The Danger of a One Sided Story
Chimamanda highlights the idea of how a biased narrative may fundamentally alter everything. I'm unfamiliar with this subject, and it has changed the way I consider things. She begins by discussing the books she read as a child. That they were foreign books; the characters had blue eyes, ate apples, and lived in countries where it snowed. When she first began to write stories as a child, all of her characters were white children, who had snow and yearned for the sunlight. She initially believed that a story could only contain the setting she had read about. She continues by explaining how susceptible we are and how a story can make you believe something that isn't actually true. She explains, for instance, that when she first arrived in the US, her roommate was surprised by the fact that she spoke English so well and could use a stove. She felt that her roommate felt a sense of pity toward her. Her main takeaway from this was understanding the stereotype that Americans have of Africans as being impoverished, illiterate, and jobless people. Hence that was why her roommate was surprised by Chimanada since she was adequately educated.
Furthermore, Chimanada mentions that powerful countries, like the US, can provide a flawless image of themselves but weaker nations are unable to do so; as a result, strong nations present a tarnished image of weaker countries. Her view on stereotypes particularly interested me; she claimed that while they occasionally hold some truth, they are almost always only a fragment of a complicated story. She continues by discussing further instances that demonstrated to her how a story can change your view on everything. Finally, she concludes by saying what if we were told both sides of a story, good and evil? Consequently, we can view the complete image of everything we know today.
She covered some fairly intriguing ground, and I was able to apply it to modern life. The media has provided us with stories on events all across the world that the people of power want us to believe in and follow. They seek to reshape our perception in their favor. For instance, many individuals are posting on social media about how they are feeling about the conflict in Ukraine, and it is widely reported in the media that troops and their families are being torn apart. What about the Plasteinats, who have been oppressed by Israel for decades but never received even half the media attention Ukraine has? Not just Palestine, but also Libya, Sudan, Syria, Iran, and Iraq have experienced extremely trying circumstances and are portrayed as terrorists and individuals who must be stopped even if they are not. They have endured far more than the population of Ukraine. This brings up the issue of how harmful a single story may be to how humans regard the world. I don't want to imply that the situation in Ukraine is unimportant; rather, I wanted to highlight the distinction between the two nations dealing with comparable issues and the ways in which their respective media portray them.
Moreover when learning about a new topic that you want to speak about and have an opinion on. You should research very well and know all sides of the story to get the full picture of what the matter is about so you could see the whole side story. Therefore the lesson learned today was about how to educate yourself and not shape opinions about something that someone said or some headline that you saw online.
Here are links to duide you through educating yourself's
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