Ludmilla AJAVON

MGMT101
Mrs. Sara Pax & Mr. Baber Mirza
Saturday, September 28, 2019

Assignment 2

In the entire world, everyone has its own stereotypes. Sometimes it’s based on the
assumption and sometimes it’s just based on personal experiences. In fact, living in a world
full of different cultures is difficult when you are not trying to adapt yourself.

People have a lot of stereotypes on me. They have those stereotypes based on my race, on my
culture and also on my religion. I’ve always been a kind of girl that didn’t payed attention to
those stereotypes. But I can’t say that sometimes it affects my way of thinking about others.
The first experience that I had, was very stressful and made me feel destructive.

People always think that African people smell badly. When I first came in France, people
were looking at me weirdly in the public transports and they didn’t want to sit beside me. I
took it personally because I’m from a hot country and we are used to take really care of our
hygiene in general. Since that day, I have decided that I will stay stand or just try to not pay
any attention to them.

People always think that African people are very noisy. When I came in France, people from
the building I lived in were always saying that we were making a lot of noise at night and that
we were disturbing their sleeping time. We never did it, but they thought it was us since we
were new, and we were Africans.
I act like I understand them and didn’t say anything. Silence is really important when you
don’t want to reply to an unfair accusation.

People think that people from Benin are wizards and witches because Benin is a country with
a traditional religion called Voodoo. It's based on the religion differences
In my country there is a lot of religion, but people always attached us to the voodoo which
can sometimes be really unpleasant.
To manage this conflict the best way is to ignore and to understand that people don't have the
same vision as you. Sometimes people that have already been in your country can help you
show the others that your country, in that case, is not as they think it is.

People think that Africans are living in miserable conditions. Once I've met a German girl
who ask me how I get to Malta, because she taught that I took the boat. I just tell her that it
was by plane. I could have explained her that in my country there is airport and that not all
the people that come from Africa to Europa are taking the boat. I could also have done a little
presentation about my country to show her that we are not all that poor in the country.
In conclusion, I’ve decided that when you want to be an international person you don’t have
to take all of those stereotypes personally and understand that sometimes people do it just
because they don’t know how to react when they are facing others’ cultures.