The South African Storm

 

The narrative essay The South African Storm by Allison Howard has an identical theme to Gandalf’s quote from the movie The Hobbit . In both pieces the main theme is changing the world doesnt require one person and one action, it requires the everyday pursuit of everyday people attempting to better the world. Gandalf explains that fighting evil is not acheived by great, unreachable power but by “small acts of love and kindness (Gandalf)”. Allison agrees with this because of the regret she feels about getting in the white mans’ car; She wants to perform the small actions to push back little by little the instututionalized racism left over by the apartheid for example walking with the rest of the black people in the rain to show her support.

An example of a way we can push back against certain types of social stratification, like oppression of minorities, is to bring about anonymity on courts. When individuals are being sentenced it should not matter what they look like but what they did and have done. The sentencings should be blind to avoid the unfair profiling and ethnic discrimination of  minority groups. This is equally important to make sure that the majority’s are exonerated for their innocence instead of their race.

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