The Danger Of A Single Story By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

As human beings, we tend to not understand that what we see or hear about social media, television, books, etc. can guide us towards this one piece of the puzzle. Not knowing the rest of the puzzle creates the assumption of a single story. In her TED talk, Chimamanda Adichie has spoken about the dangers of only knowing a story which leads to stereotyping. By this being said, to what extent do we as a society form a single story about others? To answer this question, there is a great extent when people create their single stories about others because we make these single stories without even realizing it. Chimamanda is a mere example, a representative of how our society thinks and is treated  when making a single

Lacking a wider variety of stories on any given topic can lead to dangerous misconceptions and casual racism. In her TED Talk, The Danger of a Single Story, Ms. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, award winning Nigerian novelist and public speaker, uses personal encounters with the effects of a single story to normalize her experiences with her audiences so that they may internalize them and act upon them easier. Ms. Adichie's use of pathos, as well as her comedic tone and understanding of who her audience is makes it significantly easier for her to accomplish the aforementioned goal.

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.

It has always been assumed that races have a certain look; a person can always tell what a person is by their mannerisms, their speech and the overall way they carried themselves even if they looked a certain way. However, this is mainly due to stereotypes that have long plagued our society and what one “expects” someone to look like just based on the negative connotations that are associated with skin complexion. When we read certain literature, the description of the character is the first thing that we look for as it is a way for us to somewhat bond with the character and attempt to see the story through their eyes. Toni Morrison’s Recitatif explores how the author describes each character not expressing their race leaving a bit of mysery to the reader and attempts to breaks down the stereotypes that exist for each race. Through a literary analysis, the reader is able to see those stereotypical assumptions about the color of one’s skin and how they should cease to exist in any world whether it is literal or figurative.

The controversy surrounding race and racism has continued prosperous for years and will continue for years to come. However, racism has deeper implications than what appears on the surface. As shown in the literary works below, misrepresentation of minority populations and unfair judgment due to popular stereotypes instigate racism that can lead to conflicts in identity.

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.

Stereotypes of people, places, or things leave a large gap between the truth and what is known as the truth. In the speech "The Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Adichie, Adichie explains the dangers and importance of single stories. The use of her past experiences as evidence to explain the damage these stories can cause, both to the listener and the person, place, and/or topic of the stories gives power to her speech. The author’s

One of the most popular and watched TED talks appears to be Chimamanda Adichie’s, “The Danger of a Single Story”. After watching the TED talk, I now see what her argument is towards a single story. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said, “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” Her argument was clear and very true in our society. As a speaker, she is very articulate, calm, and organized. All stories matter and we shouldn’t just see one side of the story. Chimamanda tells her story on how she found her authentic cultural voice. She warns us that if we only hear a single story of a country or person we risk a critical misinterpretation.

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.

Chimamanda Adichie gives audience examples in order of time. She begins with her impression on British and American literature, compared with that of Nigera together with her experience with Fide’s family. Chimamanda then mentions her interaction with her roommate and university professor, presenting the fact that other people feel sorry for her as she is an African. Those proves the fact that stereotype can rob people’s dignity and hurt their hearts. Though there are great amount of catastrophes, a great many people failed to see the positive side of Africa. In addition, she shows her guilty after she finds that she was deceived by notorious stories about Mexican. Chimamamda reasons that a stereotype is created through consistent repeat on only a single story, which makes people unconsciously generate

Throughout a lifetime people hear thousands of single stories from people, places, and things. This makes the passing of information very dangerous. A single story means, a limited viewpoint, or only seeing something from one angle. As proved in many cases, this is very dangerous in knowing the whole story from every perspective. In many cases the source you are hearing this from may have opinions or facts beyond the point adjusting your way of thinking. The dangers of singles stories was noted by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She had a first hand experience with this situation. As a child in Nigeria she was always reading english books. Appropriately, the national language of Nigeria is english, so it is likely that those were the books available. Later Chimamanda got ahold of African books and this completely changed her mindset, and realized she was only receiving stories from english perspective. This was one of her first encounters with single story. Later when she moved to America for school her she encountered a similar situation but rather someone else experiencing a single story. In her university Chimamanda had a roommate, this roommate was not from Nigeria. When Chimamanda was living with her the roommate was very surprised but her ability to speak perfect english, that she didn’t listen to “tribal” music, and that she could use a stove. Chimamanda believed this to be very odd that someone thought of her like that, but then she realized it was something similar to

To fully understand a specific person, one must dive head-first into the environment and history that has molded the person to whom they are today. However, the mindset of today's generation have been limited to what they are handed, instead of being able to search for more components that would complete the story of a person, or in this case, a race. The lack of knowledge and the unshakeable grip of slavery are strongly supported by the following sources. In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s video, “The Danger of a Single Story”, the absence of having complete perspectives on the people of color leaves a great space for stereotypical assumptions. Ta-Nehisi Coates and Tanzina Vega both explain the effects of having colored skin, how the unshakeable

In her 2009 TED talks presentation,” The Danger of a Single Story,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains how a single story presented by the media and books can affect the way a person may perceive others, places, and cultures (Adichie). She goes into details explaining her point through personal experiences where she falsely misunderstood someone based on a single word she heard numerously, and how she was a victim of a common stereotype. According to Adichie, there is never a single story and that people can go through a mental shift of their perspective if they considered various alternatives that differ from the same story that is commonly told.

Imagine reading books as a child and never seeing yourself in the story. Imagine living on a continent of 54 countries and being expected to know everything about all of them. Imagine surprising strangers by knowing your own native language, just because it is the same one as theirs, and you don’t look like them. For many people, these scenarios are more than just imagination and guesswork; they are facets of life, to which they have simply needed to become accustomed. One person with firsthand exposure to these experiences in famed Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She tells of these experiences and warns of the danger of putting people in boxes when relying on insufficient evidence in her TED talk, “The Danger of a Single Story”. Due to her eloquent use of organizational patterns, sentence structure, and literary devices, and her appeals to pathos and ethos, Chimamanda Adichie’s speech presents itself in an effective manner that convinces many, including myself.

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