Response to 'The Danger of a Single Story'

Chimamanda Adichie talked about how most people only have one story when it concerns something that is foreign to them. I agree that most people only know one thing about anything that is foreign to them, and that they tend to think that that is the only story. Her talk mostly concerned different countries and races and how people perceive countries that they don’t know much about, and I happen to understand exactly what she means by people only having one story.

When I lived in Canada, people would always ask me if my relatives that lived in Egypt rode camels to school, or lived in mud houses. Even as a kid, I always understood why they used to ask me those questions. It was because the only image they had of Egypt was of the Pyramids in the middle of a desert and camels that wandered around the Pyramids. Telling them that my grandparents had internet connection and a TV that aired the same shows that we watched in Canada always took them by surprise. And although I always had a good laugh when someone would ask me questions like what the name of my grandma’s camel was, it used to also annoy me that they didn’t know that Egypt wasn’t only one huge desert.

People here in Egypt also only have one picture of Canada: that it’s cold all year round. Most people don’t believe me right away when I tell them that in the summer Canada can get really hot and humid and can reach temperatures up to 40ºC. Another thing is people here who have never gone anywhere outside of Egypt tend to think that the west is paradise. I’m not saying that Europe and North America aren’t nice, but they have their flaws and they certainly aren’t paradises. Of course, people have only heard about how great they are, though, so they don’t actually get a correct picture of the countries.

But basing your idea of something on one story that you’ve heard is human nature. If you always hear about how horrible something is, you’re going to assume it’s horrible without trying to figure out whether it is or not. And maybe that thing is horrible, but it also must be something else. I, personally, don’t think that anything can be described in only one way.

I’m not saying that I don’t think of things in one way, because I do. Chimamanda Adiche talked about how she only thought about the houseboy they had when she was a child, as being poor, and she never thought that he and his family were anything more than poor. I feel that I also only think of people like that. For example, I have this idea that people who are extremely wealthy live in a huge house with many servants, are lazy and spend the majority of the morning sitting at home or playing golf, and at night are at parties where they’re surrounded by people who are their friends only because of their money. Of course, I know that there is more to them than just how much money they have, but I can’t help but think of them like that. It’s the way that rich people are portrayed in movies and books, so it’s the way I think of them.

Media plays a big role in spreading single stories. Movies and TV shows have a tendency to have many stereotypes. For example, TV normally shows Asians as being very hard-working and extremely smart. And yes, they do tend to be hard-working and to do well in most of what they do, but it’s not the only thing about them.

Of course, media does try to be more diverse and to not stereotype, but sometimes it’s inevitable. People have fixed ideas of things and when TV shows them another idea, it just goes over their heads. And it has nothing to do with being open or closed minded but to do with how we think of things.

As Adichie pointed out, books also tend to give you one story, and that’s because most authors that are famous are European or American. I had never even heard of Chimamanda Adichie, and I’ve never read a book by a Nigerian Author. In fact, all I know about Nigeria is from my mother and her family – they lived there for a few years. I’m sure, though, that if there were more books about Nigerian families then I would have a better idea of how Nigerian people live.

Stories are great, but hardly ever accurate. And how can they be? When someone tells you a story, they are subconsciously adding what they want to the story and leaving out parts that they find unimportant. The only way you can really get a real story is by experiencing it and seeing with your own eyes the many stories.

The thing is that everything has more than one story, but most people only know one story and they don’t even think to learn the other stories. Thankfully, due to new forms of social media like the internet, I think future generations will have more stories and will be able to draw more accurate pictures of the world that we live in.

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I wrote this for school a while ago after watching Adichie's Ted Talk, and so I decided to show it to you guys. Enjoy.