Othering: The Stories We Inherit
My Take
Most people do not wake up wanting to divide themselves from others.
Yet division appears everywhere — in race, religion, politics, class, nationality, and the stories we inherit before we are old enough to question them.
The process often begins with a simple idea:
“They are different from us.”
From there, distance grows.
Othering turns neighbors into strangers and strangers into threats. It teaches us to see difference as danger instead of an opportunity to understand.
The real loss is not that we are different. The real loss is when we stop seeing each other clearly because of it. Maybe the work begins when we stop asking who belongs and start asking who taught us to draw the line.
The Mirror
What fear were you handed that never belonged to you?
How many people have you never truly met because a preconception arrived first?