Once upon a time blue bottomed people lived together happily. Then one day along came some yellow bottomed people who had come from yellow bottomed people’s country with technologies that helped them to gain power in their own country.
But let’s look at yellow bottom country first:
Having access to technologies like money, religion and weapons gave them an opportunity to control other yellow bottomed people. In order to do this though they had to convince the other yellow bottoms that they were different, superior, so they looked for ways to distinguish themselves.
And so the yellow bottoms with the technologies and notions of superiority started to point out that other yellow bottoms were not the same. They said that yellow bottoms with green hair were not the same as themselves as the better yellow bottoms had pink hair. But the pink haired yellow botttoms didn’t like being set apart for their hair colour and so they started pointing out that some yellow bottoms had pointier ears. Then the pointier eared yellow bottoms said that some yellow bottoms were very different to them because they spoke at a faster speed. Then the faster speaking yellow bottoms looked at the now other group of yellow bottoms and decided that yellow bottoms with shoe size over size 5 were very different to them. Then the big footed yellow bottoms turned their attention to yellow bottoms with outie belly buttons – saying that they weren’t true yellow bottoms. And so this continued and even within the subgroups yellow bottoms fought about who belonged more than others.
Even the pointier ears yellow bottoms started measuring their ears because within their subgroup it was now considered better to have large ears rather than small ears, even if they were terribly pointy. They called this a ‘privilege’ because it meant they were more entitled to the benefits of the system imposed by the yellow bottoms with technologies and wild dreams of controlling everything. And the big footed yellow bottoms then turned their attention to the shape of their big toes. You see, having a squarer big toe meant you were better than big footed, round shaped big toed yellow bottomed people. And then years later the big footed, round shaped toed yellow bottomed people noticed that people with 2 hairs on their big toe was a better thing to have instead of 3 hairs on your big toe.
So while all the yellow bottoms found new ways to be different to each other, and to establish themselves as insiders rather than outsiders, as “better” yellow bottoms, the yellow bottoms with the technologies were busy making up rules and taking everything that was not theirs.
Not satisfied with controlling the other yellow bottomed people they set off to ‘discover’ new places and so they travelled to blue bottom land. The blue bottoms were a people with a close connection to their land and culture and it was harder for the yellow bottoms to create ways to other them from each other. So then a yellow bottom decided that instead they’d tell them that their connection to the land, each other and their ancestors was wrong. The yellow bottoms ‘spread’ their beliefs and ‘religion’ and ‘saved’ the heathens from ‘savagery’. And they wrote it all down in new technologies they called books so that future generations would remember their version.
They made up laws so that blue bottoms were put to death if they communicated in their native ways or practised honouring their ancestors. They passed laws to say that blue bottomed people couldn’t own their own lands (even though they never saw themselves as ‘owning land’ in the first place). And they declared that yellow bottomed people could only work in certain jobs in this new regime they had manufactured.
They also declared that blue bottoms with wombs were even worse than the blue bottoms without wombs and over a series of events and passing of time the blue bottoms themselves started to believe this. Being a blue bottom in a yellow bottom regime was bad enough but at least if you didn’t have a womb then you were treated better than those that did. And so the blue bottoms with wombs worked hard for many generations to prove they were not worse. Eventually they got ‘equality’, meaning they now too were sent to work ‘equally’ like the blue bottoms without wombs, working in a regime that no blue bottom actually asked for under the guise of ‘rights’.
In the meantime though of course the blue bottoms with wombs had found that they also were not similar to each other. Blue bottomed people with wombs from the greener part of the land were seen to be better than the blue bottoms from the less green part of the land. Blue bottomed people with wombs from the less green parts of the land squabbled amongst themselves and came up with a whole ton of ways to other each other. There were groups of blue bottomed people with wombs from less green parts of the land who were nomadic, they were now considered a problem, especially with the land owning laws. And then there were the blue bottomed people with wombs from less green parts of the land who sang in a higher key than others- they were highly problematic.
Then there were the blue bottomed people with wombs from less green parts of the land who sang at a higher key, and dared to express their frustration, fear, and anxiety around what they could see was happening- that group of ‘hysterics’ triggered the frustration, fear, and anxiety of others and so these ‘hysterical’ people with wombs were incarcerated for their subhuman ways of expressing their pain. They were subjected to abuse and experimentation to fix the problems within them- problems which were certainly not caused by what was becoming known as ‘society’. They were weak, you see, just like the soldiers who’d return generations later after more wars were waged against each other under many guises- too weak to be ‘real people without wombs’ who cannot understand that mistreating each other like this is completely acceptable in ‘society’- they too needed treatment for their weakness and afflictions.
Back in yellow bottom land it was now widely accepted that blue bottoms were not real humans as stories about these strange ‘savages’ were brought back and told by the yellow bottomed people with technologies and a lust for power. And so there was little resistance when the yellow bottomed people with technologies and a lust for power returned with these blue bottomed non-people as slaves. The yellow bottoms had already begun their journey towards dehumanising each other long before that and some were even relieved that these blue bottomed people upped their own status and gave them more ‘privilege’- or made them seem more human in their ‘society’. Naturally there were some yellow bottoms who felt uneasy because they had never really subscribed to any of this othering that was going on for generations- however they were powerless to say so- for a while at least.
Of course along with all of this and the manufacturing of class and status came many rules to protect those at the top of this hierarchy. Laws about marriage, passing on wealth and so on. And also laws that made it very easy for someone at the ‘top’ to fall quickly from their position. These laws of course were very different for the people with wombs and people without wombs. One had to follow proper rules in a ‘polite society’ that is borne of the blood of ‘others’ you see. One can’t show any ‘signs of savagery’ when one is ‘civilised’ you see, everyone had to pretend that they didn’t get their ‘status’ through murder, theft, discrimination and oppression you see. And one dare not look up to see who is making all these laws. One must follow without questioning for questioning is against the law and proof of one’s otherness. One is a bad person if one questions what “God” has declared- no better than those ‘savages’.
And so the game continued, each playing out their part in the illusion created by the yellow bottoms with technologies and a lust for power.
Obviously in a system like this then certain types of people became more ‘useful’ than others and with less community, more competition, less time with each other some yellow bottoms and blue bottoms started to look at people who were not ‘contributing’ the same amount to ‘society’. They looked at the yellow and blue bottomed people who were ‘burdening’ their ‘society’- those who could not fulfil the laws imposed on them to work. ‘Society’ was only for a certain type of blue or yellow bottomed person you see. Those who could not ‘contribute’ were placed in ‘institutions’ – a place where ‘society’ ‘cares for’ those less able – separate from society of course. By now ‘contributing’ does not mean what it meant all those generations ago when they ‘contributed’ by the essence of their humanity and life force- when people were part of a community rather than part of a manufactured thing that only allows us to ‘contribute’ in very particular ways.
This happened to elder yellow bottoms and blue bottoms too- where once they would have been valued, they were now seen as a hindrance or drain on resources.
Along with all this othering came subtle ways to identify each other- things you could now buy with this new technology to show to others how much privilege you had- from coloured garments to hide your whatever-coloured bottom to razors to shave off those unsightly hairs on your big toe. Rules had changed you see now, once more, and the big footed blue bottoms with no hair on their toes had convinced the others with 2 or 3 hairs that actually having none was more ‘civilised’- and not wanting to appear ‘uncivilised’ the once very important distinction of difference – that hair on the big toe – became completely unimportant- erased.
The yellow bottoms and blue bottoms still continue these rituals today and it has even become more complex with all the different levels of othering and the ‘discovery’ of more lands and more travel and that entire history of othering.
Some realise that all this othering is pointless. They see the arbitrary rules and myriad of ways that we can distance ourselves from each other and this is how they see the world and take steps in another direction. At any point we can choose a lens and other people through it- from people who like pizza, to people who don’t brush their hair, to people who wear bright clothes or have an interest in geology- we can choose to do this or we can choose not to and look instead for commonalities that bring us together.
I have stopped playing this game I was never invited to play. I don’t have to subscribe to it. That does not mean that I don’t recognise the pain and suffering that goes along with it or seek to speak over any of that pain- quite the opposite actually. And people who don’t like pizza are not subjected to the same suffering as people who are othered for our ethnicity, skin colour, religion or lack thereof, gender identities, disability etc and I’m not trying to say the effects of othering have the same consequences for everyone. Intersectionality also plays a part in all of this- but not so much that our identities intersect but more so that ‘society’ responds to these aspects of our humanity in different ways.
I am forever conscious that I am both a victim and a benefactor of this system imposed on me- and I am forever grateful for both these experiences because I have learnt from different perspectives and it allows me to view the perspectives of others by constantly shifting between them.
If we can all only speak to our own very unique experiences then what’s the point of collective voices and community in the first place? Are we not kinda stomping on our own feet by making ourselves so different from each other that not one of us can empathise or understand the other. Yes, I cannot say I’ve experienced the exact same as another oppressed person but can’t I use my own experiences to empathise with another human’s experiences- I mean if I cannot then what the hell are we all doing advocating for rights? What would be the point if we’re all so vastly different to each other then isn’t that kinda like saying we have no hope at all of ever coming together and seeing each other as one? And perhaps that is the truth. Maybe we are all so separated that we’ve gone too far to come together.
The blue bottomed people would never have identified themselves as blue bottomed because such identifications can only take place when we take one part of ourselves and compare it to the part of another – they can only be identified as blue bottomed by an outsider – which in this case is me, writing from my perspective. I started this piece on othering by othering. By taking ourselves apart we are actively dehumanising ourselves.
When I teach people about being Autistic I don’t start from a place of othering even though it exists in the room – I start from a place where we are all human, and explain my experiences in terms of human experiences so that people can empathise and understand. I don’t set myself apart from others even though I simultaneously stand proud in my Autistic identity. It is possible to do both but it is a battle to stay in this place when other people bring me back with their limited perspectives or invoke otherness with questions about the ‘Autistics with higher support needs’- as if they somehow do not qualify to be treated better, not pathologized, given access to the same rights as this rest of us- as if somehow all I’ve said did not apply to this part of my community- as if somehow my life can be re-imagined as less tragic, almost normal, almost acceptable, almost… but my kin cannot be afforded the same. And my heart sinks and my breath tightens and inside I am screaming “We’re all feckin human”. But I am more human you see, I have no hair on my toes and my hair is not green and I come from the greener part of the land.
We can expend our valuable energy fighting to get into a system that oppresses us and pointing out all our differences and arguing about who is more privileged than who or we can step back and come together – and see we are not the enemies of each other- we can dare to focus our collective energies on the yellow bottomed people with technologies and a lust for power- the masters of this game none of us were invited to play.
Does it really matter if you have 2, 3 or no hairs on your big toe and would you be outraged if you saw a 2-haired big toer pointing out that we’re all human and don’t deserve to be oppressed?
Shouting at each other to do more, include more by the ways you’ve decided to other or the otherness imposed on you is inadvertently making those of us who have suffered other types of discrimination and abuses bring our own experiences into question- a sort of accidental gaslighting if you will. And it makes me fall into that same trap of trying to evaluate if being oppressed by the church or as a woman, as an an Autistic or from a country where it was once illegal to speak our own language and where my Granuncle was killed for his ‘Irishness’, where I travel through small towns and villages with names that do not reflect my culture or ancestry- a bastardised version of what our ancestral tongues spoke – is as bad as being INSERT OTHERING STATUS HERE
We can take out our score cards and play this game of who is more privileged or we can abandon this game altogether and just get on with making improvements where we can, respecting those who are doing the same and being mindful that we are all doing so on borrowed energy and none of us is perfect.
