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The danger of single story july 2009
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What happens when we just hear one anecdote about a specific circumstance? In the event that we just find out about people, place or circumstance from one perspective, we risk accepting one experience as every bit of relevant information. We confront the risk of a solitary story. The “Danger of a Single Story”, a 2009 TED Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a young Nigerian author, uses a powerful tool, which is personal experience, to express how one judgment can be untrue. Adichie claims that just one story is big enough to leave a race, ethnicity, or person with a wrong impression from society. I definitely agree with Adichie’s point of view because even I have been judged, and even though it may seem that falling for a single story is impossible to many it happens quite often. The “Danger of a Single Story”, a 2009 TED Talk by, a Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, begins her TED talk by telling a story about her from her It reminded me of a few times when I experienced a single story. When I was younger kids from my school and others would always tell me “oh you must be good at math and science because you’re Indian,” they would follow the stereotype that if you’re Indian you are good at math and science. They had no regret for what they said because that’s what they heard and passed on to others. That being said I am also as guilty as them for being stereotypical towards someone. In this society, the black population is underestimated. They are seen as people who don’t care their education, and I have fallen for that statement as well. When I first met my partner in my class my first response was,” Oh god, why did I get partnered with her, she never does anything and always slacks.” Soon I got to know her better I found out she was very nice and she was a very hard worker. She was probably the most determined girl in the class and had very high
For example, it has been said many times in multiple different ways that academic success is typically associated with certain races and not others. This is a very stereotypical comment and it is sad that these types of judgements are present in the educational system. In Beverly Daniel Tatum’s essay entitled, “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” she discusses how self-segregation occurs in the education system today. Tatum touches on that the possible reasons that students tend to socialize with students of the same racial identity as themselves are cultural stereotypes. It is understandable that a student in order to avoid judgements would want to be around others who understand them and know what they are going through at school. A possible and very hurtful example of judgement that may cause students of color to flock together is that “doing well in school becomes identified as trying to be White,” (Tatum). A student in today’s education system undergoes enough stress as it is and they should not have to be worried with racial protocols. Why is being advanced and thriving in school only to be considered a White characteristic? I know plenty of White students who are struggling with passing classes and I also know several overly intelligent latinos, black and Asians. I am sure that I am not the only student to think that this unspoken rule that you
In Thomas King's short story "Borders," a Blackfoot mother struggles with maintaining her cultural heritage under the pressure of two dominating nations. Storytelling is important, both for the mother and for the dominant White society. Stories are used to maintain and pass on cultural information and customs from one generation to another. Furthermore, stories can be used both positively and negatively. They can trap individuals into certain ways of thinking, but they can also act as catalysts that drive social change within society.
This conversation actually took place during my first semester of college. However, being quite accustomed to the questions that I am frequently asked about the place I call home, this conversation somehow made me more upset than usual. This conversation made me realize just how blind society can be towards other groups in society. Different stereotypes are placed on groups for various reasons-race, sex, occupations, and geographical locations-just to name a few. The last of these four different classifications is the one that distinguishes me from most of society. Growing up in Appalachia has made me a minority (different from the rest of society), and also plagued me with many stereotypes. Everyone in society has heard the stereotypes. However, I would like to focus on the how's and why's of them. How they came to be. Why society does perceive...
One of the most destructive forces that is destroying young black people in America today is the common cultures wicked image of what an realistic black person is supposed to look like and how that person is supposed to act. African Americans have been struggling for equality since the birth of this land, and the war is very strong. Have you ever been in a situation where you were stereotyped against?
Stereotypes are like scalp dandruff, unnecessary, ugly, and hard to get rid of, unless you have the right shampoo. That shampoo could symbolize proper education or enlightenment for getting rid of that particular stereotype. Some stereotypes are so absurd we sometimes wonder where the heck did they even originate from. For example, Asians are bad drivers, or white people cannot dance. However there is a type of stereotype that has some little truth to it, but you find it is not the people who we are stereotyping’s fault. To be more specific, there is a stereotypical view that poor minorities are sometimes considered uneducated. This lack of minorities’ education is not their fault, but the fault of unlikely outside forces. Therefore there is some truth to this particular stereotype, but the minorities are not to blame for their lack of education. Few opportunities are given to them, starting with housing then leading to schools which would then affect their individual education.
I can relate to this, not as far as race, but in a different way. At my school, there were stereotypes about the “volleyball girls”, and I was part of the volleyball team. At one point people thought this group of girls was all about partying and not school. Although, I was only focused on school and ended my high school career with only two B’s. Although this is not as an extreme case as Junior, I can still relate. In more of an extreme case, after Junior finally overcame his fear of leaving the reservation for a new and more positive life, he was not treated fairly. In the beginning of his experience at Reardan he writes, “After all, I was a reservation Indian, and no matter how geeky or weak I appeared to be, I was still a potential killer” (Alexie 2007:63). This is a perfect example of how easily people believe things they hear. Junior was literally a weak fifteen year old that could never hurt a fly, yet people looked at him as a killer because that was a stereotype about Indians. This idea goes along with Johnson’s thoughts of symbols, “symbols go far beyond labeling things” and “Symbols are also what we use to feel connected to a reality outside ourselves” (Johnson 2008: 36).
In today’s society there are many stereotypes surrounding the black community, specifically young black males. Stereotypes are not always blatantly expressed; it tends to happen subconsciously. Being born as a black male puts a target on your back before you can even make an impact on the world. Majority of these negative stereotypes come from the media, which does not always portray black males in the best light. Around the country black males are stereotyped to be violent, mischievous, disrespectful, lazy and more. Black males are seen as a threat to people of different ethnicities whether it is in the business world, interactions with law enforcement or even being in the general public. The misperceptions of black males the make it extremely difficult for us to thrive and live in modern society. Ultimately, giving us an unfair advantage simply due to the color of our skin; something of which we have no control.
Chimamanda Adichie, in one of her eye-opening speeches, The Danger of a Single Story, provides the audience with a new insight into the negative impacts that can occur as a result of viewing a story from a single perspective and not putting in an effort to know it from all available viewpoints. Adichie in her simple, yet well-grounded speech, filled with anecdotes of her personal experiences effectively puts across her argument against believing in stereotypes and limiting oneself to just a single story using a remarkable opening, the elements of logos, pathos and ethos, repetitions, as well as maintaining a good flow of thoughts throughout the speech.
Non-African Americans that choose to listen to African American stereotypes are pretty much saying that they only need to meet one African American to know what all the others are like. This is a big problem for African Americans that don’t even meet the criteria of those said stereotypes. All African Americans are judged one way. Are black men acknowledge for their positive contributions and their brain beneath the body? “There is no study that shows that African-American people aren’t as smart or hard working as Whites” (Senghas). Several African American men don’t get equal opportunity in the hiring process because of their race and the stereotypes behind them like lazy and criminal. Society fails at identifying how hard African Americans work to get a job or when they have one just to avoid discrimination. Not all the stereotypes are negative but the main ones that affect how people look at the black race are. The stereotypes that say African Americans are athletic, religious, and musically gifted are actually positive ones until people outside of the black co...
The ethics behind this way of thinking was best elaborated by Nigerian novelist and writer, Chimamanda Adichie. Her persuasive and intellectual speech, “The Dangers Of A Single Story,” opened my eyes towards what I’ve been experiencing for a large portion of my life. This new understanding that Adichie helped me discover about people who neglect to take in mind the history that each person holds, allowed me to cope with these issues. However, it is important to know that other people who’ve suffered the same consequences of people’s ignorance, often don’t have the same levels of confidence or understanding to just get up and move on from the situation. There are people like me who decide not to pay attention to people who don’t bother seeing more to me, or there are those who let their lack of knowledge affect them and basically let other people tell them what kind of person they are. I encourage all of you to be your own person. I encourage you all to be the biggest person you can possibly be and truly make your colors show. I discourage labels and I believe that anyone can rip labels off of themselves as easy as they could place them
In 2009 Chimamanda Adichie gave a TED talk about the ‘danger of a single story’. A single story meaning, one thought or one example of a person becoming what we think about all people that fit that description, a stereotype if you will. In today’s America, I believe that we have all felt the wave of stereotypical views at some point or another. Adichie gives many relatable examples throughout her life of how she has been affected by the single story. Her story brings about an issue that all humans, from every inch of the earth, have come to understand on some level. A young child reading only foreign books, a domestic helper that she only perceived as poor. Her college roommates single story about Africans and her own formation of a single
It also was one of the main points within the classroom. Stereotyping is defined as a fixed idea or image about a race or thing that is oversimplified. For many years, people have to ask themselves who they are, whether it is their culture, family, or even where they come from, their race has been put into a category, which they cannot escape. In the text Race and Ethnicity as a Source of belongingness, it states “ Our identities locate us in social spaces and tell us where we belong” (Doing Race 384), but sometimes it is forced upon people due to stereotyping other races. In the education system, there is a question where the stereotype can be seen in the education system. I big part in negative stereotyping is within education. There is a Stereotype that African Americans are not as intelligent as Whites. This was the drive for many segregated schools. African Americans have fought a long time to be equal to whites. One of these fights was the Brown vs. Bored case in 1954, where the court declared the segregation of White Schools and Black schools to be unconstitutional. After this court, case there was still a war on education, but there were school finance reforms as an effort to help this new law against segregation. In the text Understanding the Achievement Gap, it states “Gaps in school, in access to qualify teachers, and in access to higher education were smaller in the 1970s than they had been before” (Doing Race 298). This means that higher education for African Americans were very slim and there was more segregation within schools after the Brown vs. Bored
To prevent these discriminations’ from transpiring again we need to stop people’s prejudices of African Americans. Prejudice can be defined as biologically similar people who hold strong beliefs that cause them to discriminate another object (Pearson). Prejudices start from the home in which the child and raised in and continually grows until that child reaches adulthood, and then the cycle continues and is passed on from generation to generation. To stop the cycle of prejudice and go on toward the goal of equality, we can eliminate the stereotypes that destroy others perceptions of African Americans, by making it known we are all one race- the human race. African Americans should not be defined by their complexion but rather the good they have brought to the world. Letting it be known that we are all equal and should be treated in that respect.
Throughout the world, people have always and will always judge each other based on their skin tone, their accent, their home country or other obvious features that we immediately see or hear about them. We often formulate our opinions of these people based on our first impressions of them. In 2009, Civil rights activist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie uses her time on her Ted-Talk to deliver her resonating speech “The Danger of a Single Story.” During her world-renowned speech, Adichie discusses human relationships, how we, as humans, interact with one another and treat each other. Adichie establishes her argument with one powerful metaphor describing common stereotypes as ‘single stories’ to demonstrate how people are affected by being judged based
... completely naïve of. One social factor responsible for this naïve observation is identity theory. Identity theory states “out conception of self is shaped in part by responses from others through interaction” (Harlow, 2015). For example, In reference to the article “Race doesn’t matter, but…,” Harlow “suggest that if behavior is often shaped by our desire to have our conception of self reinforced, then professors’ classroom performances are in part an effort to reinforce, through students, an identity as a good knowledgeable professor. Many black faculty members, however, reported that such an identity was not reinforced for them through students, in part because of broader cultural understandings of blackness as inferior” (Harlow, 2015). The social factor of identity can cause members of the majority group to act prejudicially towards members of the minority group.