Don't Judge a Culture by Its Headlines

As I started writing this, I found myself wondering how to make people understand something that they have already made up their minds about. It’s so easy to stereotype a person or a place. America isn’t all fast food and violence and Brazil isn’t just made up of favelas. For those who don’t know, a favela is a city within a city, a separate world. The very name is synonymous with violence and poverty, and yet when I had an opportunity to visit one I found that it wasn’t that simple.