...only define Africa by a single story. This is a topic Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie(CNA) addresses with her TED-talk “The danger of a single story.” This essay will contain an account of the phrase “The Single Story”, and an analysis of the way CNA engages the audience. It will furthermore discuss the term cultural ignorance. CNA defines the single story as a term used when individuals define other individuals by a single story. She uses her own life experience to define the phrase. She starts by explaining how “…vulnerable we are in the face of a single story.” She refers to the single story she had of Fide’s family. She had always been told how Fide’s family was poor and didn’t have anything. Therefore she was very surprised when she went to Fide’s village, and discovered that Fide’s family could actually make something. Later in CNA’s life, she went to a university in the United States and found that the people had a single story of Africa and therefore thought that she was uneducated, and not even able to use a stove. “My roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe. In this single story there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complicated than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals” This quote shows how she uses the term ”The single story” too explain the stereotypes that occurs between individuals...
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...However, the media often creates bias, misrepresentation and sensationalism which creates misinformation to achieve these goals, throwing all sense of journalism away. Through, the use of misrepresentation, stereotyping and sensationalising, misinformation spreads quicker than ever. The use of stereotyping is highlighted in Pat Ferrucci’s Ted talk “shouldn’t sports be colour blind”. In this Ted talk, Ferrucci addresses the language used in the media when describing athletes of different races. He highlights how the media uses specific language, depending on what race you are. An example of this is a comparison between Tom Brady and Cam Newton. Journalists often describe Tom Brady as "intelligent or praise him for his effort” instead of talking about his raw talent. In comparison to this, when journalists describe Cam Newton, they often refer to him for his physical strength and his natural abilities instead of his intelligence. This often comes from a stereotype that African-Americans are stronger, which originated when African-Americans were slaves. People thought only the stronger slaves survived, which...
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...meet them. In this TED talk, Adichie talks about how she become a victim of a single story of others and how others were a victim of her single story. Throughout ted talk, she explained it in very well-mannered fashion by giving the examples from her personal life experiences. I choose this topic because this topic is related...
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...Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk on “The danger of a single story” emphasizes the problems with a story being told from just one perspective. Due to stereotypes many misconceptions have occurred due to only one side of the story being shared. In Adichie’s speech, she uses herself as a main example. Many people in America saw Adichie as an impoverished, uneducated Nigerian woman who was lucky enough to get out of Africa and start a better life in America. This viewpoint is not the blame of the individual, but the media the individual has been exposed too. The stereotypical African person is an untrue representation that most people in America have. Learning about the world is good for becoming more diverse, but if the information shared is one sided the experience may become limited because the person learning will become misinformed on a certain culture, person, or beliefs. Adichie’s goal in her speech was to educate the viewers on the problems with only hearing one side of a situation. In her speech she gives personal examples of situations where a person has assumed Adichie is a certain way due to stereotypes the person has learned. Adichie also shares personal examples of when she has assumed something about another person due to the stereotypes she has picked up over time. Adichie explains her speech that even though the stereotypes people have of certain cultures are misrepresented sometimes, still hold truth to some extend. Again, Adichie uses personal example to back...
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...the film I Love Beth Cooper (Columbus, 2009). We can identify stereotypical male roles also; as the hero in many films such as The Expendables (Sylvester Stallone, 2010). However representation of genders differ on the genre of text, Action films such as The Expendables (Ibid) may have women sexualised and submissive to the male characters as women tend to be the victims in need to be rescued by the heroic male character. How I Met Your Mother (Fox, 2005-2014) Is a comedic series aimed at teens and adults, appealing to a large variety of people, with five main characters who all play a role in representing different genders. The show is all based around the leading character Ted, telling stories of events from the past, leading up to how he met his wife, to his kids. Season six; Episode six; ‘Baby Talk’ begins with Lily and Marshall, a happy couple whose relationship is seen to be morally correct in the media. Lily is a teacher, seen as the stereotypical female of caring after the children. Marshall may bring the main income for the couple, yet he is not afraid to show his emotional...
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...It is unfortunate that stereotypes exist all around us, including setting a foundation of our culture, especially as Americans. Speaker Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie of Ted Talk "Danger of a Single Story," further exploits this idea. She talks about, from personal experience, the sad reality of a single story creating a basis of stereotypical ideals for an entire culture to be seen as. She believes, "Show a people as one thing and one thing over and over again and that is what they become." This idea conceptualizes a stereotypical mindset that inevitably cheats people and places of their true essence. Chimamanda was of Nigerian origin and grew up in a modernized world with a passion for British and American literature starting at a very young...
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...Stereotyping Perpetuates Racism Stereotype is defined by Merriam-Webster as “something conforming to a fixed or general pattern; especially: a standardized mental picture that is held in common by members of a group and that represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgment” (Merriam-Webster, 2017). The sociological definition is “an oversimplified, generally over-exaggerated belief that all members of a certain group act and think in the same fashion“ (Publishing, 2017). I believe there is a commonly missed component in those definitions that can create unexpected and unforeseen issues. Often with these issues, one can find misunderstandings, as well as the perpetuation of issues like racism. These problems...
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...overcome biases? In Vera Myers TED talk, she represents a very strong demonstration that is related to biases. She emphasizes a variety of examples that represent the strong opinions there is against black men. There is the violence and brutality we have seen in the past decades against those with colored skin. Vera Myers expounds on the possible outcome of overcoming biases and how we are all humans to be treated equal. Therefore, the question is, is it possible to overcome biases? Yes, it is possible to overcome biases. Myers starts off her presentation with listening to the book “the warmth of the other suns.” She acknowledges the story of black people who were fleeing the South from 1915 to 1970 looking for freedom from all brutality and tried to search for a better opportunity up North. She stresses the stories of African-Americans, whom were filled with horror and humiliations. She concludes the burnings and lynching of black men. This violence and brutality against black men has been going around for centuries and all it has done is expand the racism against colored people. It has caused humiliation, sadness, depression, pain, loss of love and respect. We need to learn how to control or overcome our bad biases in order to end this Ferguson happenings. People of color know the meaning of being in full alert due to their past history. The form of our bad biases, has formed the slavery and lynching against colored people. Myers says that stereotypes and prejudices that makes...
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...Colin Stokes, the managing director of Brands and Communications, explained in his ted talk, “How Movies Teach Manhood”, that movies have a large effect in how young boys and girls develop to be when they’re older. He talks about how boys are taught to be brave and athletic and how girls are taught to “let the man do the work.” This makes society a very unforgiving place and allows bad stereotypes to be mainstream. It affects young children in such a big way that it can influence their self confidence when they are older. An archetypal pattern in many stories throughout the world is the idealized female character. This means that there is usually a female character that is made perfect in every way and is almost impossible to be like. This...
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...After watching the video on the Danger of a Single Story and the reading on White Privilege and the Relational Model of Leadership, I feel that common theme between them would be focused on working toward equality. In today’s world, these messages are important because they allow us to recognize the social issues and to think of ways of progress. A lot of this work in social change begins with acknowledging the fact that there is a problem. There is a problem, in fact, there are many problems in this world and by not addressing them we are making an intention decision to not take action. I love TED Talks and the Danger of a Single Story is huge because the speaker works at regaining the value of life that has been lost by telling one story...
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...During a 2009 TED talk titled “The Danger of a Single Story,” Nigerian immigrant Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie spoke about her perception of the world as a child and how the world perceived her as she grew older. Adichie recalls her intellectual curiosity and how it drew her to literature. This curiosity resulted in her learning to read and write at an early age. The books she read were set in Britain and America, cultures far different from what she was accustomed to. The only information Adichie had about the West sat between two covers of a book. This constrained look gave her a stereotypical perspective of life in America. When she moved to the United States, the perception that the American people had of Nigerians surprised her. As she develops her contention, Adichie walks listeners through her childhood in Nigeria, her move to the United States, and how both offered her a unique perspective on how two vastly different cultures perceived each other....
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...Your Elusive Creative Genius Ernest Tyler PHL\458 October 20, 2014 Mr. Charles Crenshaw Your Elusive Creative Genius In February 2009 Elizabeth Gilbert presented a speech to a TED Talk audience in Long Beach California (Elizabeth Gilbert: Your elusive creative genius, 2009). Elizabeth Gilbert is an American author from Waterbury, Connecticut. She has wrote several articles for magazines such as Spin, GQ and The New York Times Magazine. She has also wrote several books and she is best known for writing “Eat, Pray, Love” in 2006 (River Net Computers, 2013). The speech was titled “Your Elusive Creative Genius” (Elizabeth Gilbert: Your elusive creative genius, 2009). Elizabeth talked about how artist and entertainers (creative people) are prone to suicide and the stereotype that is associated with them (Elizabeth Gilbert: Your elusive creative genius, 2009). In ancient Greece and ancient Rome creative people were not actually considered to be creative, but instead had divine attendant spirits (Elizabeth Gilbert: Your elusive creative genius, 2009). Eventually, society stopped looking at creativity as a divine spirit and instead started looking at the individual as the creative entity (Elizabeth Gilbert: Your elusive creative genius, 2009). Elizabeth states how she believes this to be the worst thing to ever happen to creative people, because now their egos and expectations will be over inflated (Elizabeth Gilbert: Your elusive creative genius, 2009)....
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...David Anderson Soc 343 People organize their knowledge about the world around them by sorting and simplifying received information. Therefore, they create cognitive schemes, which are certain representations of the reality displaying its most typical and fundamental elements and properties. The media Now I would like to focus on the attendance of gender stereotypes in the mass media, which nowadays has a great power and reaches large audiences. In order to create a medium which is universal, understandable and acceptable for numerous and diverse recipients, senders very often use stereotypes, which fill the social life and evoke certain associations. However, mass media not only gives people information and entertainment, but, also affects people’s lives by shaping their opinions, attitudes and beliefs. Men have been perceived as the head of the household and women were mainly housewives. Nowadays the differences between male and female roles are smaller, however mass media still perpetuates traditional gender stereotypes. Moreover, due to their great influence on people’s attitudes, they can depict certain social groups in negative and unrealistic manner. They can be a very useful tool for those remaining power. By manipulating the message, media can create a certain image of reality, which is consistent with the policy of the dominant group. As a result, the reflection of a real world is incomplete and distorted. Although people are aware of the unequal representation...
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...Most people are concerned with making good first impressions. The physical appearance plays a big role in impression making such as the clothing they wear or the car that they drive. Movie incident The scene where Rosalee and Tad first meet at Rosalee's hotel room. Rosalee is speechless and mixes up her sentences. At the same time Ted is shocked at her beauty and immediately is excited about the date. And then she sees Tad's limo and is impressed Connection This is a great example if Initiating because it shows when they first meet and interact with each other for the first time, getting all googly eyed at each other. And clearly both attracted to each other. Description Experimenting- In this stage of relationship development, it’s all about exploring to get to know each other. The experimentation is also called the probing stage because each person analyzes the other for information or common interests so they can decide whether to keep the relationship going. Movie incident Experimenting occurs in the movie in the scene where Rosalee and tad are on there first date at the restaurant At dinner Tad opens up to Rosalee when he talks about his movie auditions. Tad then asks Rosalee what she does for a living. As the conversation continues, Rosalee sees all the signs that Pete warned her about Connection This is an example of experimenting because during the dinner conversation it gave both of them lots of information about one another like where Rosalee works...
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...character. It is a pattern in our social arrangements” (2009: 10). What did you think Connell means by this statement and can you give two examples to support your argument? The separation of gender in society is an idea that has been ingrained into us from an early age. We are taught to recognize the differing characteristics and behaviors of each gender. Connell explores the idea that gender is not an expression of biology or a human characteristic but a complexity of our social structure. Similarly Cranny-Francis et al. explores the themes of ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ displaying how these terms relate and intersect. Both authors highlight the inequality of a fixed gender dichotomy present in society. Wright also supports this theory through her ted talk, Fifty Shades of Gay, exploring the contradictory ideas placed around the concept of gender. To understand what Connell means, we must first make the distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’. Sex is defined as “a theory about human beings which divides them into two biologically based categories – male and female” (Cranny Francis et al. 2003: 7). Whereas gender is defined as, “the structure of social relations that centres on the reproductive arena, and the set of practices that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes” (Connell 2009: 11). Essentially explaining that gender is a cultural creation that has been built upon the concept of sex. However there are many varying definitions around ‘gender’ in which...
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