Othering

Learnt about othering during my Lit module last sem. (Guess Lit was still the module that I enjoyed most most! Still wanna take Lit!) And I figured I other people. When people get othered, one forgets that the other is actually a rounded person with feelings, thoughts, depth and complexity. The other gets fitted into a category.

For me, I've quite a lot of categories. But strange enough, they fall into like... schools?
As the the AC/RJ kind or the Chinese speaking kind. AC people are identified by their CHeena. An extreme stereotype/othering would be... the AC ppl are the "yoyo" dudes and dudettes who shun chinese lessons and prefer not to utter chinese words because they can't sound chinese. And because they shun chinese, they start associating this negativeness with chinese speaking people. And chinese speaking people start to appear uncool/wierd.

At the other extreme, the chinese speaking people look upon the AC dudes and dudettes and remember their "yoyo" styles anti-Cheenasm... and henceforth classify them as ang moh speaking snobs who go around with fake accents and noses in the air.

Where would I be? As a hybrid (the cheena-fied AC), I think I other people both ways... I other the act cool posers and the cheenafied to the extreme people who other all sorts of AC (even hybrids like me). haha. Wierd eh?

But itz no good to other people. I shouldn't. Learning how to see people for who they really are. As in, not stereotyping them. Each person is no wierdo, we all have our own habits but we all have depth that the other knows not of. Pray that I'll learn to look deeper.