Blog 1

“The white people looked and acted, as I thought, in so savage manner; for I had never seen among such instances of brutal cruelty,” (Equiano, 75) This quote displays many of the current stereotypes in history. Everyone is usually lead to believe by these accounts that all the white people were horrible to blacks. Equiano utilizes words such as “brutal” and “savage” that will lead many people to think that the treatment of these people were absolutely horrific. Though it is true that in some cases this is truly what happen, but it is not necessary that this happened in all cases. Sometimes people will take part of a story and exaggerate it and not see what the phrase was in context. This will lead to misinterpretations of the text and result in an inaccurate translation. If Equiano’s account is looked into a little further, he says,  “I now thought my condition much mended; I had sails to lie on, and plenty of good vitals to eat; and everybody on board used me very kindly, quite contrary to what I had seen of any white people before; I there began to think that they were are not all of the same disposition.” (Equiano, 94)This quote shows that Equiano had more experiences that gave him a broader view of what white people were like. It is morally wrong to judge a race by one or two interactions. This is a moral that needs to be taken into account internationally. In order to understand a story, you have to read the full story and not a summary.