Reduction of persons

Reduction of persons
into friends and enemies
betrays small vision
driven by fear

Snap judgments
drive compulsive sorting
of good versus everyone else

Diminishing circles of friends
birth expanding circles of enemies

Profiling writ large
defaces our common humanity

Vain attempts to maintain control
over an imagined world
guarantee nothing–
not even my survival
at the cost of yours

***

With thanks to the Oxford English Dictionary for its entry on ‘uniform’ as a verb. Here’s a choice quotation from the July 1887 edition of Harper’s Magazine: “It is a human device to uniform people into friends and enemies.”

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 5 June 2017
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Uniform