The Danger Of A Single Story

I have read the transcript of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Ted Talk on ‘The danger of a single story’ and I have been pondering on this phrase for a while now because of recent happenings.

First I will state that I am what most people have described as an introvert because I am not the most sociable person and because loyalty is important to me, I am ‘intentional’ in picking my friends as a result of which I have really few friends.

While I choose to not be boxed into any category of behavior – Introvert vs Extrovert, I understand that people will do what they will and that I have no control over.

I must say though that being who I am has oftentimes resulted in people forming opinions and drawing conclusions about me from afar. Some people however have opened up after several encounters with me about how they had seen that I wasn’t who they thought I was and how they were wrong to just ‘judge’ from afar, but some will never get the chance to know the real me and as such will have their opinions.

This is the crux of this article.

Oftentimes we hear stories about people and go on to talk about how they could have and should have acted differently, we go on to talk about how we could never do what they did or say what they said, we go on to talk about how they did wrong without getting to know the truth. But as has been said for every story there is ‘his side, her side and the truth’.

Most of us never bother with knowing the truth especially if the story seems to lend credence to our preconceived notion of the person in question. This however is dangerous as we tend to see people and relate to them based on the opinion we have of them and where our opinion is untrue or incomplete we may treat them unjustly. I say this because I too am guilty.

This is where empathy is required – ask yourself ‘what if people relate with me and treat me based on a story they heard about me which may be untrue or incomplete’?

As Chimamanda stated “the consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different, rather than how we are similar”.

This for me means that when we judge people based on what we have read or heard about them without seeking the other side to the story, we risk breaking their dignity, maligning their character and reputation as well as losing our sense of humanity.

We ought to therefore intentionally choose not to relate to people based on their appearance, colour, social class, level of education, religion, gender or whatever parameter we choose to judge people with.

We must do well to not just deal with people based on a single story.

This is the only way we can treat people justly, with equity and achieve true harmony as humans.