Summary Of The Danger Of A Single Story By Chimamanda Adichie

According to the transcript “The Danger of a Single Story”, Chimamanda Adichie believes that when a person looks at another group of people, that person assumes that the whole race is described by the one story he/she knows about. She gives examples of her life where she had encountered people that only knew the one story about where she is from and about Adichie herself only knowing one story as well. For instance, when her mother talked about a boy named Fibe, the only thing she knew was what her mother told her and that is Fibe is poor. So when she visited Fibe she was surprised that the family was able to create things, where she just thought that they were poor. Another Instance, was when she was in college, her roommate was very

surprised about how clearly she spoke English. She also asked Adichie what her tribal music was. Her roommate believed all people from Africa lived in tribes and did not speak any English. The roommate just assumed what type of person she was by what she knew about. So with the story a person knows about a group of people, they will just describe everyone from that race from the one story they know about. So Adichie wants us to reject the idea of a single story and that there are many more stories to be heard.
However, I do agree on what Adichie believes about how we just describe people from one story. She said, “So that is how to create a single story, show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, that is what they become.” For instance, the media just shows Muslims as terrorist. They just go out and kill themselves and try to take as many lives with them. Since that is the only story the media is showing people. There are some people out there that believe that all Muslims are terrorist and ISIL supporters. In reality there are a lot more stories than just negative stories about Muslims. But the media never covers good stories, they just want to show the negative of people, because that is what gives them ratings. I also just use to look at people from the single story I knew about. For instance, just by how people dress, if they are wearing baggy clothes and oversized t-shirts I just assumed that person was in some type of gang. While getting older I am starting to see that there are more stories to people, and I cannot just judge them from what I know off. Every person is different.