Reflect on a time when you discovered a new perspective that completely changed how you viewed a person, group, or place. How did your previous “single story” shape your thoughts or actions?

Prompt Response:
A perspective that completely changed for me was the way I viewed race and the people outside of the friend group I had in middle school. For a long time, I was surrounded by people who held prejudiced views, and being around that constantly began to shape the way I saw other people and even myself. I started believing certain stereotypes about Black people and thinking that I was somehow different from or “better than” the people those stereotypes targeted. Once I left that group and began interacting with a much wider range of people, that entire perspective fell apart extremely quickly. I realized that people are just people. Someone's race, the way they speak, the music they listen to, or where they come from tells you almost nothing about their intelligence or character.

Summary:
My “single story” came from spending years around people whose prejudiced views shaped the way I saw other races and even my own.

Reflection:

Breaking out of that perspective felt almost like finishing a tutorial in a video game. Once I actually interacted with people without already judging them, it became obvious how limiting that way of thinking was. It taught me that stereotypes make people seem simpler than they actually are, when every person has an entire life and identity behind what you first see.