The Danger of a Single Story reminds me of the story about the six of blind men feeling one part of an elephant in the Story of the Six Blind Men Each thought something completely different, and all were incorrect. This isn’t the same as The Danger of a Single Story, but you can see the connection. I have, too, been judged by a single story. A former foster child, a survivor of incest, a mother of a killed child, a poet; any of these are defining, but none of these gives a complete story of Tammy. We rely on stories to fill in the gaps of our lack of knowledge, as was the case of my first visit to Ireland. I carried a journal, took notes, and made my observations. I invited my friend from Ireland to visit America and had him come to one of my critical Thinking Classes I was teaching. Before his visit I asked the class to write down their assumptions based on only the facts that he was a man from Ireland. Almost all were way off the mark of whom and what he was like.
We are all guilty of this; it is human nature to fill in the unknown and assume what we are told it the truth, the only truth, until we allow ourselves to find out for ourselves. That is the importance of communication, words better than bombs for tearing down walls and for building connections. I close with one of my poems that I hope will shed light on my thought about jumping to conclusions, and the experience I have had when people first meet me for the first time.
Work Cited
Chimamanda Adichie, “The Danger of a Single Story,” TED video (filmed July 2009, posted October 2009), 18:49, accessed March 28, 2016.