The Absolute Requirement for Radical Humanization

Dear Friend,

What an incredibly painful week, one full of shock, rage, blame, and overwhelm. It felt like this week had two distinct parts: the actual horrific violence of the Colorado shooting and the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk, and then… the response.

What struck me most, and I suspect it struck you too, was the relentless undercurrent of dehumanization. The muted coverage of yet another school shooting carried out by a teenager. The assassination of Charlie Kirk, whose rhetoric for years stripped dignity from anyone who was not white, male, straight, and Christian. The assassin himself, who reduced Kirk to nothing more than a target. And then, finally, the response: a tidal wave of commentary that was less about mourning or reflection than about performance, partisanship, and rage. From my viewpoint, it was a week when the internet showed us, in unvarnished clarity, the ugliest version of itself.

Now the question becomes, where do we go from here. For me, the only direction that makes sense is the opposite one, and we need to run there, as quickly as we possibly can.

We need to move straight into: radical humanization.

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Let’s just sit with those two words for a second.

Radical, comes from the Latin word that means root.
Humanization, to make human.

We gotta return to the root of what it means to be human and make others more human. Consciously, consistently, powerfully, and we need to begin yesterday. As far as I can tell, the phrase itself is not widely coined, but the practice is hardly new. The idea of affirming humanity in the face of erasure runs deep in social justice traditions, theological writings, and educational thought.

To say it plainly: we need to practice seeing the humanity in us, and also beyond us. And that get’s tricky, right!? That means noticing when we reduce someone to an enemy, a caricature, or a headline. It means slowing down enough to imagine what fear or pain might feel like from the ‘other side’ of the screen, or the ‘other side’ of the political divide, or whatever we are saying “the other side” might be. It means daring to grant dignity even when we disagree, even when we cannot condone the words or the actions.

If dehumanization is the slow erosion of empathy, then radical humanization is the deliberate work of restoring it.

And - goodness - because the universe works in such divinely orchestrated ways, I was given the chance to practice this my-damn-self! I shit you not, as I was writing about radical humanization and wondering what it truly means in my own life, practically… a message landed in my DMs. And boom - it immediately sparked a sense of protection.