How do the limited perspectives of other people in society shape the understanding of minorities and what assumptions do these perspectives reveal about racial biases? Where do see examples of these assumptions in your book?
In “The Danger of A Single Story” the writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks about reading books as a child and how they were all foreign, American or British stories about white children and white things, and how that shaped her interpretations of all stories regardless of where they were based and when she started to read books from Africa, she realized that people like her existed and their stories could be spread. When she went to a university in the U.S and a student stated that it’s a shame that all African men are abusive after reading a book she wrote, she replied stating that it’s a shame that all Americans are cold blooded murderers after reading American Pyscho,flipping the script that many people who never left their home countries and how they interpret people of different races based of simple subjective stories. “I recently spoke at a university where a student told me that it was such a shame that Nigerian men were physical abusers like the father character in my novel. I told him that I had just read a novel called ‘American Psycho’ and that it was such a shame that young Americans were serial murderers.” this quote shows a prime example on how little information on different cultures can be harmful if negative and marginalizes people in said cultures.
Another example comes from “Born A Crime” by Trevor Noah, in this book, Trevor grows up in South Africa, where they face apartheid and oppression from the government which forbids interracial relationships, his mother is African and his father is of European, because of this racism is apparent on both sides, in the book, He describes how Colored kids would sometimes try to claim him, seeing his lighter complexion as an affiliation. But he wasn't Colored in his family or cultural background. Then, when he interacted with white people, there was always a sense of otherness, a subtle reminder that he wasn't one of them. "Because I was light-skinned, people assumed I was Coloured. Coloured people assumed I was white. And white people, well, white people weren't sure what I was, but they knew I wasn't one of them." (Noah, Chapter 6) this shows how peoples limited knowledge for people who’s heritage and hesitancy because of said differences can come off as ignorant hate instead of simple questions.
For participants:
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