Creating an Otherless World

(Adapted from a speech I gave for the Solas Awards in Feb 28, 2019.)

I want to talk about the symbolic walls we create between people.

I was born in India, but I never lived in India, so am I Indian? My first year of life was in Uganda.  So, am I African?  From the age of 1 until I was 17, I lived in Hong Kong.  Am I Chinese?  I moved to the United States and have lived here for over 30 years and I am a citizen of America.  Maybe I am American.  My sibling had her DNA tested and found out we are predominantly Syrian.  Am I Syrian?  So, I am Indian, African, Chinese, American and Syrian.  Am I all of these, or perhaps, none of these?

As human beings, we have this need to categorize. By lumping certain things together, we simplify the world and create efficiency in our thinking.  This facility can be useful from an evolutionary perspective as the ability to make quick judgements can aid in our survival.   

Categorizing creates short cuts to processing the vast amounts of data that come our way which would otherwise be impossible or even dangerous to have to process at a deliberate and conscious level.  Instead, we process information quickly and unconsciously by creating associations and connecting things together in our minds in what are called schemas.  According to estimates, we are exposed to 11 million bits of information per second, but we consciously process only 2500 bits of that information.  Our schemas select out massive amounts of information which we do not notice consciously in order to focus on the pieces of information deemed necessary.  If we see a snake on a path ahead of us, and in our schema we associate snakes with danger, we wouldn’t have to evaluate a bunch of other information to automatically react by running away from it. 

The problem is our schemas can be wrong.  If we pick a berry from a bush and eat it, and we then feel sick we would likely connect berries to sickness. But what if the specific berry we ate was just a bad berry?  Or what if it was a microscopic organism on the berry, not the berry itself, that made us sick?  Our categorization of the berry as bad for us would then be incorrect.

While categorization is a heuristic we use to aide in survival, the problem with the schemas we create is they can lead to bias; they create a tendency to prejudge.   Not only can these pre-judgements be wrong, but as discussed, they are often unconscious.  According to John A. Powell (director of the Othering & Belonging Institute, and professor of Law, African American and Ethnic Studies at the University of California Berkeley) sometimes our unconscious biases “may even be in conflict with our conscious values or desires.”  This is what is referred to as implicit bias and is why we may not see the bias that exists within ourselves.  Taken further, bias is the root of prejudice and “othering.”

John A. Powell defines “othering” as,

“a process where you refuse to see, or fail to see, someone else's full humanity, as well as their mutuality…othering can happen across any dimension; Race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, language, height.” 

It is created by the stories we tell ourselves, or stories told to us by the people we are around, that make us believe we are separate.

Survival also drives within us tendency to classify people into “other”.  When faced with limited resources, or when we fear scarcity, we are pulled to categorize people into “us” and “them”.  An in-group versus an out-group; an “other”. 

We want to share our resources with our in-group so they will survive and thrive, and we want to deprive and perhaps diminish the outgroup so there will be less competition.  Depending on the situation, we sometimes draw the us versus them boundary between our nuclear family and everyone else; We pay college fees for our children, not other people’s children.  Other times we may broaden our in-group to include extended family.  In other circumstances, “us” can mean our friends, our “tribe”, or at other times can include our cultural group, religious group, race, or country.  Where we put up that wall between “us” versus “them” reflects not only the particular circumstance, but also cultural and societal influences, as well as deeper personal beliefs & values.

Where we put up our wall, like how we categorize something, may be wrong.  More importantly, where we put up our walls is subjective, and somewhat arbitrary; arbitrary and subjective also means these walls are movable. 

How Do We Move From Othering to Belonging? 

So, how should we approach the issue of othering?  I believe, we have to start at the deepest level and recategorize what we include in the definition of “us.”  We have to move that internal wall.

I came across a parable a couple of years ago.  When I read it, I had one of those “aha” moments, and I now use it as an internal guide, a center post of how I try to people I meet, especially people who are different from me. 

Someone asked an Indian sage, Ramana Maharshi, “how should we treat others?” 

His answer?

“There are no others.” 

That’s it isn’t it?  We all care about people, but who we care about depends on who we include in our definition of “self”; Where we insert that internal wall.

The moment we begin to see someone as “other”, we lose a sense of connection and empathy.  We focus on differences instead of similarities, on our separateness instead of our common humanity, and it becomes easier to objectify, deny, and diminish.  I believe all exclusion, all division, all hatred, all human atrocities happen because of this sense of us and them, of “other.”  If we want a kinder, more inclusive world that can benefit from the diversity of its people, we need to be “otherless”.

How Do We Cultivate a Sense of Otherlessness?

John Powell stresses the counter point to othering is not “sameing.”  People are not the same and trying to make everyone the same denies their full humanity.  What we need to move toward is to create belonging; The idea that everyone, with all their differences, have a place, together.

One way to do this, is exposure.

Categorizing creates black & white thinking, oversimplification, and exaggerates differences. Alternatively, when you get to know a person more deeply, they shift from being simply, “a middle class white 35-year-old stay at home mom of two” to “a funny, kind, but anxious person who would do anything for anyone even though she has to care for young kids and aging parents while her husband travels a lot, and In her spare time, she volunteers to cook and send meals to a homeless shelter”

Talk to people.  Pay attention to others.  Try listening with openness & compassion.   Get to know them, their lives, their struggles, their values, their dreams.  I bet they will move you in some way if you allow them to.  Once we open up our boundaries the whole world can become our in-group. I agree with Powell; It’s not about what you need to DO to bridge the gap between us and them, it is about how we need to BE.  Being open, allowing space for the other to be who they are, approaching them from compassion, curiosity, love and an effort to understand, allows room for a person’s full humanity, and there will always be something in that we will be able to connect to.

My husband and I started a family Foundation 20 years ago.  Our mission is to seek and support grassroots leaders around the globe who are fighting social injustices and bringing their communities out of poverty and oppression.  As part of the work for our foundation, our Executive Director and I travel to remote communities to vet programs we are considering supporting. On my last trip, which was before the pandemic, I visited programs in Uganda and South Sudan.

I’ve been on several of these trips now, but I had an experience in South Sudan that really affected me.  We were visiting a girls’ school in a remote, underdeveloped place called Aweil.  Our flight had been delayed and the girls had been waiting for us all day.  They had prepared songs and a presentation.  But what happened when we arrived had not been prepared.  As our vehicle pulled in, the girls swarmed around the car with excitement.  They chanted a welcome song as we exited the car.  While we were being ushered into a classroom by the program directors to start a series of meetings, I decided I wanted to greet some of the girls by shaking their hands. 

South Sudan. Play Video.

I’ve come to feel there is no better way for me to demonstrate to someone that we are the same, we are connected, than being willing to touch their hand.  I think maybe it comes from growing up in a culture that endorsed the idea of an “untouchable” class; so, I always want to fight against that by touching someone’s hand.  After I shook hands with the first girl, all of the girls came alive with smiles and laughter and wanted to shake my hand.  They were all reaching out and grabbing my hands.

Why did this experience affect me?  I thought about what it meant to these girls to shake my hand.  I knew it meant something fundamental; in thinking about it, I started to believe this gesture, and in general our presence and visit, told the girls they matter.  It told them their existence is meaningful to others, and that we are a part of each other.

I’ve travelled to many remote places in the world and have met people from different cultures, belief systems, and different life circumstances.  Everywhere I travel, I meet people who are like me; they share the same dreams and fears and have very human strengths and vulnerabilities.  Each of us have also experienced suffering.  I realize we all need the same things; connection, love, safety, security, freedom, a chance to become our best selves, a chance to contribute meaningfully to our community, a chance to matter.  And, we are all deserving of those things.

While there are other ways of creating connection, when we spend time with different people with the intent to connect, listen and understand, we will leave more impressed not by our differences, but by what is common among us, our shared humanity.  This realization can help remove the wall and bridge the gap that divides “us” and “them”.  Once we remove that internal wall, the whole issue of how we treat others, changes.  We will move from othering to belonging.  We require an internal revolution in our concept of “other” to create a kinder world for each of us.  One where we all can contribute and one where we all can matter.  It has to start with us, and vibrate out to our families, our communities, and hopefully our country.

But the question remains; why?  Why should we even care to remove the wall?

There is a powerful term that originated in South Africa: Ubuntu.  There are several interpretations of this concept, but it is most widely interpreted as “I am what I am because of who we all are.”  Ubuntu is a recognition that our humanity is bound up in each other; who I am is because of who you are.  When one person is diminished, we as a whole are diminished.  We are an intricately interconnected web; a vulnerability in one part of the web will reverberate throughout.  No human being can survive as an island.

Even though we associate Charles Darwin with the theory “Survival of the Fittest”; there is a less well-known current of Darwin’s thought called “Survival of the Kindest”.  In it, he argued that one of our greatest instincts is “sympathy” and that communities with the most sympathetic members would be more successful in raising healthier offspring– and hence more likely to survive.

It makes sense.  We need other people.  Our survival is bound up in each other.  Imagine if we expanded the notion of community to include all humankind…what could we accomplish together then?

So, am I Indian, African, Chinese, American or Syrian?  I believe I am all of those, but I am also none of those; the boundaries are artificial. 

I am you and you are me.