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?
Chimamanda Adichie has provided a refreshing look at stereotypes from a diverse perspective. As a writer and a story teller, I believe stereotypes are a necessary evil for creating believable and relatable characters. Stereotypes do exist for a reason, and even though no one individual may necessarily meet all the typical requirements of their corresponding stereotype, they could meet enough to justify why that stereotype exists. As far as what people may assume about me based on a single story they may hear of me, well it depends on who is telling the story and what is being said obviously, but being a late twenties white male who grew up in the Cortland area, people might assume I am or was a drug addict. Or they might assume that I love shooting guns in the country and to drive around a big truck. Or they might assume that I have a few kids each from different mothers. There are a lot of stereo types of people born and raised in the Cortland area, none of them are pretty and most of them have a reason for existing. What would people not assume based on what I look like? I have been told I look younger than I am so people might not assume I am closer to being thirty than I like to admit to myself. People might assume that because I drive a car that is somewhat newer and generally try to dress nicely that I have a decent income, when in reality I am as broke as any college student on campus, if not more. People might not assume that I work two part time jobs as well as go to school full time, but they might assume something like that by how tired I look.
I liked the comparison with Maya Angelou. I read her book “I know why the caged bird sings” over the summer and loved it. I would like to think that all humans are similar in that we all experience a spectrum of emotions which guide our thoughts and actions. We all have basic instincts and needs that we share, but how we go about satisfying those needs and using our basic instincts are often very different.
Unfortunately American politics today are rife with examples of using one side of a story to support one viewpoint on an issue. A current example would be how right wing conservatives are using Mollie Tibbet’s tragic murder as a tool to push the immigration as an issue, instead of an issue of sexual assault and a man not being able to take no for an answer. As well as on the other side, left wing liberals using the tragedies of mass shootings as a tool to push an agenda toward gun control. Both sides have a tendency to not look at the picture as a whole and focuses on a few details of each case in order to suit their viewpoints.