A Single Story's Peril

Adichie believes that stories matter, nevertheless we often live our lives based on acknowledging or hearing only one story. And that we unconsciously operate from the perspective of a single story. "The danger of a single story," as Adichie puts into words in the very beginning of her Ted Talk, is that it can lead to incorrect assumptions, decisions, conclusions and misunderstandings.  Cultures all around the world are filled with fascinating stories that helped us develop a better understanding of the world. Nonetheless, we are still prone to making snap judgments about certain individuals or groups of people. This is the single storie's peril. 

“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete,” said by Adichie, clearly states that the way people tell stories affects the story itself. “If you start the story with the failure of the African state rather than the colonial creation of the African state, you have an entirely different story. If you start the story with the arrows of the Native Americans instead of the arrival of the British, you have an entirely different story.” People have bad intentions which are formed when they listen to the stereotype of the story instead of the complete one. That is one of the main reasons why countries in Africa are looked at in an inferior and low-quality way instead of the beauty that it possesses. 

I totally agree with what Adichie has to say about the single story. She is extremely inspiring and helps us open our mind and realize what stereotypes have done to people's lives. People have power, and as Adichie said: "Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person." People who obtain power are condescending and are making other people suffer by the stories they tell. There are the main questions asked that define a person with power that can badly influence their community: "How stories are told? Who tells them? When they're told How many stories are told?". This is why the single story is menacing and why the stereotypes told ruin the lives of innocent people. 

In 2016, I had a football tournament with my club located in Barcelona, Spain. At the airport and the hotel people were very nice and helping us in every way. However, as we went for a walk by the beach, a group of Spanish people came up to us confused by our arabic language. They asked where we were from, when I said "Egypto", which is Egypt in Spanish, they were a little surprised. But when I starting talking to them in english, they were in complete shock. They asked me many questions, such as: "How are you able to speak English so well? Do you have good education? Do you live in the Pyramids?".  To me, they were uneducated people that are amazed by something so basic. Except that this is the single story that they and many others perceive.