We watch the news, hopefully not too much, and we see people’s inhumanity toward other humans. We are, at times, not able to see each other as fully and uniquely human.
But why?
What I say and share here is not politically motivated nor am I approaching this as a left or right issue. It’s a human issue, and that’s all it is.
Inhumanity happened in my hometown, Grand Junction, Colorado. This is what happened, as reported by various news agencies.
Patrick Thomas Egan, 39, was arrested on Dec. 18, 2024, for an unprovoked assault on KJCT reporter Ja'Ronn Alex in Grand Junction, Colorado. The attack was racially motivated and targeted Alex because he is a Pacific Islander.
What happened?
Egan followed Alex while he was on assignment in Delta, Colorado. Egan demanded Alex's ID and repeatedly questioned whether he was American. Egan yelled, “I'm a Marine and I took an oath to protect this country from people like you."
Egan choked Alex for up to 90 seconds, causing his face to turn red and show signs that he was struggling to breathe. Station employees rushed to Alex's side and held Egan on the ground until police arrived. What was Egan charged with? Assault by strangulation, bias motivated crime and harassment by ethnic intimidation.
That’s disturbing.
Here's what I’d like to do in this and in the following columns. I want to explore this issue with you. I’d like to explore reasons why we are not always able to see each other as human. I’d like to look at this issue from a psychological perspective, a sociological, human perspective, and throw in some of my familial and personal experiences.
What I will say at this juncture is that you and I all have subconscious biases based on hackneyed ideas that influence how we see others. Hackneyed ideas can lead us to automatic judgements based on social categories rather than individual characteristics.
One factor is simply our lack of exposure. In other words, we may have limited experience with people from different ethnicities, cultures and backgrounds. This is true of you, me and everyone else. I know I can admit with certainty I have made snap judgments of others because of my lack of exposure.
I had just such an instance happen when I was in college in Oklahoma attending Southern Nazarene University in the early 1980s, studying to become a minister. One day, while driving to a bookstore on the other side of town in Bethany, a suburb of Oklahoma City.
Having grown up in rural Colorado, I had little experience with the cultures and people I encountered in Oklahoma.
It was past noon, and I was getting hungry. I had very little spending money, but I did work part-time at a day care center at the church I attended. I loved working with the kids. I made up a game called “animal guess.” The kids absolutely loved it. In the animal guess game, children, one at a time, acted like any animal they wanted. If they couldn’t think of one, I would suggest one. They couldn’t say anything, only act it out. The other children watched and then raised their hands to make a guess. If the child performing animal guess would stump other kids, they continued. If guessed correctly by another child, the correct guesser would be next. I was amazed at the children’s creativity; we would laugh together and enjoy the game together for hours. I don’t know if any of the children I worked with back then remember the game or me, but I remember them. I loved them all.
Now back to Oklahoma City … next time!
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Richard Stride is the current CEO of Cascade Community Healthcare.
