Danger Of Single Story

The speech “The Danger of a Single Story” narrated and written by Chimamanda Adichie is a series of overlapping stories and thoughts predominately discussing prejudice around the world. Though it is not our fault that we are only shown a single side of a topic, what we are exposed to is usually biased or lacking in full detail. Many people use what media may say or what they hear around them about a subject to make up their resolved opinion on the matter. Adichie's argument is effective because she overturns all that established knowledge and presents unique views on old ones to create an open minded take on the issue; moreover, Adichie uses humor, significant life experiences, and typical day-to-day discrimination to support her argument.

Chimamanda Adichie is a novelist and a narrator who delivered a persuasive speech on what she calls; "The Danger of a Single Story" but in reality what it means is the danger of stereotyping. Dictionary.com defines Stereotype as “A generalization usually exaggerated or oversimplified and often offensive, that is used to describe or distinguish a group.” Adichie delivered her presentation on a very well-known website called Ted.com, with one objective in mind, to prevail upon everyone to share their personal stories with the world so that there no longer is a “single story” defining any one person or group. Although, Adichie is aware that the damage that has been already created may take some time to undo, she felt that

In July 2009, at a TED conference, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian author, gave a stunning speech about “the Danger of a Single Story”. In her speech, she mentioned about negative consequences happening when people tend to form stereotypes based on a single story, the one-sided argument. The single story blindfolds our eyes and prevents us from seeing the complexity, diversity, and similarities that construct our world, just as Adichie says “these negative stories is to flatten my experience and overlook the many other stories that formed me” (12:56). Listening to all her own personal experience and argument, I have become fully convinced and also see myself reflected in her stories. The single story can cause underlying and harmful impacts not only on personal issues but also on the global scale.

When a person grows up, they are in constant search of their identity, of who they are. Yet, the identity of a person is too complex for anyone to form assumptions about it because it involves more than one factor. The assumptions themselves may be insulting to others who truly know what their marginalized group has. According to the poem Nikki-Rose by Nikki Giovanni, “I really hope no white person ever has cause to write about me” (73). People can never enter the minds of others, they can only speculate from what they have seen or heard. Giovanni states that she does not want anyone to write about her, which shows that she believes they will not receive correct information. People may have honest intentions when they produce a comment

The Danger of a Single Story - A speech that was said by Chimamanda Adichie that inspired me to write this report.

She then goes on to describe how due to racial isolation much of what people know about ethnic groups comes from media depictions. For example she states ‘ there is little doubt that there is great isolation with our own racial/ethnic groups in U.S society… with such media saturated lifestyles, it may be difficult for audience members to even recognize the influence of exposure on perceptions of

There is more to know about a person besides the single story that most people believe is true. A single story is something we hear about another person, culture, or where they are from. This can lead to critical misunderstanding of how their lives actually are. In the book, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. His writing makes sure that most of his characters don't fit into the group of having one single story this is how.

In Adichie’s remarks, she explains the effects of single stories through forms of racism. While racism is a huge issue, I wanted to bring in a different example of when single stories were used in my life. These were connected with my religion and the religion of others.

Response To “The Danger of A Single Story” My perception of the video “The Danger of a Single Story” varies from two points of views. Those views are: What we perceive by what we have been taught and What the actual reality of a situation is. The part that I identify with most was when she stated that she wrote about things that was unseen and the imagination from those one-sided views. In a since we are only taught one specific way of doing things because we have not had enough exposure to different cultures, races, and religions.

In the Ted Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story”, Chimamanda Adichie talks about the dangers of a single story. She says that the problem with single stories is that they create a stereotype for people. She also says, “They rob people of their dignity and emphasize how we are different rather than our similarities.” She also says that if you only hear a single story about a person or country then, we risk a critical misunderstanding. After watching this Ted Talk I realize that the main problem and danger with single stories is that they create a stereotype for something or someone.

I can relate to your “single” story on Africa. When all that is shown on television are sad commercials about how Africa needs help and how by donating only a dollar a month these starving kids can get help, stereotypes begin to form. Besides making Africa seem poor, this makes Africa seem monolithic when it is not, it is full of multiple diverse countries. While you have grown as a person and learned to deconstruct this notion of Africa, there are still many who still believe in this notion. I still see people sharing posts online that talk about how people in Africa are poor and all live in huts and hear parents telling their children to eat their food because kids in Africa have no food.

In the short story “The danger of a single story” by Adichie, a single story means your perspective on a person or object without knowing the full story. The danger involved in a single story is misunderstanding and believing that one gender, race, religion is superior to another without knowing the person and how they are like, but just criticizing them on their country's background.

The Dignity Thief In her inspirational speech, “The Danger of a Single Story,” novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie analyzes the effect of a single story along with its association to stereotypes. Today in our society we individually acquired the knowledge to see pass theses stereotypes, however many of us still bear a limited understanding of the harmful consequences that come along with it. The dangers of a single story are that they often lead to bias assumptions, racial profiling and many times physical violence. Stereotypes are oversimplified bias perceptions perpetrated by individuals whose opinions are based off a single story.

From the TED Talk video “The Danger of a Single Story,” I think that the speaker Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wanted to tell us that we need to read more and know different stories about one place because there are more than one story exist. We should not judge other without knowing themselves. Furthermore, she said that we should not easily believe everything we heard from media because they only give us one impression. I especially felt close to her when she described how she felt after she realized her American roommate teetered her as African not Nigerian. (4:13) Moreover, she had only a single story about Africa. (4:49) Those paragraph remind me when I was in college in New York, my American classmates did not know the differences between Japanese and Chinese or

As human beings, we all are likely to judge before knowing the full story of a topic. But, knowing the complete story of any particular subject can most likely change