foreign perspective | Leslye Joy Allen

(The following blog is something to think about in the aftermath of the recent U. S. presidential election.)

(a news icon, a mono vector symbol)

Today I spoke with a graduate student named Wardah. She is originally from Karachi, Pakistan. In the course of our conversation, I told her one of my favorite professors is originally from Lahore, Pakistan. As I mentioned his activism, she soon mentioned the string of terrorist attacks that have recently rattled Pakistan. She said, “You know, when I am home, I’m not afraid of these attacks. But when I am a long way from home and I hear about these attacks, I become extremely worried and afraid.” She was young and energetic and polite, and it rubbed me the wrong way that I missed this news about Pakistan. As our conversation ended, I wished her good luck with her studies and she wished me good luck with finishing my dissertation. I frequently read online foreign newspapers, but this subject slipped passed me.

I bring up my conversation with her so that you—whoever you are—can think about whether you heard anything about these attacks in Pakistan on any American news outlets. Did these attacks appear in the news feeds that run at the bottom of your television screens? And if you did see these news stories, how much did the stories resonate with you? You do not need to answer these questions. This is not a test or some trick. I do, however, offer a suggestion.

So many people are either upset about our current president or glad our current president is in the White House or spend much of their time venting about what he will or will not do, that they do not bother to look anywhere else or at anything else. Like a record player’s needle stuck in a damaged part of a long-playing record album, they repeat the same fears over and over again. Are we being told the truth? Occasionally, we are told the truth. Yet, the truth is, the world does not begin and end at the White House; it never has. This unfortunate preoccupation with “fake news” (which too many people are willing to accept as fact) must not make us blind to the fact that there is “alternative news.” What is my definition of “alternative news”? Alternative news is simply news from other sources, typically foreign sources, that discuss other matters happening in the rest of the world, but also news outlets that discuss events that happen in the United States that our stateside news sources conveniently and routinely ignore. It is news that affects us ALL whether we see our connections to the rest of the world’s peoples or not.

It is quite easy to rant about a man that many of us believe will do serious harm to human rights, democracy, and the U. S. Constitution. Yet, if you have been paying attention you should know that he is not going to change any more than a leopard can change its spots. Worried? Worry is certain. Yet, the business of living and being productive citizens requires that we invest in ourselves and our progeny, and in other people in other parts of the world, not in a man who probably does not care about any of this or any of them. Protest and work—yes. Paralysis and fear—no.

So, since the new occupant of our White House has described U. S. media as being irreparably biased against the new occupant of the White House, why not do yourself a favor and read some other news sources outside of the United States. If you have not done so (or, if you do not do it on a regular basis), this might be the time to start. Reuters, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Africa Report, and The Independent are just a few non-U. S. news sources that you might want to read. ALL of them have something to say about the current state of affairs in the United States and the events happening all around the world. You will find information you can really use; you will find opinions and analyses that might open your eyes to some other possibilities for resolving problems; and you are certain to discover that you have allies all around the world that you never knew you had. Àṣé!

This blog was written by Leslye Joy Allen and is protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to this or any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of this or any blog by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: https://leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author. All Rights Reserved

By Leslye Joy Allen

On Wednesday, September 10, 2014, I boarded the MARTA train here in Atlanta heading home from teaching a morning class and having a brief meeting with a professor. When I entered the train station, the humidity was overpowering. A man in a business suit that appeared to me to be either Arab or Turkish, pulled off his jacket. He looked at me and smiled and said in a thick accent, “HOT-LANTA is not just a nickname, eh?”

We laughed and began to exchange pleasantries about the weather and the city. He informed me that he has to travel all around the United States quite a bit, but he said something that struck me.

He said rather seriously, “Your young people, the students and the school children, are so much more polite and friendly. They are nowhere near as noisy or ill mannered as I have seen in so many other cities around the country. I like Atlanta, except for these humid days.”

We laughed as we both boarded the southbound train. I asked him where he was from. He was originally from Turkey. Then I asked him why he thought Atlanta students were so much quieter. He said that in some places around the world, people consider Americans to be rather loud or at least that is the general stereotype. “In fact,” he said, “I saw a restaurant once with a sign that said, No Loud Americans, please.”

He saw a look on my face that suggested to him that I had another question. He said, “I am always flying in to the Atlanta airport and taking your train to downtown, and almost all the kids and young people I see are Black and polite. Some of them dress funny, but all have been friendly and rather quiet compared to what I have seen elsewhere.”

I had to scratch my head. For while I deal with large numbers of respectable, hard-working young Black students all the time, the perception from many quarters of Atlanta and throughout the United States is that to be in the company of young Black people means you will be constantly annoyed by loud music and loud conversation. Truthfully, I have encountered loud and rude behavior from young folks of all races and ethnicities right here in Atlanta, but it has not been nearly as severe or as often as some people might think.

This Turkish man taught me something about perspective and why I am glad I now strongly insist that my students and friends read foreign news reports as often as possible. The view from some place else is not the same as when you routinely see the same folks all the time, even when those folks are your own people.

Importantly, this Turkish man decided to look at Atlanta and Black people with eyes and ears that have not been trained to only focus on the disasters that are regularly reported on the six o’clock news. He has been observant enough to notice that when people encountered Americans overseas who were loud, that the loud American—stereotype or not—was not a racial stereotype, but a national one.

In the weeks and months ahead as we Black folk all process so much of the bad news about domestic abuse, gender discrimination, racial profiling, violence and war, I hope that we remember that perspectives about who and what we are as a people are not always as negative as the pundits would have us believe. I hope we also realize that the constant worry about our image is unnecessary. People here and around the globe are either intelligent enough and informed enough to form a reasonable opinion or they are not. No degree of sugar-coating or covering up anything will change perspectives in the United States or abroad.

Yet, I also hope we remember that the perspectives of people who are on the outside looking in, who do not live with us constantly, have much to tell us if we bother to listen to and look for those perspectives. Yet, the only way to listen to those perspectives and look for those other opinions abroad is to make sure we are not the loud and brass Americans that only think our perspectives matter. Peace.

This Blog was written by Leslye Joy Allen & is protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to this blog, or any total or partial excerpt of this blog must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: http://leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly and visibly stated as the author. All Rights Reserved.

Leslye Joy Allen

Social Commentary, History, Theatre, Jazz, and the Environment

Tag Archives: foreign perspective