"Nice Girls Don't Talk to Rastas"

This week we read the article, "Nice Girls Don't Talk to Rastas" by George Gmelch. It talked about a girl from New York named Johanna living in a village in Barbados. The Rastafarians that lived in the village formed an idea about her that she was "the Devil's child" and was a drug addict. They accused her of taking her clothes off with the Rastas and smoking marijuana with them. The Rastas judged Johanna because she was a nice, tall, pretty girl that was obviously not from Barbados. In their culture, it is not acceptable to just go up to someone that you don't know and start talking to them. Johanna had been getting close to a man named Joseph, a Rasta who lived in the village in which she was residing. This took the village by surprise. They saw the two walking together and spending a lot of time together. In Barbados, interracial relationships are frowned upon. Johanna did not realize the seriousness of her actions because of naive realism, which is the idea that everybody perceives the world the same way. In America, interracial relationships are very common and people do not think twice about seeing two races spending their time together. We are used to homogeneous societies where everybody basically has the same beliefs. In other countries however, social standings are different. Certain actions are not acceptable and will lead to serious consequences. Johanna was basically shunned by the village just because she approached the situation the wrong way. People need to realize that every culture has their own beliefs and what may be acceptable in one place is not acceptable in others.