Until ninth grade, I was uncomfortable with school because it bored me. I was bored of regurgitating information; there was nothing else to do. In high school, I stopped being bored, but I was still uncomfortable. How was this possible? It is certain something changed. Both my school and my schooling changed in high school. I was taught about problems; my teachers presented them to me as my own problem. My teachers gave me more questions than answers.
The classes in high school caused me discomfort; in them, I was presented with social issues from other cultures. These issues didn't apply to me. I was a Caucasian, was living in a suburb in one of the wealthiest of the United States, and was living in the United States, which is itself the most socially advanced. My parents had a happy marriage; everyone in my family went to college; we were middle-class. In my Catholic-based courses I took in high school, I was taught about prejudice, poverty, marginalization, and how they lead to murder, abortion, domestic violence, drug abuse and alcoholism, divorce, capital punishment; these were social issues that did not apply to me. Consider the countless cultures that dealt with at least one of the issues that didn't apply to me.
In my Catholic classes, other cultures' problems became my problems. I was drawn away from feeling comfortable in my culture and drawn towards empathy for other cultures. And empathy made me uncomfortable. Examining cultures different from my own? Making their problem my problem? Why was I feeling empathy towards them? Pratt would argue that I established a contact zone: “[these are] social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today”(529). Pratt would say that I clashed with the other cultures I examined in my courses. I am a Caucasian; I have experienced nearly no prejudice; I clash with people of other ethnicities who have suffered nearly tragic prejudices. An example of this is the colored South-Africans oppressed by Caucasians during the Apartheid. We learned about the Apartheid in my senior religion course; I have never experienced prejudice like the South Africans did.
Note that I am Caucasian but I am not affiliated with the Apartheid, yet I have more power in America now than the colored South-Africans had in South Africa during the Apartheid. Pratt would say we had asymmetrical relations of power. I would have a nearly symmetrical economic and social status if I moved to South Africa, while colored South-Africans would have a nearly symmetrical economic and social status if they moved to America. My status would be financially well-off and free from prejudice. Their status would inevitably be one of poverty, prejudice and marginalization. Because we would be asymmetrically related even if I entered their culture or if they entered mine, we would inevitably clash in terms of power, money and experiencing prejudice. Though we had these differences, I tried to do more than clash with other cultures.
It would have been simple for me to have bluntly clashed with other cultures. But, through my religion courses, I did much more. I learned to grapple with the issues relating to other cultures, which didn't relate to me. For example, I was taught about marginalized cultures. My American upbringing was blatantly different from the upbringing of marginalized children. I lived each night in a home while other children lived on the streets. No one seemed to care about them whereas my family cared greatly for me. What my teachers taught me about all marginalized persons bothered me. I felt I could do nothing to help them besides donate money and spread word of their suffering. I truly felt helpless because I couldn't help. I believe I felt true empathy. Empathyis how Pratt would say I grappled with the cultures we studied because, though I clashed with them, I found a way to view their lives through their perspective. And as I better understood their lives, I understood why certain cultures perceive America as place of opportunity. Pratt would call this autoethnographic text: “By which I mean a text in which people undertake to describe themselves in ways that engage with representations others have made of them…the so-defined others construct in response to or in dialogue with those texts” (519-520). Now that I understood the others' cultures, I could understand their representations of me. My response to their idea of my culture was that I thought they were right that America is a great place. I at least learned I should appreciate what I have; because many cultures don't. Realizing what others didn't have, and I what I did have, furthered my empathy.
