Melanie Olivares Santana-Conversation 2.

Summary:

In the TED talk video titled “The Danger of a Single Story”, Chimamanda Adichie talks about her life, starting with her own reading experience, how her knowledge expanded over the years of her life. She talked about her life and how her mentality drastically changed after she came to the U.S. In the TED she went into more details. Chimamanda started saying how she grew up reading British and American’s children’s books, which inspired her to start writing later on at the age of seven. In her narratives, she consistently featured characters who were white with blue eyes, playing in the snow and eating apples. The reason why she did these specific characters and living that lifestyle was because she grew up reading with Western characters, which made her believe that there weren’t books featuring characters that looked like her. However, all of that changed when she discovered African books and started to identity with them. This happening made her change her mindset completely and that’s when she started to discover herself through these books. After discovering these books Adichie started writing more about things she recognized and connected with. Chimamanda proceeded to talk about one example that led her to come to the conclusion of the danger of a single story. Adichie started saying how she used to throw away food that she didn’t want, and her mother always told her to eat all her meals because certain people like Fide’s family didn’t have money nor food. Adichie always felt pity and sad for Fide’s family and always ended up eating her food. However, one day they went to visit Fide and his family, and it wasn’t as bad as what they thought they knew. Fide’s family had talent and were more than what was rumored about them. They used to always hear how poor they were it was impossible to see them as anything else but poor but that’s why that’s the danger of a single story. Adichie and her family only knew their poverty as their single story. When Chimamanda migrated to the U.S. her roommate was shocked to see how Adichie spoke and acted. Her roommate had a certain perspective of her and everybody that’s from Africa/Nigeria. Which is a danger to a single story. Later on, in life Adichie understood her roommate’s response and reaction it’s because some people portray Africa/Nigeria differently than what it actually is and people who don’t care to actually find out for themselves carry on with the story and with their lives. That goes for more other things in life, if you don’t get the curiosity to find something out you won’t ever know the other side of the story. 

My Opinion/Response:

I totally agree with Chiamanda Adichie’s TED talk on how dangerous it is only knowing or hearing one side of a story it could be about any topic, literally if you only hear one perspective out of the million other point of views most likely you’ll end up sticking with that ONE story. I relate to the end of her speech where she says “That when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise…” I agree and love this line because it’s true the more you learn, the more your mind is open to different stories expands your mindset and mentality which means you’re opening up to lots of different worlds and not sticking to ONE story. Now and days it’s highly important and recommended to listen or find out more to a single story because lots of things are happening. Our world is changing day by day and it’s crucially important to hear everybody’s side of any story. I believe Professor Barnes assigned this reading because she wants us to keep our mind open to many other possibilities in life and to understand that there’s more to people than we think, there’s more to people and things than what we hear.