It was established in “Celebrity, Privacy, and the Embodied Self” that slave owners treated their slaves so harshly due dehumanization on their behalf. It was stated in the article “because slaves were considered property they were denied the rights associated with property ownership, including the right to privacy derived from property-in-self.” Slaves were never regarded as an equal person in the first place, so combined with the fact that slave owners separated them from their families, it made it very hard for others to view them as fellow people. Having experienced this growing up, Douglass was more rebellious than others may have been. Although his “owners” regarded him as more of an object than a human, he still attempted to learn how to read, against his owner’s will.

Especially with the Corona virus going around right now, there is a lot of dehumanizing going on right now. Without knowing all the details, there are people who immediately look down on Asians because the virus originated in China. While that may be a reason to be more cautious when you’re out, it is NOT a reason to forcibly attack and degrade them in public. While it has not happened to me personally, it has happened to a lot of my friends across the country. There are hundreds, probably thousands of cases by now involving racism against the asian community, and it is not unacceptable. American people across the country are posting horrendous videos of them mocking asian culture, and all that is doing is increase stereotypes against Asians. History repeats itself. It involves different groups of people but there has always been instances of dehumanization in history; Nazi Germany, slaves in America, and now increased racism agains the asian community because of the Corona Virus.

Perhaps these people believe that it is okay to treat asians in this unsightly manner because they do not have the virus. If they cared to read about the virus at all, they would know that it doesn’t only affect asians, and not ALL asians have the virus. There are hundreds of those around the world who have contracted the virus that are NOT asian, but they glaze over that fact because they need an excuse for themselves to justify their disgusting behavior.