Category: Uncategorized

Hello! My name is Siobhan. I am from Seaford, Long Island. This is my second year at Cortland and I am an English major with a minor in communications. My passion for reading and writing helped to me chose my current major. My favorite things to do at home include going to the beach and spending time with my friends and family. I look forward to spending to rest of the semester getting to know all of you and learning more about multicultural literature!

Hello everyone! I am a transfer student and I am a junior. My major is adolescent education in English. I just got back from a month of travel which landed me in Toronto, Morocco, Spain, Montréal, and then Nashville ( I landed at home a few hours before our first class!) I am happy to be home and to start the semester with you all. I read a lot of great books while I was away.

Hi! My name is Meg. I just transferred here as a junior and I am majoring in Sociology. I am excited to meet everyone and to get this semester started!

Hi! My name is Morgan and I’m a Speech major here at SUNY Cortland.  I transferred here last year and I’m going into my senior year now. I’m from Dutchess County, New York and looking forward to a great semester!

Hey there, I’m Ryan and I’m a Business Economics major from Long Island.  I’m a sophomore who transferred from Fairleigh Dickinson University.  I’m an avid football fan (Go Saints!) and I used to play football at FDU.  I’m also a big fan of music, especially rap.  Looking forward to a great semester with all of you!

Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s “The Danger of a Single Story” provides real life examples of how humans identify others by their stereotypes rather than as individuals. Though most stereotypes were once based on some type of truth, no one person can fit into a single stereotype. Therefore, it is unfair to assume anything about a person before you know for a fact that it’s true. In Adiche’s story, she recounts to her audience the house boy her family had hired when she was a child, Fide. Adiche was only told one story about Fide’s family, that they were in poverty. Because she was only told this one story about Fide’s family, it was easy for her to draw conclusions about them. It was easy for her to assume that they were lazy or unskillful. When Adiche visited Fide’s family, his mother showed her a beautiful basket that his brother had made. She said “It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something. All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor.” Because Adiche configured her opinion about Fide based on a stereotype of impoverished people, she was surprised to learn about the complexities of Fide and his family as individuals. We identify people or groups of people by simple definitions, because stereotyping makes it easier for us to make sense of the world in a simple way. By focusing on the simple rather than the complex, we miss half the story. Stereotyping others based on a single story is comparable to sharing what a book is about after reading only the title. What would most people assume about you based on their single story of you? And what would they not assume about you?

Adiche also recounts her college roommate’s impression of her as an african. She says “My Roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe. In this single story, there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals.” Her roommate was confused after learning that Adiche, an African, was not as different as she would’ve thought based on her stereotype of an average African person. A main point illustrated in Adiche’s story is similar to the message of Maya Angelou’s poem “Human Family.” We are more alike than we are unalike. Though we differ in our cultures, religions, and traditions, we are all born similar, because we are all human. Angelou says “in minor ways we differ, in major ways we’re the same.” In what obvious ways do you think humans are all similar?

We identify others by stereotypes rather than as individuals in a lot of different situations even when we don’t notice we’re doing it. One major topic where we as Americans find it hard to look past stereotypes is in politics. In politics we use single stories not only to simplify, but to criminalize the other side instead of considering their complex opinions. While it’s obvious that only looking at a single story is unintelligible, we often use the single story to support our own case. In what specific American political issues have we used the single story to support one side of an issue rather than addressing the single issue’s complexity?

We identify people or groups of people by simple definitions, because stereotyping makes it easier for us to make sense of the world in a simple way. Though we are all complex individuals with surprising backstories, we are evidently all alike in a major way.

Questions:

What would most people assume about you based on their single story of you? And what would they not assume based on what you look like?

 

In what obvious ways do you think humans are all similar?

 

In what specific American political issues have we used the single story to support one side of an issue rather than addressing the single issue’s complexity?

 

Hi! I am an incoming sophomore that just transferred from Binghamton University, so this will be my first semester at Cortland. I’m currently majoring in English Adolescent Education, and looking to add a minor in Political Science.  I’ve lived in a small town outside of Owego, NY my entire life and have elected to live at home this semester, which means I have a delightful fifty minute commute to look forward to every morning.  This past summer I was lucky enough to road trip around New York state, giving me the possibility to once again visit Niagara Falls, the Adirondacks, and the Thousand Islands.  I’m very much looking forward to the upcoming semester with you all.

 

Delaney K here! I’m an adolescent education major with a focus in English. I just transferred here as a junior from Onondaga Community College. I graduated from Jordan Elbridge High School, so I am familiar with all of central/upstate New York. I’m an avid horse lover and am lucky enough to own one as well. My winter months are spent in the saddle training and summer months competing AQHA (American Quarter Horse Associations) in hopes that one day I will get the privilege of showing at Worlds or the Congress. I am looking forward to spending the semester with everyone!

Hello fellow classmates! My name is Collin Horak, this is my first semester at SUNY Cortland and my first time writing a blog post. I am pretty excited about this class because I want to become a better writer, but I especially want to learn to write faster without spending so much time rethinking every word and rewriting every line.  My major is in Communications, with a concentration in Media Production and a minor in Professional Writing. I graduated in May from Tompkins Cortland Community College (TC3) with a degree in Radio Broadcast Production. During my last semester, I was fortunate enough to start interning at a local radio station called X101 Always Classic. After my internship ended they hired me part time and I have been making commercials for them and you can hear me being the weatherman at night. I have had a side business for eight years where I DJ weddings, parties, dances or any event that needs music. My DJ name is DJ CoHo. Also, I grew up here in the Cortland area so if you have any questions about where to eat just let me know what you are in the mood for.

Hi! I’m Kailey, and this is my first semester at Cortland. I just finished my senior year of high school at Sachem North in Ronkonkoma, Long Island. I’m majoring in adolescent education with a concentration in english, and I’m minoring in musical theatre. My favorite musical is Spring Awakening. My favorite bands are Green Day, The Eagles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Weezer. My favorite tv show is Big Brother, and my favorite books are anything by S.E Hinton or A Separate Peace by John Knowles. I’m excited to be starting this semester with all of you guys, but I’m not so excited to be doing my facilitation on the second day of class, so cut me some slack…Thanks!