i) Usually the term normative narratives refers to the phenomenon in human societies or designating actions or outcomes with certain stereotypes. Within reading classmates blogs on racism I saw plenty of similarities between Olivia’s blog, Madis blog, and my own blog. In similar ways we all expressed how living in Saskatchewan we were faced with seeing a child of a different skin colour and to all of us it was a very different occurrence. In a way we all felt uncomfortable because we weren’t used to the change in skin colour being child’s.
In Olivia’s blog she talks about how she was at the waterpark when she came across a child with a different skin colour. As Olivia stated she was alarmed by the situation as she felt very comfortable. As like myself I talked to my parents about it because I didn’t feel safe and that’s a similarity between all our blogs, for a instant we all felt uncomfortable. When we first encounter this situation we all have a million questions on why they look different, and if they are bad or why they don’t look like us. But as Olivia’s mom said “That’s what makes us all different”, and that is the truth nobody should be treated unequally because of their skin. Many people like us feel uncomfortable with their first encounters with different racial groups so they push them away or call them names, but once you give them a chance and don’t judge them like us we all realized how nice they are and how they are just like everyone else.
In madis blog, she expresses how her first experience was in a classroom. A common trait I saw from her story was that they made a big welcome sign for the new girl, was it because of her race? If it was another white person would they have made that sign? The answer is probably not, another normative narrative I saw within all our blogs is we all feel like we have to treat different racial groups special, we have to go extra for them because they are different. That is not right they deserve to be treated like normal human beings not get any more or any less because of their skin. We all have the same narratives because we all experience these situations outside of our own homes, we all recognize they all look different, are treated special, but after we get to know them and meet them we realize they are just like us and all of us are willing to be friendly to those kinds of people.
ii) Guman’s self story is able to disrupt this typical narrative that races other than the typical white race come from other places too. Her story explores a teacher coming from America to China and how the atmosphere around the teacher is a lot different now. It is a different experience for him and it is not the typical different racial group going to North America. Now it is a American teacher being put in the Asian culture. She explains that her thoughts were very confused on how their skin colours were so much different. Her mother told her that “This is our race and our country, this is how we are born”. In her situation the circumstances are flipped depending on where you live as now a teacher of a different colour is coming to their culture.Her story disrupts all of ours because it doesn’t illustrate the common white supremacy stereotype. In this situation the very common white person is being put in an uncomfortable situation, as the people in the Asian culture feel like it is weird to have a person of white skin colour there. So the stereotype is very dependent on the different atmosphere and culture different races are placed in. Dr. DiAngelo says “Socialized into a deeply internalized sense of superiority and entitlement that we are either not consciously aware of or can never admit to ourselves, we become highly fragile in conversations about race.” Gumans story expresses how different being in certain environments can bring different superiority. In the environment of white people any different races are talked highly about meanwhile in different places such as China to see a white person is very unique to them. Everyone will stand out in different places because of their race and that is not right, everyone deserves to be taken to help eliminate racism even today. Upon reading classmates blogs and past course work, it is important to acknowledge that racism is still present in our world today. People should recognize that avoiding those people, or not saying their opinions is not going to change anything, people need to learn to adapt with those people no matter the circumstances.