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By Root 930 0

their way is the best way and that those who don’t agree are somehow essentially inferior, it becomes all too easy to justify discrimination and persecution. The most obvious examples of this totalizing tendency are probably political and religious persecution, but we find it whenever people are discriminated against for not living up to societal ideals of masculinity or femininity, for instance, or for refusing to stay in the closet and pretend to be something they are not. It occurs when those in authority or in the majority tell minorities that they are somehow inferior because their culture and ethnicity does not fit the norm but that they might be better accepted if they did a better job of conforming. In all these cases, one group—the one with power—insists that others either conform or be shunned or persecuted.

But Seuss provides another option to totalizing tendencies. Even in Happy Birthday to You, Seuss emphasizes the importance of recognizing that “I am I,” different and vital in a unique way from all those other individuals in society, or as he proclaims, “There is no one alive who is you-er than you!” (Birthday). In doing so, Seuss promotes a pluralism that encourages the individual to be something apart from those totalizing tendencies that continually try to mold people into a preset pattern and reject anyone who appears different than the norm. The lesson is an important one to learn because, for each of us, life is a continual encounter with the Other, individuals and groups who aren’t just like us.

Caught in the Snide: Encountering the Other

As we go through our lives, we often meet people who seem different than us, and many times our hearts start thumping and we try to get away as quickly as we can, even if it means losing our Grin-itch spinach, spending the night getting Brickel bush brickels in our britches, or trying to hide in a Snide bush (Scared). But there are other options we have when we encounter the Other. We can shrink back in fear and work to maintain our distance, but we can also realize that perhaps we aren’t as different as we first imagined, or at least that we can still form friendships despite our differences, even if the Other is a pair of empty, pale green pants. Unfortunately, we can also think of ways to exploit the Other, perhaps by treating the Other as a thing or an object for our benefit. When we do so, we form an I-It relationship because we aren’t treating the Other as fully human and deserving of the same considerations we expect for ourselves.3 In treating the Other as somehow less than, we take the first step toward exploitation and dehumanization. Slavery couldn’t have been possible if the slaveholders truly believed that the people enslaved were equal. Similarly, King Yertle, in forcing his subjects to function as his throne, treats them as objects instead of citizens and proves that he doesn’t care that they “are feeling great pain” and doesn’t believe that those “down on the bottom . . . too, should have rights” (Yertle). Yertle shows that he is interested only in his own power and status and is willing to use those he sees as Other as a means of securing both, no matter how his pursuit might undermine the happiness and possibilities of those he rules. This attitude appears in many types of discrimination, but all types start with someone believing that someone else is different and somehow deserves less because of it.

So dehumanization (an attempt to strip away someone else’s humanity, human dignity, and/or human rights) is one possible response to the Other, but so is humanization, which Paulo Freire calls humanity’s vocation, or calling. Freire also believes that the people who have been dehumanized are the ones best able to see the need for social changes; after all, they are the ones most directly damaged by dehumanizing conditions. When you haven’t been on the receiving end of discrimination, it’s easy to underestimate its harm, or even to assume that it doesn’t exist, at least not anymore. There is a certain blindness of the privileged that must be overcome