Hagar was an Egyptian slave that two Hebrews named Abraham and Sarah had acquired through a deceitful interaction with the Pharaoh of Egypt. Since the two were infertile, Sarah asked Abraham to impregnate Hagar in an attempt to create an heir through an ancient custom, effectively turning her into a sex slave. After she had served their purpose, they cast her aside and neglected her.
Joseph was a Hebrew slave who made his way up through the ranks to become one of Pharaoh’s chief counselors. While Joseph managed to save all of Egypt from a famine, by the end of his reign, he had essentially turned all of Egypt into slaves of the state to do so.
This all happens in Genesis. When the next book of Exodus starts, it’s unsurprising that the tables have flipped. The Hebrews, who had once enslaved and mistreated Egyptians, were now the ones being enslaved and mistreated by them. The Bible wants you to see the cycle that happens when we dehumanize and oppress others through our racism. It wants us to see what othering people does, and how it’s wrong to turn humans into things that benefit us. It wants you to recognize that love is the only way to break the cycle.
Who do we other? Who do we treat as things? Who do we oppress through our racism? Who do we dehumanize? Every culture has a different, but similar answer. And the Bible wants us to know that wherever the oppressed are among us, there God is found.
It’d be unfortunate for Christians to not be on their side.
Jamin Bradley 
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