The summary of “The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Adichie is a narrative by which she discusses her childhood in Nigeria and how the perspective of life in Africa has a view of where it can be misinterpreted by the media. The main idea of “danger of a single story” comes from people of her color getting limited to expand their knowledge capabilities due to how Africa is persuade in people’s minds when in reality there so much more beyond than just being a stereotypical based setting. In her early years, she grew up into the literature world & how it shows her that history novels has featured her culture on numerous occasions in the books that she has read. At one point, she didn’t know “girls like her” existed in literature which brought a surprise to her eyes. New things that she would discover, it would inform herself more about what’s actually going on with the reality of society.
I agree with Adichie’s main argument due to the fact that a great majority of people will constantly have an opinion on a subject about to which they know absolutely nothing. I can relate to Adichie’s argument because growing up in NYC especially in Brooklyn, I moved to a neighborhood called Brownsville where it was supposedly one of the most dangerous places to live in New York due to media portraying it as a constant violence setting where shootings, robbery, and stabbings would happen all the time. There was no safety whatsoever for young Black and Latino kids people would say. 11 years living in this neighborhood, I’m well and safe to the point where everyone in this community provides respects & care for one another and it isn’t as bad as it seems to be. The relevancy of the danger of a single story is on day to day basis a lot of people experiences the stereotypical narratives about where they reside & on who they are as residents , outside audiences are never going to understand the importance of what it feels like to live in a culturally environment if they aren’t from there especially if no research was made by them. I believe Professor Barnes assigned this reading to show how to navigate our thoughts on real life issues and to show us that many people around the world aren’t that much different from us and the difficult obstacles that are upon everyone’s shoulders.
