In the fiction novel, Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo, the audience learns about racial injustice through the stories of multiple women and their experiences fighting for racial equality. This novel discusses many different characters throughout the chapters, and tells a different story in each. This idea in Girl, Woman, Other, supports Chimamanda Adichie’s point that a single story is dangerous to history and justice. Evaristo instead decides to use multiple stories to emphasize the magnitude of racial injustice and enable the audience to truly understand how long the fight for racial injustice has been going on. The ages of the characters span between 19-83, demonstrating the lack of improvement for black people through modern history.
93-year old Hattie is one of the characters who demonstrates the long fight for justice. She uses her voice to fight for equality and protests with a “walking stick with a Black Power fist on the knob” (Evaristo 364). This demonstrates that the fight for racial equality is prevalent in everyday life and at all times, even with things as simple as walking down the street. Her old age allows the reader to understand how far back this issue of racial injustice stretches.
Another character, LaTisha, is a middle aged woman who hopes to preach “the word of common sense” to “children” and a “generation of teenagers” (Evaristo 192). LaTisha feels the protest for racial equality should be common knowledge, but only the open mindedness and younger generations of all races will understand. She feels that those who are older have been taught differently, and have been taught to uphold racial stereotypes. The idea that LaTisha has to promote racial equality to younger children and generations proves even further that the fight for racial injustice will continue for many years to come.
This long timeline between Hattie, LaTisha, and the teenagers, parallels the long timeline that black people have been fighting for racial equality. 