Northwest Institute for Social Change: The Blog

Portland: ‘Otherizing’ countries, ‘otherizing’ kids

At Whitman last spring, I wrote a tidy little discursive analysis about Orientalism in the European Union and the way it manifests itself as a rhetorical and (consequentially) literal exclusion of Turkey from the EU.

I really had no clue what I was saying. I pretty much fancied myself as Edward Said for a month and wanted to annoy my advisor with my obsession with the analysis of discourse.

Courtesy of Hellenic Communication Service, L.L.C.

But the paper did bring an interesting theory to my attention: Creating the other, or otherizing. The idea that you create distance between yourself and that with which you are unfamiliar, simply because it is unfamiliar, and because it is easier to stereotype than to understand.

As I studied, I came to conclude that basically everyone does it, despite how many -isms or -phobias we might be propagating in the process. I started noticing “otherizing” everywhere, particularly in my non-academic life.

Take, for example, any kid labeled as “at risk” in the United States. They might be “at risk” because they are likely to drop out of high school, are credit deficient, are social rejects—they’re kids we don’t know, and we don’t want to know. So how does this stereotyping affect “at risk” youth?

Political correctness get a lot of shit for being overzealous, overly protective, totally unnecessary. But acknowledging the way words can otherize individuals—even the kids right in our neighborhood—is an important step in constructing a more understanding community. By avoiding labels for its voluntary program participants, it’s a step that the non-profit Urban Opportunities is taking in its job skills training and employment opportunity at the Voodoo Donut van.

For our video project, Emily, Madeline and I are studying this non-profit and its beneficiaries. Yesterday we spent 5 hours with one so-called “at risk” youth who, if anything, overwhelmed us with his normalcy. He’s not going to benefit from being otherized as an “at risk” individual, and neither will we.

— Sara