Summary
Summary:
In the Ted Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, she talks about different types of ‘single stories’ she encountered and how that showed her people's views of things were one sided. She starts off by talking about reading and writing at an early age which made her start to write about similar things she read about as a child. She then discovered books that she could relate to and made her realize that there wasn’t only one thing she could write about. Chimamanda proceeds to talk about how she came to the United States for studies and had a roommate. This roommate would ask Chimamanda questions about where she was from but these questions seem to show how the roommate viewed Africans and how they were unable to do the same things as her. Adichie mentions John Locke and how he negatively viewed black Africans. She went on a trip to Mexico and noticed that the media put Mexicans in one category, which was being an immigrant but she saw a different side as she was walking around in Guadalajara. Adichie feels that power plays a part of how these one sided stories are made on others. These stories create stereotypes against people without them knowing another perspective on a person or accurate things about them. She questions herself about her experiences and if she was not able to see things from a different standpoint would that have changed her perspective on people. Adichie believes that stories can give power and uplift just as much as it can break it. Finally, Chimamanda encourages her audience to avoid single stories and it will make the world better.
Response:
I agree with Adichie’s main argument. She made points in her Ted Talk like single stories causing stereotypes, judging others, and having power that can define us as a person. All of these plays out with what can happen in people's lives. One point she used for her argument on a ‘single story’ is books. In, "The Danger of a Single Story", Chimamanda states, "But the unintended consequence was that I did not know that people like could exist in literature. So what the discovery of African writers did for me was this: It saved me from having a single story of what books are". I feel like this happens a lot with many students around the world, as they are not able to see books that they can relate to or see characters similar to them. It's good to able to read books with different types of people in them.
