Oppressed persons first grasp their shared condition as being looked at from outside.

Evidence

The poor are approximately in the situation of the stranger to the group who finds himself, so to speak, materially outside the group in which he resides. But precisely in this case a large total structure emerges which comprises the autochthonous parts of the group as well as the stranger; and the peculiar interactions between them create the group in a wider sense and characterize the true historical circle. Thus the poor are located in a way outside the group; but this is no more than a peculiar mode of interaction which binds them into a unity with the whole in its widest sense. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 417 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Being reflected upon gives consciousness a sense of having an outside; The poor resemble strangers in being both outside and constitutive of the group — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 417; Encountering the Other reveals the for-itself having an outside and being embedded in being (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Being reflected upon gives consciousness a sense of having an outside #expands (0.92)
• Encountering the Other reveals the for-itself having an outside and being embedded in being #corroborates (0.85)
• The poor resemble strangers in being both outside and constitutive of the group #corroborates (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 417
• Individual identity forms dialogically through a constitutive outside, not autonomously. #expands (0.78) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 363
• Being seen is first felt as bodily vulnerability and non-escape #expands (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 723
• For stigmatized minorities, public visibility is a form of power #complicates (0.74) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 912
• Marginalized people see their country more clearly than the dominant group can #expands (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2466