In the video “I am human” by Dr. Angelou, the quote that reads: “nothing human can be alien to me.” Means that no matter what act someone of the human species does, even if it’s horrible, or good, or something in between, they will never be excluded from the human race and we will always have the capabilities and choices to do the same thing, nothing they do is “alien” aka unrelated to us.
Throughout our lives we hear of many cases of people coming out of horrible things: child abuse, sex abuse, bullying, war, torture, etc. The people that come out of these things can choose to be like their tormentors or strive to be the opposite. The point is, we like to point fingers at people that come out of these situations, and become the perpetrator, and commit horrible acts, but we are afraid, even terrified, to admit that we are capable of the same violence and injustice that the perpetrators commit. All we need to do to be just like them is to make those choices. An example of this is a case where a Good Samaritan who was trying to save a woman that was being robbed was stabbed, he bleed to death as 25 bystanders made the choice to walk by, instead of helping their fellow man. Now reading this you are probably going “I would never do this, what a bunch of monsters (aliens.)” But you must realize that these are people, like you and me, who made those choices.
In realizing that we are capable of doing the same thing, and may have more in common with these supposed “aliens” than we think, we can realize that we are in danger of doing bad things, more than we realized before. We can learn from other people’s mistakes, big or small. We can use this in everyday life, we can use this to not agree, but understand the motivations and ethical delusions behind our fellow human’s actions.
I can relate this to my life surprisingly well, in many situations I can make “alien” like decisions that from an outsider’s perspective, are horrible. When contemplating doing something bad, I have “ethical delusions” which makes me feel justified in doing a certain thing. For example, if someone does a wrong doing to me, I have a thirst for revenge, I want them to suffer, though rationally I know it’s not right, I think “this would make me feel good, this person has probably wronged someone else, I would be doing a public service.” This helps me go through on doing it with less remorse so it I don’t feel as guilty. I now realize that many horrible humans in the past have done similar things, it’s scary to think that me and you may share more similarities with people like Stalin, and Hitler, but it’s true. Like them I want revenge, and at the core of it all, I am human, just like them.
I can also relate to this because many times in my life I have felt alienated from society, I have many times, and still often do, feel like an alien, a lone wolf, someone not part of the group. This quote helps me realize that though I may not feel like it, I am a part of the human race. It makes me realize that many other people may feel just like me but just do not reveal it, like me. Many people like me, see the “norms” of society, what we should look like, what we should think, what we should feel, what music we should listen to, how we should dress, etc. In seeing these stereotypes that we are allegedly supposed to like, we think, if everyone else is like this and I am not like this, am I human? We try to change ourselves to fit in, to be accepted, well often loosing ourselves in who we really are. In doing this we dislike ourselves for not genuinely being like what we are “supposed” to be like. But this quote enforces and teaches us, that no matter how good or bad we are, no matter how much quirks we have, no matter if we may be visible different, that no matter what people say to us. We will always be a human being. We will never be an alien.
Overall this quote has helped me reflect on allot of things in my life and helped me observe other peoples actions around me in a non-judgemental and much more objective way. I now look at the human race through a new and improved lens.
theartofmadeline
gamechangershow
turnnoffyourmind
kianamaiart
amandla
izzy806
