“The Danger of a Single Story”
Every day the world is faced with the dangers of a single story. In the 2009 TED Talk The Danger of a Single Story, presented by Chimamanda Adichie, she talks about how a peoples’ perception of other people of a foreign country, or even a foreign country as a whole, can be highly influenced by what they read, hear, or see on TV.
“I loved those American and British books I read. They stirred my imagination. They opened up new worlds for me. But the unintended consequence was that I did not know that people like me 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” (Danger). Throughout her speech, Adichie uses many …show more content…
Headlines, stories, and pictures are all spread around social media such as Facebook and Twitter, but has anyone actually stopped and thought about where the floods of information are coming from? I myself am guilty of not following the rule ‘Don’t believe everything you read.’ Having information such as the news available 24/7 in the palm of your hand can be both good and bad. More times than I would like to admit I have been the victim of fictional stories and headlines I have come across on social media. Some headlines so shocking, that before I even think about doing a little research, I’m running to my friends and asking them if they have heard the news and usually, to my despair, I am shot down and given the real facts. Another incident I can recall is when I was living in Belvedere Square and had my first interactions with one of my neighbors, now by interaction, I mean I was sitting on the porch and he walked by and just said hello. At first from his appearance, I kind of painted the picture was he was some crazy, out of this world, drug addict that would probably like the steal a thing or two from my back yard. I tried to steer clear of them as often as I could. Then one day I was outside trimming a bush in the front yard and he came walking by and starting talking to me. He went on to tell that he had a stump grinder that I could feel free to borrow if I had wanted to completely get rid of the bush. We ended up talking for a few minutes before he was on his way and I was back to work. I had felt very bad for making these assumptions about him because even if he had been a crazy drug addict, he was a very kind, good hearted man. I think that this stereotyping can be expanded to more than just people and cultures, but animal as well. Take Pit Bulls for example, mostly everyone is scared to death of Pit Bulls and this is due to the bad reputation they
Every day the world is faced with the dangers of a single story. In the 2009 TED Talk The Danger of a Single Story, presented by Chimamanda Adichie, she talks about how a peoples’ perception of other people of a foreign country, or even a foreign country as a whole, can be highly influenced by what they read, hear, or see on TV.
“I loved those American and British books I read. They stirred my imagination. They opened up new worlds for me. But the unintended consequence was that I did not know that people like me 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” (Danger). Throughout her speech, Adichie uses many …show more content…
Headlines, stories, and pictures are all spread around social media such as Facebook and Twitter, but has anyone actually stopped and thought about where the floods of information are coming from? I myself am guilty of not following the rule ‘Don’t believe everything you read.’ Having information such as the news available 24/7 in the palm of your hand can be both good and bad. More times than I would like to admit I have been the victim of fictional stories and headlines I have come across on social media. Some headlines so shocking, that before I even think about doing a little research, I’m running to my friends and asking them if they have heard the news and usually, to my despair, I am shot down and given the real facts. Another incident I can recall is when I was living in Belvedere Square and had my first interactions with one of my neighbors, now by interaction, I mean I was sitting on the porch and he walked by and just said hello. At first from his appearance, I kind of painted the picture was he was some crazy, out of this world, drug addict that would probably like the steal a thing or two from my back yard. I tried to steer clear of them as often as I could. Then one day I was outside trimming a bush in the front yard and he came walking by and starting talking to me. He went on to tell that he had a stump grinder that I could feel free to borrow if I had wanted to completely get rid of the bush. We ended up talking for a few minutes before he was on his way and I was back to work. I had felt very bad for making these assumptions about him because even if he had been a crazy drug addict, he was a very kind, good hearted man. I think that this stereotyping can be expanded to more than just people and cultures, but animal as well. Take Pit Bulls for example, mostly everyone is scared to death of Pit Bulls and this is due to the bad reputation they