Othering and Holy Week
Where do we go from here? It’s a question we’ve asked ourselves time and time again. While the news cycle is just again fixating on Haiti, returning calls and strategizing and helping my friends get to a safe space has been a part of my life for the last 2 years. This time, its even more complicated. I have 30 seconds usually to respond to someone’s tone-deaf comment as they suggest we blow up the nation of Haiti or that they have done something to themselves to deserve such a fate.
I get it. I really do. When we put people over there, when they become them, we can still remain who we are. It’s human nature, to so many degrees. It doesn’t matter how open minded you fancy yourself, othering is so much of a part of humanity. We other people so we can be who we are. We other people so we can differentiate ourselves from others.
The problem is when we other those who are suffering in order to distance ourselves from that struggle.
When people are dying due to a lack of food 2 hours from Miami and we say “that’s their problem.”
When our country has literally robbed from others and we say “they brought this upon themselves.”
When we don’t do our due dilligence to learn before commenting on a problem.
This is the problem of othering. We see them as something different, sometimes not even as people not deserving of the same love, tangible needs, and hope you and I should have.
On one hand, we were not built or made to carry all the burdens social media and the news surround us with.
On the other hand, many of these strings of tragedies are not simply tragedies. They are events that have unfolded due to the negligence of our own government, our own charity, and our own good intentions. What then? Do we walk away because it didn’t work for us?
I want to suggest a new way for many of us. While this is not a new concept, this is something that is challenging for US as Americans and many American Christians (of which I consider myself). It is not a challenge for Christians around the world because they have had to do this forever. It is not a challenge for other tribes or people around the world. I would also argue that this concept is Biblical at its core.
Solidarity is also known as unity… or mutual support within a group of people. Solidarity does not require mutual suffering. It does not require us to even fully grasp the problem. It does require us to have humility, and to challenge our own perceptions of otherness.
This week in the Christian calendar is known as Holy Week. While people are struggling to make sure in their busied and hurried lives that there is enough time to sit and remember this week, I want to ask that you consider doing something else in addition to your church traditions. Try another global church tradition of solidarity. It is the act of looking past our own daily lives and entering someone else’s battle and suffering. It is saying that the model of Christ is this: to see those who are poor, oppressed, and down trodden and truly seeing them. It is doing what we can do advocate, to support, to love.
In a world where everything is instant- solidarity takes consciousness. It takes time to become fully aware of complexities that can’t be shared in a tiktok or a poorly written article by a journalist who just learned of the situation themselves. It takes time to dig in, to hear from those most impacted, and to listen. In all of our Netflix binging, social media distracted, shallow-image based survival here in the USA, it can be hard. Things can be challenging for us right now. But, it is not a reason to not look and learn.
When we first started our work in Haiti, I othered more than I care to admit. For a while, I told myself that the second hand trauma I was experiencing was worse than the first hand lived trauma of my friends and program beneficiaries because they were used to it. I told myself that they had different expectations for their lives. And yes, while cultural experiences and expectations do vary, there is something so real about the human need for survival and safety. It wasn’t until I experienced an unsafe tragedy with my coworkers and program beneficiaries huddling together in our shared house that I learned the impact of othering. It kept me from seeing the needs right in front of me, and it kept me from connecting with people.
Solidarity connects us. Othering distances us.
This Holy Week, my challenge to us and to myself is to resist the urge to disconnect from the suffering. I do not mean not taking a social media break. I am saying that when the urge to scroll your phone or turn on a mindless show or call someone “other” rises up that we resist that urge. We consider solidarity with our bothers and sisters around the world who are suffering because this is solidarity with Christ. This isn’t nice work, it is the work.