Searching for equality in a world full of strangers.

Martine Beijerman moved to States in the summer of 2016. At the end of May 2021, her book was published in Dutch: Vreemde Eenden. Op zoek naar gelijkheid in een wereld vol anderen.

During the summer of 2020 fear, anger and indignation flare up in the US after the murder of George Floyd, yet another incident of police brutality. Worldwide, people take to the streets to demonstrate: Black Lives Matter. Racism is a Pandemic Too. Equality for All. Both American and Dutch societies are confronted with a strange paradox: on one side we say we strongly believe in democratic values such as equality and freedom for all, while on the other side racism, antisemitism, homophobia, violence against religious minorities and oppression of women - just to name a few examples of exclusion - exclude countless individuals from the opportunity to live in peace and security. 

Between wish and reality

To bridge our wish and this reality, activists are fighting - day in, day out - to live up to the democratic promise of freedom and equality for all. As a result, most countries are a lot more inclusive than they were a hundred years ago. Emancipation movements have achieved that women and ethnic minorities can vote. In more and more democracies, homosexuals can legally marry. Racism is rejected as immoral. The prohibition of discrimination is firmly anchored in constitutions and international treaties. Democratic states protect freedom of expression, of belief, of sexuality. And they protect equality, whatever your origins or beliefs may be. At least, on paper. 

From the beginning of 2018 onwards, I have immersed myself in the topic of exclusion by talking to scientists, studying research, by having conversations with friends, dissecting podcasts and watching documentaries. In my book Vreemde Eenden. Op zoek naar gelijkheid in een wereld vol anderen, I investigate how group dynamics work, what role our biological and psychological processes play, how we relate to ‘the other’, who benefits from exclusion and why we find it so hard to talk about it. 

Let’s start with the positive news. Humans are flexible: we can change, adapt and adjust. Over the last hundred years our society has become much more progressive. But the journey is just getting started. There is racially disproportionate police violence, and structurally fewer opportunities for certain groups of citizens to get jobs, good education, a safe neighborhood, a mortgage and appropriate healthcare.  Our societies consist of complex ingroup versus outgroup dynamics that are influenced by fear, power, rhetoric, prejudice, and psychological mind bugs. How do we deal with social changes in democracies? And how do oppressed groups challenge those in power? In order to achieve equality, we need to put a magnifying glass on these dynamics, on our discomfort and our resistance that arise when inequality is addressed.

Us and them

Since forever, we form groups. Groups function as protection against outside threats, as a way to take care of each other, to learn from each other, to share knowledge, rituals and traditions. Every human being seeks for a sense of belonging, for being accepted by a group. Although a group is fundamental to our sense of belonging, nowadays we also want to individually determine our identity, and we seek recognition for the autonomous choices we make. In this constant dynamic of belonging and deviating, we tend to make a clear distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’. This happens everywhere: at the playground, at work, but also between different peoples fighting for their ‘rightful’ claim of territory. The distinctions we make between groups of people are often based on stereotypical thoughts, of which some roam around for centuries. These thoughts lead to prejudices on who ‘the other’ is or what the other does or should do. 

Group dynamics, when combined with fears and survival instincts, make people vulnerable to the rhetoric of a political leader who is actively seeking to assert its power through the deprivation of the freedoms of other groups in society. When looking for a justification of oppression, it is extremely effective to characterize ‘the other’ as inherently different from ourselves, as a threat to our existence. ‘The other’ can be presented in many different ways, as ‘less human’, or ‘wild’ instead of ‘civilized’. A rhetoric that builds on the human tendency to create social hierarchies can lead to aggression and organized violence, but also to everyday examples of exclusion and structural racism.

A conversation on exclusion is often difficult and sensitive. The significance of exclusion as a social phenomenon is often downplayed. The majority in a society seems to rely blindly on existing frameworks of non-discrimination laws and policy. Others doubt the truthfulness of the call for change of anti-exclusion activists. The discussion on exclusion often focuses on the perpetrators or victims, but not so much on this silent majority, and the very powerful role they often play in supporting an unequal society. A conversation on exclusion is often further complicated by feelings of guilt, apathy and shame. 

Who do we want to be?

We humans have a confusing combination of moral contradictory tendencies. We are flexible in making new groups and drawing new dividing lines. This makes us on the one hand vulnerable to populist rhetoric, but also open to new, inclusive stories. An inclusive society starts with collective self-reflection and critical love, for the other but also for ourselves. With critical love, we prevent ourselves from falling into the trap of focusing on difference, on a misstep of another, on the creation of a fictional enemy, on excluding someone who deviates from our morals or ‘normal’. Collective self-reflection makes us aware of possible well-intended but inefficient pitfalls in the struggle for more equality. Such as the presumption that we ourselves are free from stereotypes and judgments, the assumption that it is mainly other people who exclude, and the trap of seeking salvation in the confirmation of ‘the other’ in order to free ourselves from our own mistakes.

By Martine Beijerman
For the NLCLUB.NYC
May 31st, 2021