THE DANGER OF A SINGLE STORY

I listened to Chimamanda Adichie’s TED Talk.

It was a very fabulous talk.

It was about reducing human beings to a single narration.

“The single story creates stereotypes,

and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue,

but that they are incomplete.

They make one story become the only story”.

Here are the lessons I learnt from the talk:

Do not restrict everything you hear or know based on one perspective.

Each individual life contains a diverse compilation of stories.

Don’t be quick to judge.

Don’t judge someone by what other people think of them.

Don’t judge someone by the one sided story you’ve heard about them.

When we hear a single story, we risk accepting one experience as the whole truth.

Sometimes, we go to the extent of reacting to people based on the stories we’ve heard about them.

That is so belittling!

If you reduce people to one aspect of their story, you’re taking away their humanity.

Reducing people to an incomplete narrative of their lives, is demeaning.

Try to see things in different manners.

Everyone has a different point of view.

Create excuse for people’s mistakes.

Do not hold them by their faults.

Borrowing Adichie’s words,

“Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign,

but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize.

Stories can break the dignity of people,

but stories can also repair that broken dignity”.

#Day26of30