The core idea is "The way it works is that the more you behave like a person, the more you'll be treated like one." Is the author even living in the same world

The core idea is "The way it works is that the more you behave like a person, the more you'll be treated like one." Is the author even living in the same world as the rest of us? In almost every society, there are large (sometimes extremely large) groups people who are more or less completely denied the right to "earn" personhood like that, because no matter what they do they will be considered inferior and less trustworthy.