There were many efforts slave masters used to dehumanize the enslaved people who worked for them. Frederick Douglass describes the horrible treatment that the slaves received. The slave masters took everything from the slaves from their rights, privacy, freedom, and etc. Being able to take away the basic human rights easily enabled the slave owners to justify the way they treated their slaves. These efforts resulted in Douglass standing up for what he believed was right.

I personally believe that there are more dehumanizing practices today than there was in the past. I personally think that xenophobia is one of the most dehumanizing practices today. Ever since the Corona Virus scare, the way that people look at me changed. I take the Q28 bus, 7, and 6 subway every day. At the beginning of the coronavirus scare, I had caught a cold and I was constantly coughing. Whenever I got into the bus or the subway, I would try to hold my cough with all my strength, but holding the cough in makes it worse and makes you cough a lot more. So, every time I coughed, literally everyone on the same car would stare at me as if I was a crazy person and would cover their mouths. One time on my way home there were approximately five people that were in the same car as me and they all moved to the next car because I was coughing. A few days ago, I went to Bellevue’s emergency room because someone had thrown a baseball at my sister’s face and ran away. When I went to the front desk of the ER and asked if they knew if my sister’s ambulance got to the hospital yet. The lady covered her mouth the moment I approached her and told me to wait because she was going to go on her lunch break (it was 6 pm). So, I sat down anxiously waiting and the lady proceeded to help the others in the line (didn’t cover her mouth) and never went on a lunch break she was supposed to go to. I eventually went in because my sister saw me as they were taking her to her room. My mom also told me that the lady in the front was covering her mouth when talking to her and just told her to sit down and wait while helping others. In a group chat on Instagram, one of my friends (non-Asian) had sent a post about the coronavirus and said “this is why I don’t go to flushing.” Me and my friend got pretty offended by it and told him that it was offensive. Instead of apologizing for it, he posted a photo of my friends’ boyfriend face on a cracker (he’s white), and racist coronavirus memes.