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Being An Outsider

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No matter where one goes on this dismal chunk of rock, one will probably encounter an outsider. In high school lunchrooms there is always at least one poor, sad teenager who has the unlucky seat next to the trash can. In parks and school playgrounds there is always that one melancholy kid that provides a stark contrast from the joyful shouts and screams coming from the other playing children. The experience of being an outsider is an inescapable universal condition that can be caused through social class, appearance, or other factors. Being an outsider is caused by social class no matter where one is in the world. In Santha Rama Rau’s memoir of her childhood as an Indian girl in British controlled India, she talked about how she and her sister were seen as outsiders in their British run school …show more content…

In Ryszard Kapuscinski’s lecture, “Encountering the Other: The Challenge for the 21st Century”, Kapuscinski argues that everyone is part of another group that is deemed the ‘Other’. Kapuscinski states that “Others are indeed Others, but for those Others, I am the one who is Other” (Kapuscinski, 22). Thus, being an outsider is a universal condition since we are all the Other to someone else. However, some might argue that being an outsider is not a universal condition as humans are by nature social animals so being an outsider is a rare occurence. To this, Kapuscinski also states that being an outsider is universal as “...the Other is a mirror into which you peer...a mirror that unmasks and denudes, which we would prefer to avoid” (Kapuscinski, 28). In other words, being an outsider is a universal condition even though humans are social animals because the Other is a reflection of qualities that define a person and humanity in general. The quality of being in outsider is universal as everyone is an outsider to someone else and outsiders are simply reflections of who humanity

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