Single Story Quotes

Decent Essays
Block and Short Quotes
Ashley Ethington
8/29/17

“The Danger of a Single Story”, a speech written and spoken by a novelist by the name of Chimamanda Adiche, addresses stereotypes and first-hand experiences with them. Adiche starts off by narrating about how she, a young, Nigerian girl, learned early on about the dangers of stereotyping. Adiche (2009) states, “To insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experience and to overlook the many other stories that formed me.” (paragraph 24) She knew from then on that implementing one story as her only story would be demeaning and wrong.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - “The Danger

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In the reading “American History”, by “Judith Ortiz Cofer” the quote on page one,"Hey, Skinny Bones, pump it, girl. Ain't you got no energy today?" Gail, the biggest of the black girls who had the other end of the rope, yelled, "Didn't you eat your rice and beans and pork chops for breakfast today?". In in this example, readers learn how stereotype can cause a person to have a low self esteem by discriminate against them because their of race, and the quote above also shows the stereotype of the girls say “Elena”, eats beans and pork chops”, due to the fact that she is Hispanic Latino. The next quote in the story “American History”, also gives us an example how stereotype can affect our self image but this example directly hits more of academic performance “It took me days and many discreet questions to discover that Eugene was in honors classes for all his subjects; classes that were not open to me because English was not my first language, though I was a straight A student.”…

    • 1334 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In my essay, I will be elaborating stereotypes of the book mindwise by Nicholas Epley and the article The Myth of Latin Woman . This two stories talks about how the author sees stereotype in their life or point of view. Stereotype Stereotypes is one of the biggest problems in the world for people because they get categorized based on gender, religion , race, education, and more things that’s how the author Nicholas Epley see it in his story and as well in my point of view. Some people get selected based on stereotype and it makes them feel different about themselves. In my personal experience stereotype is one of the main problem in my life because one time I was categorized on how short I was from others students that happen when I was in…

    • 839 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Howard Steven’s short story “Hearing the Lion’s Story”, demonstrates the idea of racial story telling or about how sharing your stories about your culture can give people a deeper understanding about who you are. “The lion’s story will never be known as long as the hunter is the one to tell it. ”(Stevenson 29). This quote represents how people were disgusted by the lions presence and how the lion did not get a chance to share its story. The hunter was the only person that heard the lions story.…

    • 528 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Adicie felt offended when she came to the United States and her roommate assumed she couldn’t use the oven and asked why “her English was so good”. Adicie was offended, but years later when she took a trip to Mexico she realized why her roommate had the assumptions she did about Africans. All Adicie knew about Mexicans was the immigration issues she saw on TV. Adicie began to understand why her roommate made the assumptions she did. By experiencing both ends of stereotyping, Adicie gained a greater understanding of how and why people develop distorted views of other societies.…

    • 823 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Helen Keller Quotes

    • 443 Words
    • 2 Pages

    “ The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - They must be felt with the heart ” - Helen Keller This quote explains that beautiful things are not what's on the outside it's the inside what counts. This quote explains the point Helen Keller was trying to get across because she said blind/deaf people can do anything seeing and hearing people can do. “They must be felt with the heart” Helen was most deaf & blind people's inspiration she encouraged them that they could do more, better, anything everyone else could do it's just more work to succeed things you want in life.…

    • 443 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Stereotype’s Resistance to the Effects of Time Interactions between two drastically different cultures offer the potential to breed negative outcomes. When discussing these negative outcomes, stereotypes would be a prime example because a lack of effort in understanding another culture can produce conventional images. Considering this, Drew Hayden Taylor explores the stereotypes directed against native women in his play “Dead White Writer on the Floor”. In Taylor’s play, Pocahontas’ unique construction as a consistently stereotyped character offers a criticism of how stereotypes labeling native women as dependent alter the situation they cannot save themselves from but, endure over time.…

    • 943 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For example, she conveys that it is dangerous because it promotes stereotypes and deprives people of the knowledge of other cultures outside of their own. Consequently, she thoroughly described her own experience with her American roommate at University and stereotypes by referring to what her roommate was taught about Nigerian people: that they were sheltered and unintelligent especially when it came to technology. She also flawlessly pointed out that she was even guilty of believing the single story she knew about the boy who worked for her family and his home life. She knew they were poor, so she assumed that they were also inadequate and untalented in all aspects of their lives. Thus, she was unable to be angry with her American roommate: Adichie realized herself that single story stereotypes was an issue that is wide-spread, not just in certain areas of the…

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The following is how Merriam-Webster dictionary defines stereotype: to believe unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same. This is essentially what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie described as the “single story” concept. She described how Americans she encountered had a “single story” about Africans; they are poverty-stricken illiterates who cannot speak English well. This is a stereotype. They unfairly believed that because she is African, she is the same as all other Africans; meaning that she is poor, cannot read, and cannot speak good English.…

    • 584 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Danger of a Single Story is a Ted Talk that was made by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and she is from Nigeria. As a young girl, she was always told about the superior white people. In all of her stories that she read and wrote, the main character was a white girl with blonde hair. She realized that none of the characters related to herself and that she was portrayed as a completely different human in the “real world”. As she got older, she continued her education at a school that is not within Africa.…

    • 821 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I choose this reading because it opened my eyes to stereotypes I knew existed, but I did not know actually were very…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the reading this week the impact of stereotype was discussed. The term “stereotype threat” is used to describe the phenomena that occur when groups that have negative stereotypes associated with them, feel the pressure to defy those associations and end up doing poorly on tests and other assignments. It seems contradictory to think that someone’s efforts in trying to defy a stereotype will somehow lead to a weaker performance. However, as the article points out, those studying are often not reviewing the correct material or are missing the overall concept of what is learned due to this overcompensation. The writer closely studied African-American groups and how the stereotype threat influenced scores on a test.…

    • 331 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A prime example for Johnson’s work includes the racial prejudices towards African Americans. (Johnson 2014) Many of the attitudes that are associated with these groups of people leave a negative stigma on them. Consequently, they are judged as a group instead of individuals. This then create a path of least resistance in society.…

    • 1153 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Title: The feminism conception in Charlotte Bronte's novel: Jane Eyre Table of content Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abstract. . . .…

    • 1833 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When taking a detailed look at how society functions, we normally assume it would be through a political or sociological study. Rarely do average people turn to literature to break down our societies inner workings through a slightly metaphorical mode of analysis. In the article “The Ethics of Reading”, author Jane Gallop does just that by informing readers about a technique of reading called Close Reading. On the surface, Gallop claims to only want a new generation of competent readers, who will respect the work that they are interpreting. Beyond that though, Gallop wants students to look past any pre-existing connotations about either the text, author, or both.…

    • 1064 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “The Danger of a Single Story,” the author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi, uses her speech and life story of growing up in Nigeria to examine stereotypes of cultures around the world. Adichie 's purpose of writing this speech was to show the dangers of a single story and how knowing only one story about an entire race of people is dangerous as it creates a negative connotation about that culture. It seems as though Adichi is presenting stereotypes to readers by explicitly describing their negatives, but actually, Adichi is uncovering the implicit dangers in stereotypes. Adichi explains how literature has the power to put danger in a single story.…

    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays