Othering

Throughout history societies have participated in a social practice called othering.

This practice involves the people in the majority treating the people in the minorities
differently. By treating the people in the minority differently, there is a sense of saying
this is us and they are the others. This treatment frequently leads to the harsh
treatment of the others and is harmful to a society. Othering has been a huge problem
throughout American society, especially in the 1800s, and while we are considerably
better as a society today, there are still many problems.
Othering was a major problem in society of the past, especially with the issues of
slavery and immigration. Slavery was still a legal practice in the United States until the
mid 1860s when the thirteenth amendment was ratified. Slavery kept going for almost
one hundred years of the nations history by people being convinced that the blacks
were the others. The people believed that the slaves were not humans, and so it was
morally okay to treat them badly. This is seen in Frederick Douglasss speech What to
the Slave is the Fourth of July? (p. 460). In this speech he makes a distinction between
himself and all of the whites, often saying your fathers of the country. He did this to
show to the people that slaves were not free or independent, and therefore the fathers
of the nation were not their fathers. This sense of othering is also seen with the new
immigrants that came into the country. As seen in Mary Gordons More Than Just a
Shrine: Paying Homage to the Ghosts of Ellis Island (p. 431), she tells the story of the
immigrants passing through the island. People often didnt care about the new
immigrants and they would be shamed with illnesses or disorders being written on their
clothing. These immigrants were also seen as the others. Even after getting through

the immigration process, these people often had to find work in the slums of the cities
not making much money. People were racist against them depending on where they
came from, Germans and Irish were often discriminated as others.
We, as a nation, have come a considerable ways since the immigration problems
of Ellis Island and slavery in the 1800s. Blacks are free and have their civil rights, given
to them in the 1960s. Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, became
the first black president when he was elected in 2008. In his speech A More Perfect
Union, Obama said, to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march
for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. (p.
476). One of his goals, as seen in this speech, was to bring America together and
further eliminate the status of some people being the others. The president did just
this when gay marriage was made legal throughout the nation, bringing the LGBT
community from being the others to being normal people.
However far we have come, there are still issues. These issues can be seen in
the borderlands, the area in the United States that is on the border to Mexico. In Gloria
Anzaldas writing How To Tame A Wild Tongue she discusses the issues that she had
with her language in this area. She said, I remember being caught speaking Spanish at
recess- that was good for three licks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler. (p. 521). This
shows that instead of the schools allowing all languages and experiences, they are
forcing the children to only speak English while at school. While this forces the children
to learn English, it is also creating a new system of others. This act shows the children
that English and Spanish are separate and are different others. In Min-Zhan Lus From
Silence to Words: Writing as a Struggle, she tells the story of her issues of such a

language separation. She felt conflicted between her two worlds, one English and the
other Standard Chinese. Instead of letting the worlds work together, they were
separated and created inner conflict and confusion for her. She called these contending
voices, the voices of the English values and Chinese values conflicting. Connie
Robinson said in Week three, Neither her family nor school would work by bringing in
the different viewpoints upon one another. This is what she meant by contending
voices. These contending viewpoints made it hard for her to find her identity in the
midst, which is something that we, as a society, can change and make better. We can
accept people for their differences and make it easier for us all to find ourselves by
allowing this acceptance.
It is necessary for us, as a society, to continue to outgrow the system of others
and to unify as a society of people, all different, but all important. Society has grown out
of many of its forms of others, with slavery being abolished and with new gay rights, but
there are still many hurdles to still overcome. Once we, as a society, have learned to
adapt and to accept all people as they are, and not force them to be someone else, we
will have truly shed the concept of others and will find ourselves united together.

Sources:
Anzalda, Gloria. How To Tame A Wild Tongue. 521-529.
Douglass, Frederick. What To The Slave Is The Fourth of July? 460-475.
George, Diana, and John Trimbur. Reading Culture: Contexts for Critical Reading and
Writing. New York: Longman, 2013. Print.
Gordon, Mary. More Than Just a Shrine: Paying Homage to the Ghosts of Ellis Island.
430-435.

Lu, Min-Zhan. From Silence To Words: Writing as a Struggle. 147-157.

Obama, Barack. A More Perfect Union. 476-484.

Rhetorical Analysis
This text comes from a Speech given by Frederick Douglass on the Fourth of
July in the 1850s. It comes from a man who escaped slavery and is angry about how
slavery is still allowed and the new Fugitive Slave Laws. Through the first part of the
speech, he makes a distinct choice to use the word your instead of the word our
when talking about the people who founded the country and freed the country from the
British. This is so that he can separate himself from most of the people at the
convention. He establishes his character by talking highly about the founding fathers
and about their intentions and the great things that they did do. He then allows his
emotion to be felt in the second section where he discusses the reason why the
founding fathers are not his founding fathers. He tells stories about hearing the chains
throughout the night and the fright of the slaves when they are sold. He uses his own
emotion, and depicts the emotions of other people in order to make his speech even
more memorable to the people in attendance. His whole speech is based around the
issue of slavery and how they are not free and they cannot celebrate the Fourth of July
like the white people can. He writes out the speech very deliberately, gaining the trust of
the people by praising their forefathers and then bringing up the issues of slavery. He
uses these forms of emotion, pathos, the specific structure, logos, and establishes his
character, ethos, so that his speech will convince the people. He is fighting for his
people, his friends and his family, and he makes it clear throughout his emotion in this
speech. He also does not blame the people as harshly as he could, but he just brings
up the problem and asks for the people to cooperate and fix the problems. This

succeeds and the speech becomes influential to the reader and listener, reminding us of
the slavery and how they were not free and the Fourth of July was a laugh in their faces.

Source:
George, Diana, and John Trimbur. Reading Culture: Contexts for Critical Reading and
Writing. New York: Longman, 2013. Print.
Douglass, Frederick. What To The Slave Is The Fourth of July? 460-475.