Autoimmunity is where the body starts attacking the body’s own systems, responding to the body’s own cells as if they were, for example, cancer or disease, when they are not. We need our immune system to fight off actual viruses, cancers, bacteria and parasites, but sometimes immune systems just aren’t that bright about what constitutes an actual danger and what just bears a passing resemblance to something dangerous.
Autoimmunity can be deadly, so in order to protect the body from the near constant attack from the immune system, we give people with autoimmune issues a variety of medications to either mitigate the effects of the attack (i.e. by replacing thyroid in people whose bodies have destroyed their thyroid gland, giving antihistamines to people who are having histamine responses to benign substances) or by wholesale turning off or inhibiting broad sections of the immune system with powerful immunosuppressants.
Disease can kill, too. Shut off too much of the immune system and the common cold can be deadly. It can take much longer to recover from illness. Finding a balance can be tricky, impossible, even. Sometimes we give steroids to reduce inflammation and dial back the immune system a bit–and our bodies create our own steroids when we are sick, so we need them, but too much and diabetes happens.
Moderating autoimmunity is difficult because threats do exist. It would be ideal if we could accurately dial back some responses and not others, or limit responses only to legitimate invaders, but the systems aren’t that easy to address on a granular level.
So when autoimmunity crops up, we try a multi-pronged approach, adjusting diet, supplements, exercise, and using medications judiciously, trying to find the balance that permits health in an unbalanced system.
Xenophobia, racism, homophobia, nationalism are all autoimmunity responses. The racist incorrectly classifies broad swaths of people as “other” and “toxic” and “dangerous” and responds with violent words and violent actions, feeling justified in the face of a danger from a whole section of our culture which is not, inherently, dangerous.
Ironically, both with bigotry and autoimmunity, the immune system responders and the bigots will often be so completely distracted by perceived threats that they do not respond to actual threats.
There is, in fact, more actual threat to your average working class white person from a handful of Republicans sitting in positions of power than there is from all of the Black people in this country put together. Even if you include actual criminals. (Some parts of the body are, in fact, cancer, or infected, but autoimmunity does not respond subtly, nor does racism.)
I don’t have an answer, but it’s a model that makes a lot of sense to me.
Then again, I’m biased. Rheumatoid arthritis is doing its level best to tear me apart. It’s not like I can exclude my joints from holidays, or march against the antibodies attacking my liver.
I need my immune system, but I really wish it would be more sensible and precise about what it targets. Likewise, we need people who are able to respond to crises and threat in productive ways, with skill, but we also need them to not manufacture threats where no threats exist, or attack our populace indiscriminately.
I hope that people can be more sensible than my immune system. I hope that people can train themselves to be better about correcting for bias.
With allergies, small exposures can reduce large reactions over time. We know that people who travel and make connections with people different from themselves are less likely to respond in pathological ways to cultural difference. Immune systems can, to a point, be trained.
The critical factor is to remember that all of us, all of humanity, are not the enemy. We are one body, constantly at war with itself.
But maybe, just maybe, we can train ourselves to stop.
