Chimamanda Adichie: The Danger Of A Single Story

The Danger of a Single Story Paper
Taeler Wilson: UNIV 100
After watching the movie “The Danger of a Single Story”, I immediately became interested in how ignorant we as people can be. Chimamanda Adichie, the speaker of the video, spoke about the misconceptions there were of Africa and its people; one those being that they all are the same. I myself realized that I too grouped all of those from the continent into one category, not separate countries and cultures. We in America tend to do this frequently, and because of it, Adichie had several difficulties when moving to the United States. Her college roommate assumed that she didn’t know how to use a stove and that she listened to “tribal” music. People naturally went to her with questions about Africa assuming that she knew knowledge about the entire continent not just her home (Nigeria). People already had a “single story” of Africa and Adichie’s life growing up without actually doing the research. That itself is quite shameful to me.
Africa is not the only subject she spoke of however. Adichie spoke about her
childhood, and how impressionable we are of children. We listen to those we look up to and believe them without fault. She also spoke of her trip to Mexico and about how misinformed she had been about their culture because of the many immigration arguments going about in America. I realized because of all of this, I had too experience many cases of judging a book by its cover or its review. In fact most likely everyone has.
A single story is exactly what it says: one story, one opinion, one version, and not authentic. One large example of myself going by a single would be the Earth Quakes that’s hit Japan last spring. Right after the earth quake happened, our country immediately erupted in news broadcasts. There were different reports and statistics on every weather channel you looked, but we never got to see the big picture. Of course, we sent help to their country, but that only lasted for so long. Soon the hype over the earthquake wore off and I as well as many others let the disaster slip from my mind. That didn’t mean it went away however. The damage from the earth quake was still there and quite possibly long lasting. There were still many people missing as well as suffering citizens, but we just forgot. We decided to stop caring because the news no longer deemed it important, and that was wrong. I only heard one story from the news, and that was highly censored. It was only after I did a research project that I learned about the dire consequences resulting from it.
Another example of me being guilty of a single story would be the year I met one of my dear friends in church, Emily.
Emily Stoten has Down syndrome and I specifically remember that the first time I was introduced to her, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t think she could relate to me like a normal person, therefore I didn’t realize that I could act like a normal person around her. But what is the word normal? There is no normal. Everyone is a human being, including Emily and I soon learned that even more just like me, she was a teenage girl. Emily loves the color pink and she loves talking about boys. She enjoys playing on a softball team, has a job, is involved in choir and is even an active athlete in the Special Olympics. The only difference between Emily and me is that she has a learning disability that she was born with. It isn’t her fault, and she embraces what god gave her to the
fullest.
I judged Emily just like Adichie’s roommate judged her and I’ll never forgive for that because it was wrong of me. Adichie states that if “we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise” and I fully believe that statement. If we all learned to be more open minded, those misconceptions we have about world issues or others would no longer be in existence. The world would be such a better place to live in.