In a ted talk with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie called “The danger of a single story”, she talks about what a single story is and gives us various examples. To me, a single-story defines as a story created based on the interpretation and judgment of a person or a group of people, turning it into a perspective of your own, making them seem like your judgment. A single-story can be a metaphor for stereotypes because in a way it represents a symbol that’s these single stories become stereotypes which according to Chimamanda they are incomplete and it makes one story become the only story.
The stories that I read growing up were mainly fictional characters such as Cinderella, the three Billy goats gruff, Goldilocks, Corduroy, and The princess and the frog. In the book of Cinderella, she was a servant for her stepmother and stepsisters. They treated her poorly and she had to do everything for them from cleaning to cooking. Growing up seeing and reading about how Cinderella did mainly house chores that I was supposed to do the same. I’m guilty of creating a single story of what is expected of me as a female. Also reading the Princess and the frog was the same thing. Tiana was a black Disney character who at the beginning of the story worked as a waitress and was practically poor so it made me version a single story that women serve food because she was classified as a waitress.
I do believe that modern technology has an effect and plays a role in creating some of these single stories because the media only focuses on one incomplete story. Mainly in social media, I always see a specific group of people classified as something which is not entirely true. For example, on social media platforms, many people criticize what a woman wears and calls them rude names. A person creates a single story from only their interpretation and judgment and it’s posted on the media which people read and make it the only story to believe. It can also be that many people aren’t educated enough on a certain topic which makes them believe only one story.
These two videos are talking about overlapping issues of identity because the Ted talk video talks about how we identify someone from our own terms and create a single story but everyone has a different single story. Since everyone creates their own single story, it overlaps each other meaning some stories can be stereotypical of a person or a group and others are not. This creates several issues of identity.
Bonus: The story about my name is simple, it’s a typical name but it’s spelled differently. My name is spelled “Deisi” but the sound of it out loud is “Daisy”. According to my parents, my mom wanted to name me a name of a flower which wasn’t a daisy, it was “Dahlia”. However, my dad didn’t agree with that name, and when the nurse came and asked for my name my mom ended up saying “Daisy”. But the nurse spelled it differently which is why my name is spelled that way.
