Perhaps it is my age, or perhaps it is my experience, but I have a visceral and negative reaction towards anyone who seeks to divide us up. I see such framings as that I used for the title of this post as seeking to designate some as "other" and thus not worthy of respect nor or recognition of rights.
On the one hand, in some ways I might qualify for many examples of "Us" - I was born into an upper middle class family, both parents having degrees from an Ivy League college, both being professionals. I am myself the graduate of a prestigious liberal arts college, with several advanced degrees. My spouse is a Mayflower descendant, and a descendant of a Revolutionary War general.
Yet I easily qualify for status as "Them" - my family is of Eastern European Jewish descent, I am an active union member, I participated actively in the civil rights movement as a late adolescent and young adult, and - oh my god - I am a public school teacher. I am a liberal and a progressive. I am a Democrat. Members of our extended families (including by marriage) are gay -Native American - Black - Hispanic.
I am willing to label words and actions, but not people. That is, someone who discriminates or acts or speaks in a racist manner needs to have that appropriately labeled, yet does that irrevocably place that person beyond redemption? I wonder. If we do so, are we not as guilty as are those we consider racists in reading out some of our fellow humans?
I want a politics and a set of policies that includes, and does not exclude - by race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, income, or education. I do not view some professions as inherently more worthy than others - one can be a mean-spirited teacher or spiritual leader, one can use one's business acumen and wealth to benefit others and society as a whole.
So what does that make me?
I suppose that makes me a human being, one who longs for greater connection among us all.
It is in part why I have spent more than 16 years in public school classrooms.
It is in part why I have found something of a spiritual home in the Religious Society of Friends, because I take seriously the teaching of George Fox that we are to walk gladly across the earth answering that of God in each person we encounter.
It is why I seek to understanding the thinking of those whose approaches to many things are different than my own.
I acknowledge that I am easily judgmental, in my thoughts, and far too often in my own words and actions. I take responsibility for my failure to live up to my own ideals.
I have been through enough strife and conflict, in politics and other endeavors, to understand the easy path of demonizing, of classifying someone as "other" - describing her as part of "them."
We will not survive as a democratic republic if we continue to allow this divisiveness to be the governing paradigm.
We may not survive as a human race if we do not find ways to overcome our differences.
I remember the words of Lyndon Johnson that are the voiceover for the famous Daisy ad. Listen carefully:
"These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We either must love each or other, or we must die."
To see people as "them" is the first step of going into the dark.
I choose instead the path of light.
We are all "Us".
There should be no "Them".
Peace?