The Danger of a Single Story

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie believes that 'single story' makes our recognition of equal humanity difficult by emphasizing how we/people are different, rather than how we/people are similar.
• When Adichie moved to US, her roommate had a narrowed perspective on Africa. Her roommate assumed that people from Africa didn't know how to speak English, assumed that they would listen and sing tribal music, and assumed that they didn't know how to use appliances.
• Adichie's professor also had narrowed perspective on Africa as well. When the prof read Adichie's novel, he told her that her novel is not “authentically African,” because the character in her novel were educated, middle-class man who drove cars, and not starving.
• Both her roommate and professor had narrow perspective on Africa because of the single story.
• Adichie believed that this single story came from Western literature. For example, in John Lok's (London merchant) writing, Africans are described as beasts with no houses, and half devil and hand child.
• Repeteadly telling people one thing, as only one thing creates single story, and eventually, stereotypes.
• Adichie believes that the problem of stereotypes is not that they are untrue and false information, but they are incomplete.

Summary

It is a story about Nigerian writer, Ngozi Adichie. When she came to North America, she have noticed that many people around her had stereotypes built from single story. Her roommate thought that Adichie didn't know how to speak English, assumed that she would listen and sing tribal music, and didn't know how to use appliances. Adichie's professor also had stereotype built because of the single story. When he read Adichie’s novel, he said it’s not “authentically African” by saying that the character in the novel are middle class person who are educated, can drive, and not starving. Adichie states that there are problems with these stereotypes built from listening to single story. The problem is not that it's untrue, but they are incomplete.