Ken Bain's The Danger Of The Single Story

The Danger of the Single Story From the great epics of Homer to the legendary myths told around campfires, stories are constantly surrounding us. They define the culture and assist in preserving history. Without stories,there would be no knowledge of the ancient Greek myths or of what life was like for the Jews who suffered under Hitler’s torment. Without stories, the world would be blind to the past, unable to progress or learn. Thus, stories are essential in any culture, but they have an inherent danger as well. This danger lies in only knowing one perspective, one story. Imagine what narrative the world would accept if the only story anyone knew of World War II was one produced by the Nazis. Often times, those who hold power are also those …show more content…
In his book What the Best College Students Do, Ken Bain discusses the idea of what he calls “mental models” which are a way for us to recognize new surroundings and process them based off of old encounters. For example, it is possible to walk into a classroom that you have never been in and still comprehend what the purpose of the desks is because you have already come into contact with a desk in another situation. Single stories cause us to do this to people. We begin to associate all types of people with the popular images we have become familiar with. If you were to walk down a street in downtown Cleveland at night and see a group of African American males coming up, it is natural to immediately put your guard up and assume that they are trouble, and you may inexplicably begin watching them more closely or checking your pockets . It is not an overt racism that causes this; it is a product of the biased stories we have been told which fuel stereotypes that all African Americans are criminals. Our minds have constructed mental models off of the negative stereotypes that come from the stories told to us. This leads to major social justice issues like institutionalized racism because it handicaps those who do not fit into the stereotype associated with their identity. Guy Aoki of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans said it best, “The problem with stereotypes is that you don’t get to choose if it is a positive one or a negative one. If you accept the positive one, you have to accept the negative one” (Chelsea). Since it is those with power who draft the story, they have an incentive to cut others down so that they can prop themselves