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Toni-Mokjaetji Humber, Ph.D. The Notion of Other Information about Gender, Ethnicity, and Multicultural Studies (GEMS) Major & Minor
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EWS 104 (01), Spring 2007 |
| The Notion of Other From: Missing People and Others: Joining Together to Expand the Circle Arturo MadridBeing the other means feeling different; is awareness of being distinct; is consciousness of being dissimilar. It means being outside the game, outside the circle, outside the set. It means being on the edges, on the margins, on the periphery. Otherness means feeling excluded, closed out, precluded, even disdained and scorned. It produces a sense of isolation, of apartness, of disconnectedness, of alienation. Being the other involves a contradictory phenomenon. On the one hand being the other frequently means being invisible. Ralph Ellison wrote eloquently about that experience in his magisterial novel The Invisible man. On the other hand, being the other sometimes involves sticking out like a sore thumb. What is she/he doing here. If one is the other, one will inevitably be perceived unidimensionally; will be seen stereotypically; will be defined and delimited by mental sets that may not bear much relation to existing realities. There is a darker side to otherness as well. The other disturbs, disquiets, discomforts. It provokes distrust and suspicion. The other makes people feel anxious, nervous, apprehensive, even fearful. The other frightens, scares. For some of us being the other is only annoying; for others it is debilitating; for still others it is damning. Many try to flee otherness by taking on protective colorations that provide invisibility, whether of dress or speech or manner or name. Only a fortunate few succeed. For the majority, otherness is permanently sealed by physical appearance. For the rest, otherness is betrayed by ways of being, speaking or of doing. |
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Contact the instructor at: tchumber@csupomona.edu
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