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Thomas Balongelwa.

The Danger of a Single Story.

In 2009, a Nigerian novelist called Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave a TED talk at
Oxford University called “The Danger of a Single Story”. The central theme of the
talk is that limited perspectives create stereotypes. Single stories are dangerous
because they are assumptions, rather than personalised information. In the talk
Adichie raises awareness of western people who have stereotypes of Africa and
Africans. Throughout the talk, she encourages people to stop believing single
stories about individuals and cultures since they are incomplete. Adichie believes
that it is important for people to be open to many stories because this provides a
balance of ideas.

The main purpose of Adichie’s talk is to make people aware that believing only
one side of a story can create boundaries among people. She achieves this by
telling different stories about herself, and she others and explains that there are
multiple things happening in all people lives. Adichie uses the story of her
childhood houseboy, Fide, as an example of the danger of a single story. Fide was
from a poor family, and Chimamanda’s mother would repeatedly tell her a single
story about Fide’s family to represent poverty. When Adichie did not want to finish
her food, her mother would say…

"Finish your food! Don't you know? People like Fide's family have nothing."

Her mother’s aim was not to treat Fide’s family in a bad way but was to make
Adichie grateful for what she had. The consequence of this story for Adichie was
that it made Adichie feel superior to Fide and she imagine the only thing relevant
and she imagined the only thing relevant about Fide’s family was that they were
poor. She later realised this was wrong because all people lives are made up of
flipped stories; like Fide’s family could do something important that she couldn’t.

Another example of a single story that Adichie uses from her life was about her
impression of Mexicans in America. During her time in the U.S.A; Adichie
explained that She used to watch news on mainstream media about how
Mexicans were stealing healthcare system equipment, sneaking across borders,
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and being arrested. This made her form a single story of Mexicans that they were
bad people. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie came to realize that she was wrong to
believe only one thing about Mexican (abject immigran) because she came to
realize that they were just normal people in a way that there was no different
between people of Mexico and America. Chimamanda Adichie think single story
are dangerous because our life is composed of many overlapping stories. She
warns that if we hear only one story about another person or country, we are at
risk of misunderstanding.

A contemporary issue that is an example of the danger of a single story is

islamophobia. Islamophobia is when people hate and discriminate against Islam.
The single story that Islamophobes believes is that all Muslims are terrorist. In
Adichie’s talk, she sees stereotypes as “complicit in the perpetuation of single
stories” this means believing one side of a particular story can makes it as your
definite story. It's believed that experiences of islamophobia are strongly
interconnected with highly publicised events such as the attack on the Twin
towers in 2001 and 2005 London bombing and the other ongoing conflicts in
Islamic country. Researchers have found that islamophobia increase shortly after
such events. The reporting of such event on mainstream media contributes to the
negative stereotyping of Muslims, although not all Muslims were associated with
those negative events and the Muslims religion is not responsible for all forms of
terrorisms. The consequences of this belief are hatred to innocent Muslims.
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In conclusion, regardless of how rich a culture is, if is reduced to a single story it

can change the people’s perspective towards a particular culture. Most people are
treated based on their history, and not on what is happening now in their lives.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's speech raises awareness that there are many things
happening in people’s life, so an individual need to be educated about the
unintended consequence of believing one single story. Moreover, Adichie explains
that if we only hear about a people, place, or situation from one point of view, we
are at risk of accepting one experience as the whole truth.

Hopkins, P., Sanghera, G., & Botterill, K. (2016, October 11). Eight ways that
Islamophobia operates in everyday life. The Conversation.
https://theconversation.com/eight-ways-that-islamophobia-operates-in-
everyday-life-64444