The Myth of Otherness

Sarah Molina

“As long as there is still one beggar around, there will still be myth.”

Walter Benjamin

When ideology rules, myths abound. These myths can be as seemingly innocuous as the promise of hope, but often, the same myths become the deadly weapons of stereotyping, marginalization, and genocide. Our third speaker of the day, Jan Sowa, a lecturer at the Anthropology of Literature and Cultural Studies Institute, used the above quotation from Walter Benjamin to introduce his lecture about the underlying economic and material predicaments driving xenophobia and racism in Poland. He explained this quotation in metaphoric terms: the beggar represents those marginalized and deprived of capital; the myth is an ideology that arises in response to the beggar, used as a tool of the powerful to keep the beggar in the streets. Our day of lectures and discussions explored the relationship between the beggar and the myth, particularly focusing on the underlying reasons why prejudices and stereotypes exist. This topic of conversation proved fruitful, sparking many questions that could not be answered within a single day: How do we combat xenophobia when a post-truth reality and a polarized media inflame anxiety? Furthermore, how might we have nuanced discussions in a polarized media sphere? For example, how can we acknowledge issues like terrorism linked with extremist sects of Islam without giving into Islamophobia? What are the tensions between hate speech and freedom of speech?

As mentioned, Dr. Jan Sowa provided a nuanced approach to examining the economic issues driving xenophobia while acknowledging that there are many intersecting issues that motivate the behavior of individuals. Our first speaker of the day, Professor Michał Bilewicz, provided another lens through which we could view the rise of stereotyping and hate speech—social psychology. Through his research and experiments conducted on the effects of hate speech, Professor Bilewicz has documented how the proliferation of hate speech in the media and in online spheres has a desensitizing effect. In other words, the more exposed people are to hate speech, the less sensitivity they have to hate speech, and the more prejudice they display towards “Others.” Professor Bilewicz noted, “If you can build an image of a group of people as parasites through propaganda, you will not empathize with these people but flee and escape.” These words were accompanied by the hateful language and images of Nazi-era propaganda that painted Jews as poisonous mushrooms and infectious diseases. These two lectures exploring xenophobia, prejudice, and hate speech sparked many questions, a central one being: what do we do now—how can we combat hate speech?

Both Dr. Sowa and Professor Bilewicz acknowledged the enormity of this challenge, which will be linked to how we tackle many different issues like alleviating class disparity and reworking the legal frameworks regarding the media’s responsibility for hate speech. However, Professor Bilewicz’s research also suggests the possible transformative force of language and image. If we can change the image and language around the “Other,” perhaps we can begin to change the minds of those who fear. This approach must be combined with the aforementioned strategies of resistance, but language and imagery should not be underestimated. It was not Abraham Lincoln but the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass who was the most photographed man of the 19^th century, which was not an accident but a tool Douglass believed would end slavery in America. He believed that for slavery to end, the image of the black had to be revised. He dedicated many essays and speeches to photography, which he viewed as the artistic medium necessary for progress.

Finally, as important as it is to focus on the external change we can make, as activists this change begins with us. Maja Branka provided a valuable training that asked us fellows to tell our own stories and to think more deeply about the construction of identity through various factors, both external and internal. This exercise forced me to reevaluate my own privilege and the ways in which I present my identity to the world. This training was a critical reminder that the issues we will be confronting in our campaigns will be highly personal ones—linked to people’s lives and personal identities. Now I question how to best combine the practical skills from this training with the knowledge learned from our two lecturers. Certainly as this fellowship continues we will gain more tools and knowledge; for now, I ask the following: how can the stories of marginalized individuals, retold in responsible, respectful, and effective ways, begin to eradicate the myth of Otherness?