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JANUARY 2022 | Personal UPDATE
ARTICLE
Chris Corlett Educator
E
THE OTHERING
ach January, the unwritten stories of the upcoming year offer promise of a fresh start and an expectation that accompanies the new and uncertain. As a public high school mathematics teacher and tennis coach for over twenty years, each new class or team had this same vibe – every student started with a perfect grade book, and every team could enjoy an undefeated season.1
Othering is the January also brings three stark reminders of foundation of the horrors and atrocities brought about by the discrimination “othering” of a group of persons. Othering – “the process of perceiving or portraying someone and apartheid. or something as essentially alien or different”2 – is the foundation of discrimination and apartheid. The distancing from, and the diminishing of, groups of people provides a rationale and even recommends their unjust treatment. The Bible demands a completely different approach. “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”3 Jesus taught, “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Rather than divide His one creation into countless groups of two, He “create(d) in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace.”4 Apart from God, man has created Jew versus Gentile; Left versus Right; Rural versus Urban; Male versus Female. Caucasian versus BIPOC5; Vaccinated 1 2 3 4 5
The only team I coached to a perfect season is the 2003 Varsity Boys Tennis team. Othering - Wiktionary Micah 6:8 NKJV, emphasis added. Ephesians 2:15b NKJV Black, Indigenous, People of Color VOLUME 32 | ISSUE 01 |
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