Capella 1

Jakelinne Capella

Professor Dr. Stephanie Dowdle Maenhardt

English 1050

July 5, 2018

Part One: Othering

The word “Othering” has been more and more used in the last twenty years as a new term

to describe discrimination, oppression, and racism. Merriam Webster dictionary defines ‘Other,’

as “to treat that culture as fundamentally different from another class of individuals, often by

emphasizing its apartness” (Merriam-Webster). Throughout history, we can observe, in different

civilizations, the idea of othering in a world where the human being is always seeking to

dominate the other, either in the political, religious, cultural, race, or gender aspect.

With the arrival of the English and Spaniards to the new continent, the othering process

begins against the indigenous inhabitants, who were enslaved, humiliated, treated as animals, and

murdered. The same happened with the African-Americans, who were brought to America as

slaves and were treated as a subhuman race, with no dignity, no intelligence, no pride. In the

nineteen century, the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, in his book “The Master-

Slave Dialectic”, coined the concept of the “Other”, observing that two consciences in their

struggle for recognition, one become the master and the other become a slave in the social

interaction of humanity. (Hegel. Web). From that time, many voices have increasingly talked

about Othering, Otherness, Other, in all scopes of the society where discrimination is observed.
 Capella 2

Americans in their belief to belong to a superior race discriminates against people of other

ethnicities because they think the ‘Others’ are not good enough to be part of this country.

In July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglas an African-American writer and abolitionist leader,

gave a memorable speech in New York, for the 4th of July celebration. The main idea of his

speech was to express the incoherence in this Independence Day celebration since an important

part of the population, the African-Americans slaves, did not enjoy the freedom for which the

fathers of the New Republic had fought. Douglas asserts, “They were peace men, but they

preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men, but they did not

shrink from agitating against oppression…They believed in order; but not in the order of

tyranny. With them, nothing was ‘settled’ that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and

humanity were final; not slavery and oppression”. (Douglass 2). These feelings of justice,

freedom, and humanity with which the fathers of the new republic fought, are the same feelings

that encouraged, encourage, and will encourage all the people who live the stigma of racial,

religious, and gender segregation.

The othering process at this time of the history divided the country between the white

Americans who believed that the Constitution of the New Republic fostered equality only in the

white community, and those white Americans who believed in the Constitution that states, "all

Men are created equal", that included the African-American slaves, then, by law, they have the

same rights. In 1861, began the bloodiest war ever fought between Americans, which will define

four years later the abolition of slavery, not so, the end of the racism and discrimination that

continues to this day.

 Capella 3

Seeing the “others”, African-Americans, as an object just because they have black skin

and belongs to another civilization, from which they were kidnapped, is no more than an excuse

to justify the tendency to dominate, humiliate, beat, murder, in a few words, minimize any

vestige of humanity in another human being. In this process of othering, the dominant group, the

white Americans, conspire in one voice, convincing themselves that this act of discrimination is

the right one. There was no moral, there was no ethics, there was no respect for the integrity of

the one who looks different.

Othering also took place at the Angel and Ellis Islands Immigration station, where

immigrants were selected and allowed to enter or not to the country, according to their

nationality, gender, and economic status. Two immigration ports, two different races, two

different experiences, marked the otherness process in a period that goes from 1855 to 1954.

Angel Island is located in San Francisco Bay, the West coast of the USA. This immigration

station was opened in 1910 with the purpose to control the entry of a large wave of immigrants

from more than 80 countries, primarily China, and few others from Japan, Russia, and Mexico

(USIS).

The federal government passed different laws restricting the entry of immigrants into the

United States. In compliance with these policies, immigration agents began selecting the

passengers according to their physical appearance, social class, and gender, and thus determine

which one was authorized to enter the country and which one will be deported. Long interviews,

and an exhaustive document verification presented by the immigrants who, by the way, remained

incarcerated, would last weeks, months and in some cases years. Many of them committed

suicide, others, carved on the walls poems describing their sentiments of sadness, melancholy,
 Capella 4

frustration, and anger for this inhuman process. “The migration histories and experiences of the

one million people who were processed through San Francisco and Angel Island reveals a world

on the move and the making of America as both an inclusive nation of immigrants and an

exclusive gatekeeping nation” (Yung).

On the other hand, at Ellis Island, the othering process was quite different. This

immigration port located in Upper New York Bay was opened from 1892 to 1954 (Ellis

Foundation). The first immigrants that entered through this port came from the northern and

western of Europe, England, Scandinavia, Germany. The second wave of immigrants came from

the south of Europe, Italy, Hungary, Poland and some Jewish. -Americans considered the

immigrants from the North and Western Europe belonged to a better race than those who came

from southern Europe, thus promoting discrimination among this immigrant- (Ellis Foundation).

The passengers in the steamships who were traveling in the first and second class completed the

inspection process on the ship; because they were considered economically solvent, they would

not be a burden for the US government. On the contrary, the passengers who were traveling in

the third class were taken to Ellis to fulfill the process of legal and medical inspection.

Stereotypes determine others as “others”. Americans boast when they say that this is the

country of the opportunities and that America has been built by immigrants, in a certain way it is

true, but not many talks about the price these immigrants have had to pay to be here, in fact, they

do not care. One of the voices of protest which cares for a humane treatment with the immigrant

is coming from my classmate Natalie, who observes, “Learning about the Chinese immigration

to the U.S. sounded all too familiar to immigration to the U.S. in 2018. They were blaming the

Chinese for taking away their jobs, aren’t we still doing that today except with a different ethnic
 Capella 5

group? It’s nice to think our country has evolved and progressed drastically and that racism

doesn’t exist. But it seems like things haven’t changed that much since almost 100 years ago. It

was truly sickening to read about how they treated Chinese immigrants like criminals and held

them like prisoners and to know that is still happening today”. (Winter). Are we going to

continue making deaf ears to this situation? or we are going to sit down and reconcile as valuable

human beings that we are.

Therefore, the process of ohering in America has existed since the beginning of the New

Republic to our days and will continue to the day we can openly discuss the issue with

objectivity and respect for the other, resolving our differences and reinforcing our agreements.

Unfortunately, today in the USA, we are experiencing an increasing and critical process of

othering, in the political, religious, racial, and gender aspects. It seems that instead of going

forward we are going backward in the way the human being interacts with each other.

Part Two: Rhetorical Analysis

On March 18, 2008, Senator Barack Obama, pronounce a speech in Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania, as a response to his detractors and in response to a video in which Reverend

Jeremiah Wright, pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ, made racist remarks against

America and Israel. Obama as a great orator, was very convincing in his speech approaching the

racial inequality, appealing to Ethos in a good part of his writing.

He recognizes the issue of racism pointing out in a neutral way a problem that exists in

both the black and the white communities, and in their relation to one another, “On one end of

the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in

affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial
 Capella 6

reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah

Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the

racial divide but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that

rightly offend white and black alike.” (Obama 2). The audience feels that the problem is

affecting both white and blacks and the solution is the unity.

Obama also promotes “to form a more perfect union”, Logos, addressing with objectivity

and maturity the problem of racism that has not been solved, rather obviated. He presented

historical proof, “Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our

Constitution – a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law;

a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should

be perfected over time.” (Obama1). As a lawyer, Obama is well versed in the laws and the

constitution, therefore, he is using data to support his claim.

The sense of Pathos appeals to empathy when Obama began talking about his personal

background, being the son of a black man and a white woman and being raised by a white

grandmother who survive a Depression.

The presence of Kairos is punctual since it deals with the problem of racism addressed in

a specific moment in history when the Senator Barack Obama, first African-American in history,

was nominated for the presidency of the United States, “This is not to say that race has not been

an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed

me either "too black" or "not black enough." (Obama 2). This is in response to his detractors who

put him under the lens of the racial theme since the beginning of his presidential campaign.
 Capella 7

The text exhibits a solid structure and a precise sequence. He begins talking about the

constitution and the sin of slavery that could not be solved at that time in history. Then he

continues addressing his personal story and the challenges of being the son of a black man and a

white woman, as well as his life in faith. Later, he tactically and very well thought-out, he refers

to his detractors, in both sides of the spectrum, blacks and whites, valuing both the positive and

the negative aspects of the parties in conflict. Finally, he just said a beautiful story involving a

young white woman and an old black man calling everybody "to form a more perfect union"

His oratory was very convincing using a firm but conciliatory, honest tone of voice,

addressing sensitive topics, like racism and discrimination, directed to an audience that often

does not want to hear or talk about the racism, much less, is not interested in creating solutions.
 Capella 8

Work Cited

Douglass, Frederick. “What to a Slave Is the Fourth of July”. 1852,

masshumanities.org/files/programs/douglass/speech_short.pdf.

“Ellis Island History” - The Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island, 2018,

www.libertyellisfoundation.org/ellis-island-history

“Hegel on the Master-Slave Relation.” FifteenEightyFour | Cambridge University Press, 2 May

2014, www.cambridgeblog.org/2014/05/hegel-on-the-master-slave-relation/.

“Is 'Othering' a Real Word?” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, 2018,

www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/other-as-a-verb.

Natalie Winter, June 24, 2018. Week 2

“United States Immigration Station (USIS).” Natural History « Angel Island Conservancy,

angelisland.org/history/united-states-immigration-station-usis/.

Yung, Erika Lee and Judy. “'Angel Island': Ellis Island of The West.” NPR, NPR, 6 Oct. 2010,

www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130380169.