Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Danger of a single story

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one of my favorite speakers to watch on TEDtalks, and I got to watch this particular one in a social work class last week. She talks about the harm that only seeing things, like people, places, and communities, from one perspective, and how that forms prejudice and doesn't allow you to see "the whole picture". What I especially like about this TEDtalk is when Adichie talks about moving in with her roommate, who wants to hear her "tribal" music and wondered how she spoke English so well. Her roommate had already had an idea of what Adichie was like and had made assumptions about Nigeria. Her roommate seemed to be coming from a place of genuine interest and wanted to learn about Adichie, but in the process of only having one story of people from Nigeria made her prejudice against Adichie. In my social work class we discussed further that there are negative ad positive stereotypes, although all stereotypes are damaging and don't leave room for you to see someone's whole story.

A single story I have heard about youth is that the ones who act out at school are just bad kids who misbehave. This made me think back to reading Nakkula and Toshalis, and about Antwon and Ms. Peterson. She thought he was just disruptive and a trouble maker, but when she made a more personal connection and got to know him, she saw that he was having trouble with testing and she was able to have a positive impact on him. When you get one idea of someone if your head, it can stop you from seeing all of their strengths and potential.

5 comments:

  1. I wrote about our Social Work class too!! I really like your input on the stereotype about kids who misbehave in school!! Definitely an important topic!! And that last sentence is most certainly true!!

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  2. I agree with you that youth get a bad name. We need to look at the youth as the ones that are going to help the world. We need to help the youth make a difference and show them the way.

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  3. I agree 100% with your last statement. Too often we create certain judgments about a person without taking the time to undertand why a person acts a certain way. Everyone holds certain strengths but they are often overlooked and replaced with stereotypes.

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  4. I feel like so many of us have seen this for social work! We ended up having a discussion about famous comedians and how we use stereotypes for humor which can be funny but it also helps to keep the stereotypes alive in a way.

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  5. I really liked your blog! Well written! I really do agree that when we have judgments we block and inhibit ourselves from seeing the picture as a whole. Great post!

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