The Other...

'The representative entity outside the self - that is, outside one's own gender, social group, class,
culture, civilisation - is the Other.'

The Other is based on personal preference, an individual decides on their demographic and their personal make up and anyone who opposes certain characterstics can be classed as the other. Some examples of what i could consider as my other are someone; white and homosexual.

The Other is often opposed as we put them down, discriminate against them, show hatred portray them as cowardly, untrustworthy creating and reinforcing our beliefs about the Other on stereotypes.

This theory of the Other can be closely linked with the theory of Levi Strauss's Binary Opposition, as the other is considered the binary opposite of oneself.

The physcoanalytic theory also known as the projection theory suggests that the qualities we seem to dislike about the 'Other' can be often found within ourself, implying some form of hypocrit that projects the anger or dislike they have at themselves on other people.

In this case, a vast majority of the black community, especially the young males see themselves strong masculine, black alpha males and therefore their opposed is the white homosexual who is a target of the discrimination and hatred.

By infering on well known theorist, Ashis Nandy's South Asian Cultural studiesand refering them into the context of the Afro-Caribbean society we can imply that the black, male slaves who were involved in both orignal slavery and the suppression of the British empire were brutalised and reversed in personality, from being religious, inteligent, tender and caring people in a way feminine but in result masculine to males with an exagerated and brutish projected masculinity, which has been carried over years and is now the common characteristic of a black male, to be loud and cocky with thier masculinity in a very stereotypically, manly and butch way, this could be looked upon as a result of cultural imperialism. Therefore their 'Other' is then considered to be the tender, caring, what appears to be feminine characters who are discriminated upon through the vessel that is Dancehall music.

This is considered as the dehumanization of the colonizers and the brutalisation of the colonized.

This not a concrete statement, it is simply an implied suggestion based on Nandy theory and is in no way targeted at black males, however it is an exploration into the reasons behind the clear issue of homophobia within the black community.