Adichie – The Danger of A Single Story

– After watching Adichie’s TEDTalk, I believe her point was to highlight how assumptions can shape our perceptions of people. She talks about Fide and how she automatically assumed that because her mother told her that Fide’s family is poor, they weren’t hardworking. She also brings up how she “bought into the single story of Mexicans” prior to her trip to Guadalajara and automatically associated the word immigrants with Mexicans. It goes to show that Adichie wrongfully assumed, and misinterpreted many things, before opening up to learning about it further. Our course’s exploration has to do a lot with storytelling. When we tell someone’s story, it’s important to put our own biases and assumptions aside to truly appreciate what the person is telling us. Putting our own ideas aside lets us be more understanding too. My questions are how can we identify a single story? And how can we correct it?