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Saturday 3 September 2016

Dear NYTimes -- Stop Othering

Are you aware of how dismissively "other" this declares your black readership to be?

#HereIsMyAmericaHow well do we understand the multifaceted lives of black Americans? Or the lives of anyone of color?

I used to be painfully aware of this casual and unthinking othering in regard to women, (TV Guide would have no trouble describing a crime-fighting duo as "a reformed criminal and a woman," "a hard-nosed cop and a blonde,") and I had to fight this in a former parish where we would have bi-lingual programs and the Spanish was given phonetically.
To consider maleness, or whiteness or English speaking-ness a default is to belittle woman, blacks, Spanish speakers.
Is the white anglophone male even normative anymore?
Shouldn't the flagship of there is no abnormal therefore there is no normal be beyond this?

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