The Red Line, Charles Higson 1993

Find and discuss the aspects of prejudice highlighted in the story.
There’re many aspects of prejudice in the story. The three characters Berto, Denise and the nameless man are drawing conclusions just like they know each other, which they don’t. Berto believes that when he tries to express himself on English, the other person will laugh or shook his head. He believes that old people are no help for him, because they’re all deaf, but drunken people are still the worst. He thinks women are more understanding and sympathetic than men. He thinks that the nameless man looks friendly and his face looks like a cherub, so he considers him as an option for help.
The nameless man hates drunken people, drug addicts and girls with dirty hair. He doesn’t hate them because of their personalities, because he obviously doesn’t know them. He just hates the way they look. When he sees Berto, who is dark-skinned, at the train, he claims he’s the type that ruins London – the type that goes to discos and clubs, a drug taker and a hooligan, and he believes Berto is listening to black music.
Denise immediately thinks that Berto is a rapist, when he eyes her up in the train. According to her every man could be a rapist. She considers getting a car instead of riding with the train, but then there are car thieves, crashes, men in vans swearing at you and those horrible hyenas in the TV ads. She smiles to the nameless man to see, if he was any help in case Berto would attack her.
The three persons haven’t said one word to each other, although they are carrying all of these thoughts and pictures just by having looked at each other shortly. I understand that people have prejudices in a big city like London. There are many different people, and not all of them are kind-hearted. Terrible things happen in the real world just like in the end of the story, and I believe prejudice has a lot to do with it. If we see that a woman was killed by an immigrant in the news, we would be more likely to hate all immigrants just because of this one person, because we think they’re all like that.
Denise and the nameless man are comparing Berto with a rapist and the type that ruins London just because of his look. That’s scary and then prejudice has gone over the top.
The story uses shifts in point of view: what is accomplished?
You’re in everybody’s head, so you know exactly what’s going on without consuming what other people think. This way you don’t get fooled by one point of view that might give you a wrong picture of the real situation. If the story was told from the nameless man’s point of view we would have no clue what Berto was like, and we might have believed his description of Berto.
When the story uses shifts in point of view the plot is much more understandable, and we get to know each person deeper.
What does the story tell about contact between anonymous people in the city?
People don’t want to get in contact with strangers. They stare blank out of the window when using public transport, cover their heads in books and avoid eye contact. People are not interested in making friends on the street or when using public transport, because they’re afraid of all the horrible stories they’ve been told from friends or on the news. No wonder young women can be terrified by a black man in the middle of the night, when she just heard about a 27 year old woman who was raped and murdered by a black illegal immigrant.
I understand people have prejudices. It’s very hard not to, but if we start to judge all people we meet without knowing them or their background, earth won’t be a nice play to be. And I believe that it’s certainly easier to put immigrants in a category, and think the same of each person based on one man’s actions. This must not happen. Expect to be treated the same way you treat others, and try to make the world a better place by being kind and friendly.