Chimamanda Adichie’s TED talk is called “The Danger of the Single Story”.

What is
the implication of
conceptualizing stereotypes as “stories” told by someone? What is the danger of having
a single story of
certain people, groups or cultures?
Chimamanda Adichie is a woman born in Nigeria. Her TED talk named “The Danger of
the Single Story” brings up subjects about how single stories mold stereotypes in our
society. We might not be aware of how this affects to certain people, but she had
explained us how much impact does.
Our lives and cultures are based on many stories. Chimamanda explained how stories
impacts on our conceptualization of the world around us. She discloses us and make us
realize the limitation of our own perspective. Through her stories and with a lot of
humor, tell us her experience with her roommate in the US. Her friend was shocked by
Chimamanda and wonder where she has learned to speak English so well, she answered
that the official language of her country was English.
The way she tells us this little misunderstanding make our self-doubt if we had made the
same mistake as her roommate? In fact, we all have done it, probably unconsciously.
But that does not mean we have not hurt certain people because or are limited way of
thinking.
Her purpose is not to scold us for our lack of knowledge but is to motivate her audience
to broaden the scope od stories her hear or read about other people and cultures every
day.
By telling her experience with her roommate, we could realize she had a single story of
Africa. In this story there was not a possibility of Africans being similar to the
American in any way. Because we only see them as persons drown in poverty, Aids and
civil wars.
The danger of having a single story about a group of certain people, grups or culture is
that we do not see them as they really are. The way we think, and feel are the result of
the accumulation of single story told by someone. That human being might or might not
have certainty about what he is talking. So, we form our concepts incorrectly by not
informing is what we are hearing is true or if it is a misinterpretation.
Listening to the talk, Amamanda opened herself to the audience by telling a personal
story in which she has made the same mistake has her friend. She showed vulnerability
by confessing she had an stereotype about Mexicans.
A few year ago, she visited Mexico from the U.S. This is important because there at the
time the political climate was tense concerning about immigration. Mostly what she
heard was about they were taking advantage of the healthcare system, persons sneaking
across the border and being arrested for that.

She explained how she felt about one day when she was walking through Guadalajara
and noticed she was ashamed because she bought the single story about Mexicans. She
was so immersed in the media coverage that she could not consider the citizens of that
country something more that the simple word “immigrants”.

https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/t
ranscript#t-311285