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Importance Of Listening To Multiple Stories And Stereotypes

Decent Essays

Synthesizing Essay Question 1: The importance of listening to multiple stories is simple, without hearing more than on side, one can never be sure if the story is accurate. There are also various other ways that only hearing one story can be harmful. In Adichie’s talk, she stated many examples of how single stories can be harmful. The first being that it can create stereotypes. The definition of a stereotype is “A simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group.” With this, one can relate this to a single story by forming a “conception” and then form their belief on the topic of the story with that one point of view. The next being a result of creating a stereotype of the single story, this being the creation of the idea that that single story is the only story. Lastly, my favorite quote from the talk, “It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.” I really connected with this quote and I think it brings the idea of the importance of hearing more than one story together perfectly. I interpret Adichie’s quote in this way, if we don’t let everyone have an equal chance of sharing their point of view, we are ignoring the fact that everyone sees a situation in a different way. Although, the last sentence of her quote connects on the idea of having different views and sharing them with each other makes

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