University:
Eastern Kentucky University
Course:
SOC 131 | Introductory Sociology
Academic year:

2021
Views:

500

Pages:

1
Author:

Charlee Buchanan

Danger of a Single Story Video Write a 1/2 page reflection about how the single story reinforces ethnocentrism. Provide examples from the video to reinforce your argument. The “Danger of a Single Story” was told by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who was born and grew up in Eastern Nigeria. This situation is similar to stereotypes because most people like to put a theory or image on a certain group of people or cultures and judge them based on their traditions and appearance, the stereotype is everywhere. An example of ethnocentrism was when Adichie thought that all literature books had to have white British people in them because they were the books that she specifically read. When Adichie would write stories, she would always create characters that had white British characteristics because they were the only books that she had read. This is exactly what happened to Adichie when she first arrived in the US as a college student and talked about how Americans viewed and perceived her appearance and culture. Adichie’s roommate was in shock when she first met Adichie because Adichie mentioned that there is no possibility of a connection as human equals. Her American roommate has only heard one side of Africa, which was that Africans don’t speak a word of English. But for her roommate to find out that English is Nigeria’s official language has had her roommate in shock. For example, Adichie acknowledged why her roommate's reaction was like that because she felt the same when she first met Fide and his family living in a state of poverty. Adichie’s mentioned during the speech “She assumed that I did not know how to use a stove” because her American roommates assumed that people who live in Nigeria or Africa lived in a tribe and cooked food by hunting them down, but that is not the case for Adichie. Although she did grow up in Nigeria, she lived a normal life in a normal household. Overall, many people only know one side to a story and stereotype others based on the single-story that they know. People indeed make assumptions from their point of view without taking their time to look into another perspective of things which often leads to false claims, evidence, and reasoning. That’s why it's best to put yourself in their shoes because you make assumptions based on the facts you already know.