The US (world?) is afflicted with Otherism

[SoCalDem]

Apparently, even with our advanced learning and enlightened sensibilities, we seem to be mired in fear of the "other".

That fear "allows" us to kill each other, disrespect each other, deny services to each other.

At our core, all humans are just ONE being..ourselves. We branch out a little to embrace our immediate family, our kin..and then a little more to our KIND.

As long as it does not COST us much (prsonally OR financially), it is possible to practice some charitable ignorance of the "others" who brush against us in daily life. In particularly good times, it's even possible to embrace "the other", but usually in a paternalistic manner..and enen then only as long as "the other" does not try to step out of the neatly aligned path we have chosen for them.

When there is equilibrium, people can and do manage to "live together", but once the equilibrium is out of kilter, the first ones to be cast off and or blamed are the "others".

When women entered the job force in a big way, there was a war on, and they were a vital part of the economy and the war effort.. they created a new equilibrium within the manufacturing sector, which had been decimated by the loss of most of the men.

They had been "the other", the few women who had worked at anything but schoolmarm, nurse, nun or wife/mother. The "other" became the norm, but when the war was over, they again became the "other", as far as the workforce was concerned, and most were shuttled back into the housewife role again (most did it happily, since they had babies on their minds, and were quite happy to have their husbands/boyfriends back from the war).

The women who wanted to stay in the workforce had to accept their "otherness", but they laid the foundation for all the current women who are less "other" than at any time in history.... there are women CEOs, women homeowners, women business owners, women politicians, etc.

Immigrants have always DEFINED "otherness" in our midst. Most of the time they drift in and out of all of our lives, unnoticed, for the most part. They clean our offices & homes, they serve us food, they tend our children, cars and lawns, they grow & gather our food, they pick up after us. They are our remoras. They do the dirty work that we used to do for ourselves, but no longer want to do, as we become more affluent.

Immigrants come in many degrees of "otherness" , since some came willingly, and were prepared to struggle, but knew that they could escape the "otherness" and work their way into acceptance, but some came unwillingly, and because they looked so different, they could never truly "blend in", and would always bear the mark of "permanent other".

Societal norms teach us to be generous & accepting , and legislative efforts demand equanimity & fairness from us, but in less than affluent times, or times of war or strife, all bets are off, and we contract into our small selves, where only kin and self reside.

We are ALL "others" to someone, and when we lash out, we only invite retribution and attack on ourselves.