Summary
Summary:
In TED talk “The Danger of the single story”, Chimamanda Adichie She introduces her story by sharing her childhood. She was an early reader and writer. She started reading when she was 4 years old, and writing at the age of 7. She wrote the stories that she was reading. All her characters in the story were white with blue eyes, they also drank a lot of ginger beer because she read British books. This demonstrates that stories can have a strong influence on us. Because the characters were white in all the books she had read, Which made her think that there are no books that have characters that she can relate to. She discovered some African books but not many. After reading those books she realised that people of her race exist in stories and she started to write about the things she related.
She also talks about the boy named Fide and she would feel pity for his family because her mother introduced him saying that he’s from a very poor family. One day they went to visit fide family when she realised that it wasn’t like how they imagined because she only imagined her family as very poor but his family was talented. She talks on how having a single story about a person or a group of people may result in misunderstandings, notions, and limited perspectives. She highlights throughout her discussion the value of accepting other narratives in order to get a more awareness of other people and the environment we live in.
Questions:
I completely agree with Adichie's main argument that Sometimes, media available to the public and literature only show a single story. I can relate to this quote from her story “The single story creates stereotypes. And the problem with stereotypes is that they are untrue, but that they are uncompelet.They make one story the only story.” I completely agree that
Stereotypes and the danger of a single story is dangerous because they restrict the way we think by presenting an imperfect image as the full truth, showing an incomplete picture. The relevance of the danger of a single story in our day and age is that fake stories may spread quickly in our connected society through social media, in which it affects our perspectives. I think Professor Barnes assigned this reading to encourage critical thinking.
2 thoughts on “Conversation 2”
I think you did a good job not adding your opinion to the summary. I would add more detail about Adichie herself, a story about how she was affected by a single story, like the story of her roomate or professor. I do recognize that Fides’ story is your response and I think it’s well said, I personally struggled to add that detail in. I agree with the second part of your response, it’s important to stay mindful of things seen on social media and to make sure to get all perspectives.
Amina understands Adichie’s message about one-sided stories and agrees that stereotypes from limited perspectives affect our thinking. She recognizes the contemporary relevance, especially with the rapid spread of fake news online. I agree with her view that Professor Barnes assigned this to prompt deep reflection on how narratives influence our thoughts.