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sevIn my experience, mainstream liberals can grasp why overt acts of othering are something to be avoided: the tech conference shenanigans that marginalize non-heterosexual non-males, for example.
I want to talk about the covert stuff. The stuff that sounds perfectly *normal* until somebody points it out. And then I want to talk about *why* I think it’s important that we point it out.
There’s a category I’m looking to define, which I call “Casual Othering.” It’s in the caricatures we use as shorthand to refer to whole groups of marginalized people, without ever explicitly saying anything negative about those people. Often without saying anything at all about those people – we’re just using them to make an entirely different point. The pink bow to mean an entire gender, used to suggest that if “you” engage in certain behaviors you’ll attract women. A piece of traditional garb to mean an entire race of people, used to suggest that if “you” go to this place you’ll find tasty food.
By marking the difference, we normalize the unmarked state and dehumanize the other.
By doing so casually, we exclude that group from our audience and we move on with our conversation – not stopping and talking about the exclusion renders the othering invisible and protects the speaker, who can then hide behind intention: but this had nothing to do with any minority group! Except we *made* it have something to do with that minority group by using a reference to the group as a communication tool. We’re casually making fun of a whole group of people in order to make our communication sound edgy.
And why do I think we should not do this, and point it out when other people do it? Because the practice normalizes bias. It makes demarcating and excluding difference just part of the fabric of our conversations. It provides fodder for those who want to respond, “why are you making a big deal out of this little thing?” And it creates fertile ground for the more-obviously-destructive forms of bias, forms of discrimination which require a normalization of othering before they can be enacted.
It’s a teeny-tiny step from using racial references in casual conversation to actual civil rights violations.
I want to talk about the covert stuff. The stuff that sounds perfectly *normal* until somebody points it out. And then I want to talk about *why* I think it’s important that we point it out.
There’s a category I’m looking to define, which I call “Casual Othering.” It’s in the caricatures we use as shorthand to refer to whole groups of marginalized people, without ever explicitly saying anything negative about those people. Often without saying anything at all about those people – we’re just using them to make an entirely different point. The pink bow to mean an entire gender, used to suggest that if “you” engage in certain behaviors you’ll attract women. A piece of traditional garb to mean an entire race of people, used to suggest that if “you” go to this place you’ll find tasty food.
By marking the difference, we normalize the unmarked state and dehumanize the other.
By doing so casually, we exclude that group from our audience and we move on with our conversation – not stopping and talking about the exclusion renders the othering invisible and protects the speaker, who can then hide behind intention: but this had nothing to do with any minority group! Except we *made* it have something to do with that minority group by using a reference to the group as a communication tool. We’re casually making fun of a whole group of people in order to make our communication sound edgy.
And why do I think we should not do this, and point it out when other people do it? Because the practice normalizes bias. It makes demarcating and excluding difference just part of the fabric of our conversations. It provides fodder for those who want to respond, “why are you making a big deal out of this little thing?” And it creates fertile ground for the more-obviously-destructive forms of bias, forms of discrimination which require a normalization of othering before they can be enacted.
It’s a teeny-tiny step from using racial references in casual conversation to actual civil rights violations.
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no subject
on 2009-08-01 09:13 am (UTC)Thanks for the essay and links, useful alone for a succinct definition of "othering", which came up in conversation at work a few days ago. Despite two people who understood the concept, neither of us could explain it effectively to a third party.
no subject
on 2009-08-04 07:19 pm (UTC)The people I know in progressive communities mostly don't engage in egregious othering of people of color or women or other minority groups, but do have lots of unexamined prejudices that cause more subtle othering behavior.
Because I have relatives I like who are politically right-wing and who live in rural areas, I am sensitive to casual othering of rednecks and Republicans, and I see that happening constantly in "mainstream liberal"/progressive communities. I think that sort of casual othering desensitizes progressives and makes us less likely to notice the subtle acts of othering we perform against marginalized people.