The Danger of a Single Story
The purpose of this project was to compose a short historical fiction in order to portray the effects of European imperialism in Africa and to give the authors and audience a fuller and more complete view of the diverse and varied view of the continent.
The single story is a stereotypical view of a location, culture, or group of people that is
usually the result of information being ignored due to social restrictions, confirmation bias,
ack of initiative, and or lack of information. The African continent (no, not a country) is a
wonderful example of a single story. Although Africa is the poorest continent by nearly every measure, the majority of the African continent is not what one sees on the news. Media tends to focus on dramatic and negative events; this leads to the polarization and biasing of the information that we receive. A single story results in the mass over-simplification of things that should not be over-simplified. The seemingly benign single story of Africa as poor and needing help has resulted in the stereotyping of the people of the continent as well a subconscious form of racism, seeing them as needing help from the developed world. An example of the consequences of this kind of view can be seen in the results of King Leopold's Belgian Congo. The outside world's view of the Belgian occupation of the Congo as philanthropic and as a help to the people there blinded the public from the genocide that Leopold committed there. Belgium was not the only country with a stake in the new continent but it was arguably the one with the largest footprints, so to speak. Due to the lack of African representation in later decolonization, borders were drawn poorly and minority groups failed to get representation in the countries they were then forced into. These minority groups are discriminated against and, in the case of Rwanda, nearly exterminated. Rwanda was a perfect storm of overrepresentation and representation bias, cultural tension, resource shortage, and too many other factors to count. The Tutsi ethnic group in Rwanda controlled much of the government. The tension caused by the lopsidedness was exacerbated by resource shortages. This led to an sickeningly efficient extermination of 20% of Rwanda's population, about 1 million people, in 100 days by the general populace. In order to avoid another Rwanda, the public needs to simply be curious. We need to expand the number of news outlets we input as well as listen to all sides of the story. It would help if our governments were more proficient, but as the image to the right represents, the people have influence; we must use it.
The single story is a stereotypical view of a location, culture, or group of people that is
usually the result of information being ignored due to social restrictions, confirmation bias,
ack of initiative, and or lack of information. The African continent (no, not a country) is a
wonderful example of a single story. Although Africa is the poorest continent by nearly every measure, the majority of the African continent is not what one sees on the news. Media tends to focus on dramatic and negative events; this leads to the polarization and biasing of the information that we receive. A single story results in the mass over-simplification of things that should not be over-simplified. The seemingly benign single story of Africa as poor and needing help has resulted in the stereotyping of the people of the continent as well a subconscious form of racism, seeing them as needing help from the developed world. An example of the consequences of this kind of view can be seen in the results of King Leopold's Belgian Congo. The outside world's view of the Belgian occupation of the Congo as philanthropic and as a help to the people there blinded the public from the genocide that Leopold committed there. Belgium was not the only country with a stake in the new continent but it was arguably the one with the largest footprints, so to speak. Due to the lack of African representation in later decolonization, borders were drawn poorly and minority groups failed to get representation in the countries they were then forced into. These minority groups are discriminated against and, in the case of Rwanda, nearly exterminated. Rwanda was a perfect storm of overrepresentation and representation bias, cultural tension, resource shortage, and too many other factors to count. The Tutsi ethnic group in Rwanda controlled much of the government. The tension caused by the lopsidedness was exacerbated by resource shortages. This led to an sickeningly efficient extermination of 20% of Rwanda's population, about 1 million people, in 100 days by the general populace. In order to avoid another Rwanda, the public needs to simply be curious. We need to expand the number of news outlets we input as well as listen to all sides of the story. It would help if our governments were more proficient, but as the image to the right represents, the people have influence; we must use it.
The story I wrote takes place on the island of Anjouan in the Mozambique channel. You have probably never heard of Anjouan and that is ok. I chose to set my story on Anjouan due to its obscurity. The New York Times did not publish an article when it seceded from France. I wanted to challenge myself and because I am already proficient at researching obscure things I also decided to write my story in the 2nd person to make things tougher. To through a cherry on top I also messed up the chronology. The strange island coupled with the strange point of view coupled with the strange chronology resulted in difficulty meeting deadlines. I am proud of the work I did and the fact that I, against all odds, composed a coherent fiction. Here is a quote that I am particularly proud of: The sun had relinquished its glowing grasp on the enlightened and let them sink into darkness. Although this quote does not demonstrate or showcase any of the research or the point of view from which the story was written, it does show how in my story I strived to not repeat words and to show and not tell people what was happening. I could have said You looked into the setting sun as the sun went down. The sunset was pretty. The second quote repeats words and tells you that the sunset was pretty. Avoiding both of those things helped me craft a better story.
Each piece of my cover has reasoning behind it. The hands on the dials of the Etch-A-Sketch ® represent the flag of the Independent Island of Anjouan while the radio drawn represents the story's revolving around radio broadcasting. The name of the story, Imprints represents the closing line as well as the ability of the flag's hand to make handprints. The Etch-A-Sketch ® represents the fleetingness of everything and how one good shake can ruin everything while leaving a clean slate to create something new. The cover was quite easy to make although repairing the pixelation of the background image was quite annoying.
Through this project I learned that advocating for review and receiving edits in are extremely important in the Humanities. While I was already familiar with and relied on peer review in the past, the extent to which I had done it in Humanities was minimal; the drafted review process only took place in Chemistry. Due to the fact that the author knows everything, sometimes they forget to explain something to the reader. As an author, this is tricky to avoid; it is easy to send it to a friend. If I had to make a slogan for the review process, it would be 'Send [it] to a Friend.' I have learned the importance of perspective through this project by recognizing both the difference between my perspective and others and what we stand to gain from it and the perspective of my characters given that I wrote the story in the second person. I have learned to give people useful insight using my perspective as a reader through the structured critique process that brought us beyond grammar. This project about imperialism and invasion has, however ironically, taught me how to be imperialist with work, in a way, and to have others invade to see what needs to be done to make the project stronger and to do the same for others.
Each piece of my cover has reasoning behind it. The hands on the dials of the Etch-A-Sketch ® represent the flag of the Independent Island of Anjouan while the radio drawn represents the story's revolving around radio broadcasting. The name of the story, Imprints represents the closing line as well as the ability of the flag's hand to make handprints. The Etch-A-Sketch ® represents the fleetingness of everything and how one good shake can ruin everything while leaving a clean slate to create something new. The cover was quite easy to make although repairing the pixelation of the background image was quite annoying.
Through this project I learned that advocating for review and receiving edits in are extremely important in the Humanities. While I was already familiar with and relied on peer review in the past, the extent to which I had done it in Humanities was minimal; the drafted review process only took place in Chemistry. Due to the fact that the author knows everything, sometimes they forget to explain something to the reader. As an author, this is tricky to avoid; it is easy to send it to a friend. If I had to make a slogan for the review process, it would be 'Send [it] to a Friend.' I have learned the importance of perspective through this project by recognizing both the difference between my perspective and others and what we stand to gain from it and the perspective of my characters given that I wrote the story in the second person. I have learned to give people useful insight using my perspective as a reader through the structured critique process that brought us beyond grammar. This project about imperialism and invasion has, however ironically, taught me how to be imperialist with work, in a way, and to have others invade to see what needs to be done to make the project stronger and to do the same for others.