There Is No Them

There is no such thing as them.

You wouldn’t know it, though.

We’ve been bombarded by people being stuffed into that role.

If there is a them, then there is an us we can safely belong to.

Secure in the group, with an enemy out there in the Themness.

It’s a trick, an old one.

The easiest way to unite people is to hand them a common threat—real or not.

Fear makes the lines sharp. Draws them deep.

Turns neighbors into strangers and strangers into dangers.

It’s easier that way.

Easier than the messiness of nuance, the discomfort of recognizing that every single person—every single other—carries the same contradictions and complexities that we do.

That there is no faceless mass. No monolith.

But the illusion is useful.

For control. For profit. For power.

And so, it persists.

They are coming for us.

They want to take what is ours.

They are different, wrong, dangerous.

So we sharpen our words, our laws, our weapons.

We push, and they push back, and the cycle spins tighter.

Until we realize—there was never a them.

Only people. Just like us.

Always,

Your Trusted Friend ♥