4. Othering

Q1. Have you witnessed unequal treatment of people around you? Who is being treated differently? Why do you think people treat this person or this group of people differently?

I have witnessed the unequal treatment of people around me. He is my Form 5 classmate, I called him as Y. I always saw him stay alone at his corner seat because he has poor interpersonal relationships and homework is not good in the class. No one would like to talk to him and he only keeps silent and makes himself low sense of presence. One time, there is a girl called J, she is the first-class student next door to our class (we are second class). She said that her chair is lost. Therefore, she would like to come to “see” our class whether her chair is in our classroom or not. This causes me to feel like one of us is the thief and stolen her chair. Some more, Y was absent on that day. Then at my class, there is some guys are closer with J, so they ask her to take Y’s chair back to her seat. I saw her really take action to get Y’s chair, it means that Y’s is the chair’s thief. I know Y has no friends and so no one would like to help him although he was absent.

I couldn’t bear watching on this so I shouted on J to stop her. This is because I know they won’t return back the chair to Y after today. And no one will tell Y who has taken his chair when he is back to school on the next day. J heard what I said then she also feels guilty and goes back to her class. This treatment causes me to feel angry and sympathy on Y. J has looked down on Y so she doesn’t need to ask permission from Y and account that all people are standing with her.  They are treating Y differently than others like I vs. You or intelligent vs. unintelligent.