Othering reaches beyond defining the self as superior and the Other as inferior. Othering has determined the life experiences of groups of people at different times in U.S. history. For example, portraying Native Americans as dangerous savages provided European settlers in the U.S. the rationale to justify killing them and taking their land; portraying African Americans as an inferior race provided the necessary logic to justify slavery and later segregation during the Jim Crow era; and portrayals of Japanese Americans as disloyal were used to justify their internment during World War II.
