Summary
The Danger of a Single Story”, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, is a TED Talk in which she informs the audience of her personal experiences with harmful single perspectives. Adichie explains how she often found herself in situations where she or the people around her were being told a single story that they perceived to be the only truth. Examples of this include her childhood, her mother would refer to the houseboy with pity because he was poor - that was the adjective used to describe him whenever brought up around Adichie. She was astonished to find out he was not only poor but had a wonderful family full of life and knowledge. Later on, as a Nigerian woman in the United States of America, Adichie realized that Americans were being fed a single story about Africa and its people. It was a story of catastrophe - her college roommate was surprised to hear that she could use a stove and did not have tribal music. Now, Adichie sets out to inform people about the power that stories hold in influencing people and their ideas on those they are not familiar with. She aims to show the stories of Africa and the many people who live in the countries there. Single stories are definitely harmful to society because they only allow room for one perspective and one truth when people are much more diverse and complex than that, there can be more than a single truth and more than one side to every story. Adichie highlights how easily a single story can overlook all the facts and change how you view history. If you were to have read only that version and it happened to leave out a single part, that single fact can lead you to hold completely different conceptions and stereotypes about an entire group of people. It is vital for one to consider multiple views on one subject and come to your own conclusions, instead of allowing the loudest or most readily available story to define what you believe to be the truth on the subject.
