Kate Manne makes a similar argument in her discussion of the aftermath of a police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, where police officers screamed at protesters, “Bring it, you fucking animals, bring it!” For Manne, this can best be seen not as a failure to acknowledge the protesters’ humanity, but as “a slur and a battle cry,” as an “insult that depends, for its humiliating quality, on its targets’ distinctively human desire to be recognized as human beings.”
But again, if the purpose of a battle cry is to prepare for a fight, then reinforcing the inhumanity of your opponents makes total sense and fits with dehumanization quite neatly.
