“Just treat them as persons,
as human beings,” the writer
wrote — such hopeful words
in the face of the ever, al-
ways face of fear, ever and
always reducing the other
to a dehumanized state in
order to spit on them, beat
them, crush them, destroy
them as threats to those who
don’t know who they are and,
perhaps, never will and so,
actually, are the very ones in
a dehumanized state who
sip their single malt scotch
behind gates with other de-
humanized humans huddling to-
gether in some silly sense
of security until the gates
eventually come down as
gates always eventually
do.