“The Danger of a Single Story” questions
Mallory Green 3rd hour
- The media plays a huge role in creating single stories. Single stories are constantly being created online, and most people assume they’re true because the website is popular/trusted. For example, on Entertainment magazines websites celebrities are always being accused of doing horrible things, but as usual the website fails to mention all the other positive things that person has done. Making yet another single story in that celebrities image. I’m not saying celebrities don’t do horrible things on occasion, but too many false single stories are made.
- I have fallen victim to single story thinking. At the beginning of our African unit I had almost no knowledge on what’s happening/happened in Africa. The only things I’d heard from Africa were through the media. And that all of the entire country was dirty, poor, and full of Ebola. Eventually I thought these assumptions were true, since all I saw online and in the news were pictures of Africans starving, or dying of disease. After going through the African unit I now know that Africa has lots to offer, and there are many parts of the country that are very modern and wealthy.
- There are many dangers of falling victim to a single story perspective. If we only think of one story when we hear the names of big concepts then we’ll never really be able to understand them. Not to mention single story perspective can offend and seriously hurt people around you.
“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but they that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” -Chimamanda Adichie
I completely agree with Chimamanda Adichie’s quote above. Not only is spreading something that is untrue wrong, but you immediately create an messed up image of the person you’re talking about. Which makes both you and the person look bad. Lets be honest no one really forgets stereotypes, even though you may not believe in them any more they really do stick. So why do we continue to spread single stories? If people don’t start to understand the importance of stopping single stories then stereotypes will continue. And people who are different culturally, racially and religiously will constantly have assumptions being made about them.
I totally agree with the ways you answered the questions and responded to the quote. I did the same quote and responded similar and I feel the same way that you did, how we only understand the single story and not the whole other side/perspective. I also strongly agree with what you said about how you didn't know much about Africa and you viewed it as a poor continent and after the chapter you knew more about it and not just in a bad way.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely with number four, I also think that media could be the number one answer to the problem of the single-story. Also with your quote response, I liked how you talked about not only how it affects people who hear it, but the people who say it.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your response! I believe the media has a big part of creating single stories too. and I really like how you explained and gave an example
ReplyDelete