Post #1: Atwood and Huie's Depictions of "Othering"

© Wing Young Huie

Wing Young Huie is a talented photographer who uses his platform to uncover and show truths that we often do not see at a first glance. One example of this is the image above, which depicts two black people in what looks like a small grocery store or gas station shop, holding up messages on chalkboards. This image, published in either 2012 or 2013 in an unknown location, caught my attention as he uses the layout of the photo and the messages on the chalkboards to highlight the faults in stereotypes and show two perspectives on black men.

In this image, a black man and woman stand front and center, staring straight into the lens of the camera. They both have important messages to convey, and their body language signals that they are not hiding from the issues of our society; they are facing them head-on. Also, their somber facial expressions and staring eyes tell the viewers that their messages are important and that they want to be heard. The woman, who is placed slightly in front of the man, holds a chalkboard that says “1. Pull your pants up. 2. Stay out of the wrong place. 3. Be more careful.” The man, positioned to her left, has a chalkboard that says “People think I’m in a gang. I’m in college.”  While both of these messages are centered around the relationship between American norms and black people, they differ in their audiences and goals. The woman’s audience seems to be black teenagers, and she is attempting to tell them the ways in which they should act in order to be safer in American societies. The man, on the other hand, is directing his message to American societies as a whole, as he is shining a light on the fact that people often stereotype others based on their race, gender, and body type, even though oftentimes these stereotypes are wrong.

I believe that the setting of this photo is also important to note. They are located at what appears to be either a small grocery store or gas station store. This casual setting, where someone could easily run into either of these people, shows how this issue of stereotypes is present in our daily lives, in every place where we normally interact with others.

Marget Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, which was published in Canada in 1985, also uses various techniques to show the concept of othering. By having her novel set in the future and still incorporate many aspects of real issues in our world, Atwood is able to make the society of Gilead, where The Handmaid’s Tale takes place, an allegory for both America today and what America could become if we are not careful. One of Atwood’s main messages within this allegory is that people can easily be separated into different categories for society's convenience, although this separation can have negative mental effects on those who are put into a role they did not consent to. The handmaids’ importance is seen through the Aunts' depiction of the handmaids early on in the book, when they explain that the handmaids, being a large majority of the only fertile women left in Gilead, are responsible for continuing the human race during a time when birth rates are unprecedentedly low. However, Atwood deliberately juxtaposes the positive effects these handmaids have on their society (creating babies) with the negative effects that the role of being a handmaid has on each individual woman. Atwood shows this through Offred’s first-person narrative, which gives readers insight into how Offred struggles with coping and clinging onto sanity as she is regularly raped and silenced in Gilead.

Both Atwood’s novel and Huie’s photograph show how people are misunderstood when they are stereotyped or unwillingly put into a role for society. In addition to this, Huie and Atwood both are able to convey the negative psychological effects that this has on an individual through narrowing in on a personal account. For Atwood, this personal account was Offred, and seeing Giliead through Offred’s eyes allowed the readers to understand the negative effects being a handmaid had on her mentally. For Huie, the personal example in this photograph is the black man whose sign reads “People think that I’m in a gang. I’m in college.” This shows, through one example, how the way people stereotype this man without getting to know him tells him that society might not expect of him the same things they would expect of a white man. The frustration evident in the words on his chalkboard mirror the frustration Atwood has Offred feel towards Gilead.