that
I’m more “human” than others. To be frank, sometimes I think that I’m the only
charity case I know; that tends to be true when you live in your own world and
avoid human contact unless when necessary. This also has the side effect of
allowing people to see in me in whatever aspect they choose to, and act upon
those assumptions, whether for good or evil. Being “human” is having the
ability to differentiate between the two states of being; some people cannot.
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