The Danger Of A Single Story By Adichie

The TED talk, ‘The Danger of a Single Story’ presented by Adichie, shares the insights of being exposed to only one perspective on a particular issue. By only hearing a single side to a story, we are limited to knowing what is just assumed of a situation. If this is always the case, it would be hard to know the reality outside of that one setting. These single stories lead to stereotyping and hasty generalizations which often cause negative outlooks towards a subject or outlooks that are far from the truth. Adichie’s overall view is that a sole narrative can be dangerous as it does not represent the reality.

Adichie states “I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading: All my characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples,” explaining that since she read British and American books when she was younger, she had made all of her stories with similar storylines and characteristics. This proves that since she was only aware of one type of lifestyle, her potential to write about other places and people in the world was limited. I can relate to Adichie as many people in my community often ask me: “Are you Indian?” because most assume that people with brown skin are all from India. However, I am Sri Lankan, which is a whole other country with a slightly
Without hesitations, I can agree with Adichie that with just a single story, there is no authenticity or sense of reality to a situation. I feel that from only looking through one perspective we sometimes collect incorrect information which can be very harmful when creating a positive society. For example in the media, south asians are often portrayed as the nerdy best friend. Although this is not always true, society believes that this is how south asians