Savoldo Sofia, 5B SCI

The last white man

While reading the book “The last white man” one sentence in particular caught my attention: in the scene
where Oona gets to Anders’ house for the second time, Anders gets described as “the dark man who had
been Anders”. This sentence made me think about what makes us being who we are: is the black Anders
the same as when he was white?

Through the book Anders’ character developes a lot, and in the end of it, he realizes he has always been the
same, no matter the colour of his skin. In the beginning of the story instead, he himself believed to be
another person, he felt different and he started acting differently too; but why does this happen? Was he
scared of what he had become or was he scared of what people would have tought of him?

I think both: society makes us think that different equals to intimidating and that we should stick to the big
mass, and to do what we are used to, and the more we lookalike, the best we are; because of this, Anders
obviosly is brought to fear himself and to fear other people’s opinion.

Instead I think that our world should enhance our differences in a positive way because they are the one
that make us being unique: without those we would all be the same, and the question “who am I?” would
not really have any meaning.

Being black is a “positive” difference if the word black includes in itself the black culture, the black
traditions and all the other black features that give a meaning to the concept of different from a white
person.

Anders by changing colors doesen’t gain all the “black features”, and so he has no reason to feel different.
But in fact he does. This made me reflect upon the fact that too often we let our physical apparence
determine who we are as human beings. We forget that our bodies are just our shields.

In the end, I want to give my personal answer to the question I posed in the beginning: when Anders
changes color, he believes to be different, but he is the exact same. In the end of the story, he understands
that he had always been the same Anders, but I believe that he is now grown different, he is no more the
white man he was, and not because of his skin tone, but for the inner development he had.