If You Ain’t Better Than Them…

Why the need to be above someone else keeps fuelling hate — and what we must see instead.

When Gene Hackman died recently, I revisited some of his finest performances. Among them, Mississippi Burning stands apart—not for its action or intensity, but for a quiet, devastating story his character tells about his father.

His father, a poor white man, couldn't bear the sight of a Black neighbour who had managed to buy a mule. A symbol of success. A small step upward. The man's pride couldn't take it. One day, the mule was poisoned. Dead. And Hackman, as a boy, saw the truth on his father's face.

"My old man was just so full of hate, he didn't know that bein' poor was what was killing him."

That's it. That's the rot at the core of so much prejudice: when you have nothing, your last refuge is being better than someone else.

No wealth. No status. No power. But at least you're not them. And if you lose even that… what are you?

This isn't just an American story.

                                          Two years before the events depicted in Mississippi Burning

1957: Little Rock, Arkansas

Fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Eckford walks alone toward Central High School. A mob surrounds her. The image is now famous—grace in the foreground, fury behind. Screaming at her is another teenager, Hazel Bryan. She wasn't wealthy. She had no privilege beyond skin colour. But on that day, she had something to feel above someone else.

They reconnected decades later. Hazel apologised. They stood side-by-side in staged reconciliation. But it didn't last. Because shame can live as long as hate—and being screamed at as a child doesn't disappear with a handshake.

                                                   Different decade. Different country. Same sickness.

2001: Belfast, Northern Ireland

Different country, same story. Holy Cross Girls' Primary School. Catholic children in uniforms. Loyalist adults screaming, throwing bottles. Every day for weeks. Police escorts. News cameras. And the same brutal logic: They may be children, but they're not us. And we need to be above them.

These weren't rich communities. They were crushed by the same poverty, same poor housing, same history of loss. But that pain was redirected—turned into walls and chants and threats. Because nothing unites quite like a shared enemy.

Today: Across Europe and Beyond

The faces have changed, but the logic hasn't. Now the targets are migrants. Refugees. Asylum seekers. People in search of safety, scapegoated by those in search of identity.

People living with food insecurity, housing shortages, healthcare crises are told: "This isn't your government's fault. It's theirs. The people queuing beside you."

It's the same trick. Over and over. Keep the bottom divided so they never look up.

Because here's the truth:

• It wasn't the Black farmer who ruined Hackman's father.
• It wasn't Catholic schoolgirls who threatened loyalist Belfast.
• And it's not migrants ruining our hospitals or housing.

It's poverty. Neglect. And a system that keeps telling people their only worth is being a step above someone else.

The Same Pattern. The Same Damage.

As Ted Kennedy once said:

"What divides us pales in comparison to what unites us."

But people don't cling to division because it's true — they cling to it because it gives them something to stand on when the world gives them nothing else.

The tragedy is this: people don't need to hate. They need to matter. And when systems fail to offer dignity, people reach for pride — even if it's built on the backs of others.

So they believe the lie. That they're better than the migrant. Better than the neighbour. Better than the girl walking to school.

Because if they're not better than someone… who are they?

But of course, we know the answer. We're the same. Equally breakable. Equally worthy. Equally human.

And until we build a world that reflects that truth — where dignity isn't a competition — we'll keep seeing this story, again and again, in different clothes, with new names, and the same old pain.

Let's stop mistaking enemies for neighbours. And let's stop needing to feel better than someone… just to feel anything at all.