I think convincing yourself that they are animals would lead to worse treatment of them because you stop seeing them as humans. It’s also led to this whole 300 years of their ancestors still believing others are subhuman.
Idk I just see a lot more logic in “my tribe bested you at war so now you come work for us” vs “my people are a gift of god and you are subhuman trash and your descendents are subhuman trash and I will build systems of oppression to prove that and you will forever be beneath me”.
There’s also the degrees of separation with the African slave trade. I’m going to make the comparison to animals and I apologize for the irony here but the difference between killing your own chickens to eat (you see the whole process and it keeps an eye of morality over it) vs going to the superstore and picking a prepackaged chicken (the morality is no longer your business).
On ddg I just type reddit when I want community stuff, but I know what you mean. I also still find myself using google for local stuff because yelp fucking sucks.