Much has happened in the months since we published the inaugural issue of Othering & Belonging. Donald Trump won an unexpected victory to succeed Barack Obama as US president just as a peace agreement ended Latin America’s longest conflict in Colombia. Brazilians and South Koreans
The US Department of Arts and Culture (USDAC) may sound like a government agency, but unlike the National Endowment for the Arts, it can’t be eliminated with a pen stroke by the president. The USDAC is the nation’s only people-powered department—a grassroots action network inciting
In the first issue of this publication, john a. powell and Stephen Menendian write: “The problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of ‘othering’” and “the only viable solution . . . is one involving inclusion and belongingness.” It is a simple and audacious
Marilyn Moore was working as executive director of an organization in Bridgeport, Connecticut, advocating for underserved women with breast cancer, when she began to appreciate more deeply that access to fresh fruits and vegetables simply was not available in many neighborhoods. This spurred her decision
Following the publication of the inaugural issue of Othering & Belonging, the editorial staff invited several very thoughtful colleagues to reflect on its lead article, “The Problem of Othering: Towards Inclusiveness and Belonging.” The article engaged the crucial themes that spurred us to create this
The 2016 US presidential campaign was marked by extraordinarily explicit expressions of animus and resentment toward “difference,” whether along lines of race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, nationality, religion, or ability. Many believe that Donald Trump won the presidency not in spite of but largely on
As a white antiracist Catholic social ethicist trained in theology, I approach my work as mediating “between a cultural matrix and the significance and role of religion in that matrix.”1)Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology, Second edition (Minneapolis: Seabury Press, [1972], 1979), xi. In other words, theology
On February, 8, 2017, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Phoenix, Arizona, handcuffed thirty-five-year-old Guadalupe García de Rayos and locked her in a white van. The next morning, after removing a protester who’d tied himself to the van’s tire, officials deported Ms. Rayos to
The term “social inequality” encompasses the many ways in which members of society have unequal access to resources, opportunities, status, and protection. Income inequality is one dimension of social inequality. Over the past two decades, economists have made substantial progress in characterizing the nature of
No one familiar with john a. powell and Stephen Menendian would be surprised by the extraordinary scope and wisdom of their article, “The Problem of Othering: Towards Inclusiveness and Belonging.” Beginning with the statement that “[t]he problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of
Film is a medium prone to othering because it is highly visual, about seeing and being seen. And because it was almost always expensive to make films, the visual coding is highly shaped by the white male view—as John Berger’s famous quote, “Men look at
