Introduction
This is the third and last in the series of our flipped lectures on Incident Analysis, the first project in our Academic Writing course, GSW 1120. The overarching theme of the entire course is Writing about Othering. We have defined Othering as a term that means the different ways by which a group mentally conditions and treats another as 'not belonging' either consciously or otherwise. Through the lens of writing about writing, we will examine writings (our understanding of writing in this class is broader) surrounding human-based Othering, as they manifest in processes like Biases and Stereotypes, and Prejudices.
Key words: Assumption, Discrimination, Bias, Stereotype, Prejudice.
In this series, we spotlight Chimamanda Adichie, a Nigerian writer whose third novel Americanah, written in 2013, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. In her first TED Talk in 2009, "The Danger of a Single Story," she helps us understand the dangers that lie in having a single story of a person or a group of people. That stories matter and the ways they are told equally matter. She warns that single stories lead to stereotypes, noting that the problem with stereotypes is “not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete [and] they make one story become the only story.”
Task
- Watch: "The Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Adichie
- Watch: "Be Careful in Africa" by Nas.
- Read: Janet Holmes' "Women Talk Too Much" (PDF in Canvas).
- (through Writing) Think: Back on events (I am sure you will have a handful) where you have experienced any form of stereotype, bias, or prejudice. How did it happen? What are the fundamental issues behind such stereotype? To understand what I mean by 'fundamental issues,' jump to (6) below...
- Read: "The Rhetoric of Social Action" by Elenore Long (PDF in Canvas).
- Imagine (Michael's second trip from Nigeria): My first trip to America was a jolly one: the comfort, the world-class service, and the meal, oh the meal! That smooth flight experience with this reputable airline instantly made me a sworn passenger. Given the existing chemistry, I booked my next trip, again from Lagos to Atlanta, with the same airline. The attendant at the Check In desk announced to me that flying with the airline just earned me more miles, if I remained a loyal customer, handsomer rewards were on the way. Much of the trip would be at night and we will be flying across the Atlantic Ocean. Since I will be arriving to a busy day at my destination, I needed all the sleep I could get. The temptation of watching the latest blockbusters during the flight reared its alluring head, but I refused to give in. I vowed that only the in-flight meals would wake me up from this bliss of a 12-hour-ish journey. However, very early into the journey, my excited gave way to my greatest nightmare. As the flight was about to taxi, the voice from the cockpit was feminine. A female pilot? My heart sank. I spent all 12 hours asking for the forgiveness of my sins, if this was going to be the end. At the foundation of this made-up story is Sexism or gender bias. Some still hold the belief that some professions require special skills and due to the assumption that men tend to possess extra abilities than women in certain operations, they construct implicit biases like: a female pilot may not be as good as a male pilot. (Mind you, both male and female can hold this implicit bias).
- Reflect: (a) What is the fundamental issue of the events you highlighted in (6)? In what ways can you join the conversation on any kind of biases, stereotypes and prejudices? (b) Re-visit: Grant-Davie, and re-read the sections on Exigence to understand 'fundamental question' (c) What group of 'Othered' people are you interested in or a member of; what debates surround them; how have people written/tweeted/spoken about them; what strikes you as interesting, true, untrue, and worthy of further research about the group that comes to mind?
Within your field of study, what Single Stories exist? What are some of the biases/assumptions/stereotypes? Against who? What are the discussions around that and how may you enter into the conversation?
Further Consideration
Another way you can approach this task is rather than look from the outside, you may consider the inside-out dimension: rather than think of what people did to you or what people did to other people, how may you have been culpable of stereotyping or showing bias to other people; people of different social, cultural, economic, racial background than you? What erroneous beliefs did you have of someone based on their looks, the way they talk, their cultural background, their religion or non-religiosity, their love for Pepsi vs. your allegiance to Coke etc.? Othering can be as mild as a Pepsi vs. Coke banter. At the same time, it could be as vicious as the persecution of the Rohingya people as we have seen since 2012 in Myanmar. View and read this photo essay to have a sense of the humanitarian condition of this stateless people.
Above all, what topics can you explore moving forward in this course?
Works Cited
Creating Success (2017, November 25). Be careful in Africa Nas Daily Day 595 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/DWaLrqILe5A
Joyce, A. (2018, June 11). Photo essay: “I want to live in peace.” Retrieved from http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/multimedia/2018/5/photo-rohingya-women-refugees
TED (2009, October 7). The danger of a single story | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg&t=57s
Designed by Michael Oshindoro