“Dehumanization” is a word that gets tossed around a lot without people stopping to think about what it means.

The problem isn’t actually that murderous white men get thought of as whole people who are more than their worst moments, even unthinkably awful moments like murdering their own children as part of a paranoid fantasy.

The problem is that, under white supremacy, this full humanity is rarely provided to non-white people doing anything else — not just lesser acts against the law but sometimes merely existing. All will be considered guilty of the worst thing anyone in their category has done.

But as this demonstrates: the capacity for empathy exists and is exercised. The problem is that it is only extended to some people.

this how the photos be lookin in headlines when a white man kills his entire family pic.twitter.com/RBloHm7ylO

— Zack Fox (@zackfox) September 2, 2018

California dad murdered his toddler, infant over fears they had 'serpent DNA': FBI https://t.co/N0v9oypU6T pic.twitter.com/8wq2VKRzwu

— New York Post (@nypost) August 12, 2021