In “The danger of a single story” the writer Chimamanda Adichie shared her reasoning’s for why a single story is dangerous. She used her own experiences with this issue to show why/how this is an actual problem. Chimamanda spoke about how when she first moved to the united states from Nigeria she was flabbergasted when her white roommate was shocked she knew good English “despite being from Nigeria” in her roommates words this puzzled Chimamanda since she was confused on why this was a question, being English was the primary language spoken in Nigeria, and intern is Chimamanda’s first language. This was because to Chimamanda’s roommate barely knew anything about Nigeria, and because so formed a stereotype on what “Nigerians” are like. At the time this event did not give Chimamanda the idea of the dangers of a single story but that changed later in her life when she traveled to Mexico. Prior to visiting Mexico all she had heard about the place was the News about immigration rates to the US which unconsciously made her stereotype Mexicans to a bunch of poor people fleeing for a better life. But when Chimamanda visited the place herself she realized that a poor country full of fleeing immigrants was far from the truth, and scenario gave sprout to Chimamanda’s realization of how a single story could be dangerous. This is because without knowing the full story on something you would unconsciously create stereotypes, and an idea of what somebody is like without meeting them yourselves AKA knowing the full story.
I can in a way relate to Chimamanda since I actually have had a similar experience on the other end of this. That being one of my closest friends who is African was also judged by someone when they were surprised my friends first language was English, not purposely but because they were uniformed, and did not know the full story, which contributes to the stories main idea of why a single story is dangerous.
