The main part of the river – the mainstream – is where the power is. Life tends to be like this river too, with some groups being the most active or powerful while others can feel left out, excluded and left behind. We refer to this as the mainstream and the margin, but you could also say "in-group" and "out-group." The mainstream are the ones who decide the rules of society, what is and is not acceptable, and how people should and should not behave. The mainstream sets the culture, while the margin are those who have to listen to the rules that have been set for them.
Everybody can be mainstream in one way and margin in another. If you are mainstream in this group, there are other groups in which you are the margin. Can you think about times when you were in the margin? When you felt left out or excluded from a group? I bet you can, and I bet you remember feeling lonely, sad, and maybe angry.
During the workshop, I didn’t think of myself as “left out” or “in the margin.” But Orhan stopped in the middle of talking and asked if anyone who spoke English had helped explain what we were talking about. He said that when he studied abroad in Turkey, he couldn’t understand anything at first. He said it was hard and he always felt left out. He apologized to me for not saying some things in English or trying to include me more.
It felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. We talked about acknowledgment last week, and when Orhan said he understood that listening to a language you don’t understand for hours is hard, it made me feel acknowledged and that I wasn't being forgotten about.
