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The Conversation USA

There's a dark political history to language that strips people of their dignity

  • Written by William A. Donohue, Distinguished Professor of Communication, Michigan State University

Dehumanizing language often precedes genocide.

One tragic example: Extreme dehumanizing language was a strong contributor to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. As I have written, the Hutu majority used a popular radio station to continually refer to Tutsi tribal members, a minority in Rwanda, as “cockroaches.”

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