This Tuesday's readings really got me thinking about a video I had to watch in my Child Development class. It's was a TED talk about the dangers of a single story, told by an African American writer. She discusses the story she was given when she came to America from Niagara. From the books we have read as children the things we now see on the Internet, our society has given everyone from Africa a single troubled story, when in fact, many people living in Niagara live similar life's to the way we do. It's human nature to want to categorize things and this has lead us to the concept of a single story. This single story concept has capitalized on the idea of terrorism and race. As a society, media has taught us to think that terrorism must be associated with radical Islam as the term "thug" is only associated with black men when in fact these words are gender/race/religion neutral. The words don't discriminate, we as a society do. When a white person conducts a terrorist attack, he isn't ridden off as a terrorist but instead a boy with a troubled childhood or socially troubled. His story always runs deeper, while a middle eastern man is completely ridden off as a terrorist because of his looks and assumed beliefs, no deeper story is ever looked at. We as a society need to remember that race, region or religious beliefs don't just give us a single story.
No comments:
Post a Comment