Everyone is an Individual
Charles Lindquist
Journalism Major
University of Oregon
Crowds of angry people storm the city seven streets north of me. What began as a protest against police violence, has become a literal firestorm of violence itself. Protests, like this, have happened across the country and more are planned throughout this weekend. Those protests that have occurred have fallen to the same result as Eugene: the destruction by fire of property.
The protestors are now the perpetrators, and the police are needed to come to the rescue. If only it was this simple. Nothing is this simple when it comes to diversity among people. It is human nature to see people as groups—each individual is just a member of a group. The protestors are not the individuals burning and looting stores. An element of hooliganism had infiltrated the peaceful protest, and claimed it for their own destructive desires. Not every police officer is guilty of violating human rights or murder. Yet we see them all as parts of a social machine: groups.
At Social Construct, we have been promoting a new way of thinking: the only way to interact without bias is on an individual basis. Everyone is an individual. No one is a member of a group. SEE individuals. Rather than judging whole groups, see individual actions, hear individual words, and interaction with individual people. Rather than seeing protesters that loot, see the protesters and see the looters. Do not assume that all protesters are looters and all looters are protesters, because they are not, they are individuals.
Freedom from racism, discrimination, dismissal, hatred and bias comes through human uniqueness. As every one of us is individually unique, the way to embrace this philosophy through action is by accepting every one as an individual.
My father’s time at college was marked by open discussion of every idea from any person. They didn’t have to agree, but they listened and argued based on logic and merit. My time at college, this very day, has been marked by separation and division on campus into and by groups. Which group you belong to defines who you are. If you don’t accept membership in any group (official or organic), don’t worry, everyone else on campus will make that assignment for you. I’m a white man. Those are nothing more than physical characteristics—characteristics I had no choice over. Yet on campus, other people cram me into a group with those physical characteristics, and assign me my group’s thoughts, beliefs, language and actions, even if I as an individual am opposed to the defining characteristics of that forced group. Rather than hear and see what I think, believe, say and do (the things that truly define who I am, the things I have control over), it’s easier for people on campus to dismiss and discredit me as an individual.
This social trend is what got me thinking of a way to promote honest human interaction, and that’s how Social Construct came up with the SEE Individuals project.
SEE Individuals is the challenge to reserve judgement against others until you have taken the time to see them as individuals without dismissing them through arbitrary group assignment. There are no groups. There are only individuals who happen to think, believe, say and do what they choose.
I don’t know how to judge the violence and vandalism outside my window. I believe peaceful protests to demand better treatment from police is a sincere and legitimate use of energy. Stopping police brutality is a valuable goal, especially in the groups they overwhelmingly target. I agree that the system in which law enforcement operates perpetuates a culture of intimidation and violation, where they use a code of silence and hide behind a lack of transparency. I do not agree with damaging public and private property as a means to protest this system. I want police to stop operating in the dark where they put citizen lives in danger. I don’t see how putting more lives in danger through destruction and riot is anything useful.
If the police saw only individuals, not criminals, or profiles, or gangs or groups, perhaps antagonistic interactions would dramatically decrease.
How would our interactions, not just with authority, improve if we too accepted the challenge to SEE Individuals?
“A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.”
― Milton Friedman
