I chose “The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I love this story. It brings a new perspective on what identity is and how we not only identify with other people, but how stereotypes influence how we identify other people. “What struck me was this: She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me. Her default position toward me, as an African, was a kind of patronizing, well-meaning pity. 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.” Stereotypes like these are pervasive in American thinking. Our education in America is lacking in basic cultural knowledge, and our news stations rarely cover anything about Africa above war and famine. We should be taught about the different socio/economical areas in Africa so we don’t have a single story about people from Africa being all poor. Our news stations and newspapers need to run more stories covering all the different aspects of Africa so we can have more than just a single story of Africa. People on a whole have more similarities than differences, but we need to make an effort to learn about other cultures so we can identify with others instead of just picking out our differences.
