I’ve always been an “other.” A child of a bi-polar parent who went to eight different schools during K-12, I was always “that new girl, that other.” Thank God that my crazy parent was also brilliant; she taught me to read at an early age. As a result, I had an escape from the chaos in my life. Other worlds.

As I got older, I learned to play nice with people, to feign extrovertism in order to function in society. I surfaced enough from my interior life to make a very few close friends. But I was still different. Apparently, I was too other (that nerd girl, too smart, etc.) that most guys were afraid to jeopardize their non-otherness to talk to me. When I finally got up the nerve to speak to my future husband (another other) in high school, I was able to express my uniqueness enough to him to be charming, or so he says. We talked about the Supreme Other (God) and the otherness of the Marvel Universe, were weird together, and fell in love.

Author Toni Morrison first named for me two ideas of “other” in the 90’s. One is an other to care about, to love, to obliterate the self at times. This self-obliteration and love can be beneficial, but Morrison showed that an obsession or an unhealthy connection with the wrong other could also be destructive, as illustrated in her novel, Beloved. She also showed how misguided worship of the other, (the oppression/oppression of one’s own culture) could be disgusting and deadly, as in The Bluest Eye.

The second other relates to being different or unique. Morrison’s heroine Pilate in Song of Solomon was certainly an other, demonstrating fierce individuality, self-ideation and love, so much so that she did not have a belly button. Her character was a sharp contrast to the two triumvirates of women characters who exhibited unhealthy otherness in their lives. Song showed both sides, the destructive power of obsession and also the value of loving yourself manifested by having the faith to actually fly.

20 years later and my life was all about other, mostly good, sometimes detrimental. Faith in God, wifehood, motherhood, professionalism, building a box to enclose myself in so that I wouldn’t be too other; my firsthand experience with other has ranged from sublime to sublimation.

Then I started to wake up.

Everywhere it seemed, there were movements celebrating “otherhood.” Suddenly, it became acceptable to be different, from creatives shouting I AM Other and celebrating nerd hood and Blerdism. Emerging social media has allowed millions to showcase their otherness and find others with which to form community.

Black Twitter is a prime example. To name a few “other” clans, there are Blerds, activists, LGBT, hip hop heads, every kind of music followers, faith communities, fan girls, sports enthusiasts, professionals and every intersection in between.

Social media is an experience that can be both positive and negative, as is any society. But it is also so effing intriguing. How do we as a Black Twitter and the larger Twitter community interact with and treat each other? Along with being a space for writing, I want this blog to be able to explore that question.

“When you’re looking at me, tell me what you see.” K-Dot’s “i” illuminates my otherness conundrum. “Everybody lookin’ at you crazy (Crazy)/What you gon’ do? (What you gon’ do?)/ Lift up your head and keep moving (Keep moving)/ Or let the paranoia haunt you? (Haunt you). “

How does this relate to “otherness?” For me, relating and reacting to others’ opinions of me informs how I see my own otherness; how I feel about this defines everything I am.

Questions:

What does my otherness mean?

Am I okay with being other?

Are others okay with my otherness, and do I even care if they are?

Answers:

Loving myself is not selfishness; it’s confidence.

I appreciate my uniqueness, no matter what anyone says.

My otherness includes how I feel about my God, my husband and child, my others, my culture, my creativity, and myself.

I love my uniqueness.

I love the fact that our daughter fully embraces her blerdism, gamerism, faery loving, literate otherness.

My otherness is the bomb.

And yours is too.