Abuse and discontent are an everyday element of North American culture. Tempers run high in regards to race, sexual orientation, religion, and opinions surrounding those things; everyone feels the need to defend, protect, or state their own position. Much of this is because of the individualization that is so prominent in our culture (which is really honestly just homogenization), and because these people over here want to hold this opinion while those ones over there hold the opposite, and each one wants the other to come to their side.
We’ve got to start valuing people based on sentience, instead of history or origin. It doesn’t matter if they’re a robot, a cow, a woman, or a person of colour; if they can think for themselves or represent something that does, then consider the morality of how you treat them. Racism, sexism, ageism, heterosexism — the list goes on, all of them can be traced back to some sort of difference in history, standing, opinion, or origin from the accuser to the accused. If we take away the qualifications that we place on respect and come from a starting point of “the being across from me still can feel pain regardless if I disagree with them,” then mutual pleasure in coexistence is much more probable.
