The danger of the single story by Ana Vicenti

Do we learn history as a single story?

rodrigodominguezcarramal — 2020-09-17 07:49:22 UTC

Unfortunately much times yes, is true that actually we can access to other stories and points of view of many episodes in our history but the history in europe has been wroten by the white man, that means that we have the point of view of the colonizers in Africa and/or the conquerors in America, and basically the point of view of the privileged people that makes that one story could not be as good and pink colour as we think.

The danger of the single story

olmodelafuentegarcia — 2020-09-17 08:22:46 UTC

The danger of a single story

diegoc12 — 2020-09-17 08:44:44 UTC

I think that our history has been told by Europeans and normally it focuses more in Europe than in the rest of the world. This produces that other parts of the word were represented with stereotypes; this is useful if you want to conquer a country, because it is easiest to kill or to enslave people that you think is inferior, but this distorts the history and it makes the history that we learn just an incomplete part of history.

What is the purpose of stereotypes?

2020-09-17 09:44:32 UTC

First, what a stereotype means, a stereotype is a general and simple idea; that not always has to be true, of a thing or a person. One of the purposes of stereotypes, is among children which helps them to understand the world in a simpler way, which at first isn’t bad; but it starts to not being as good as it should be when they induct children into wrong stereotypes, such as the one of the toys, which means that the boys must play with cars and the girls with dolls, or the one of that the boys are superheroes, and the girls are princesses; that ideas are far away from reality. That was one of the purposes of stereotypes. The other one can be applied in people from all ages, and it consists in giving very general and wrong meanings to thing that we don’t really know about; for example, if you ask a random person how does he imagine living in Africa, the most probably is that he says that “a giant desert of poverty”, cause thats the general concept of Africa, even though it is wrong. Another example is with Russia, cause if you ask the same, but with Russia, he’d probably say that “communist bears that drink vodka” because as funny and surrealist that it sounds, it is the stereotype that people have from Russia. Countries are only an example, but there are hundreds of things and people that can be stereotyped in that way.

Reflexion of the video

davidondobernardez — 2020-09-17 14:00:02 UTC

The stereotypes is a toxic and racist vision of world, not all people that lives in Africa are starving or Russians aren´t drinking vodka all day. That kind of thinkings can make uncomortable to some people.

Do we learn history as a “single story”?

nuriaconcharuiz — 2020-09-17 15:15:22 UTC

I think that most of the time the history is told as a single story and i think that is because is been written by the same tipe or same group of people. This creates stereotypes, because you only see the story from one point of view. if history was written by people who have different points of view the story would be more extensive and would not create as many stereotypes as there are now

The absolute necessity for there to be more than one story

lunafernandezcollado — 2020-09-18 09:06:36 UTC

The history has been told for millions and millions of years by the same occidental powerful people, they write about their places but also about the places they conquer or they think that they have discover, giving the rest of occidental people and the rest of the world, one only vision of that places, normally negatively. They give the vision that the African people (in this case) need the hero figure of a white occidental to save them of the dissaster in their motherland and that´s wrong. It is true that in Africa there is a lot of poverty and they need help but also there is culture, there is happiness, families that are their own heroes, all this isn´t told. To really know a place, a culture or a person you need to read/hear different points of view and different versions of different people.

Do we learn history as a "single story"?

patriciazalewska — 2020-09-18 09:41:40 UTC

Usually the history is just told by few people and we dont have others point of view, just one, that it makes a little bit sad because we don't learn all the story, just one part, the one that group of few people wanted to share.
With this i want to get to the point that to learn more about history, we need more that one point of view.
To give an example, if two guys have an argument, you don't hear just one part of the story, you hear both to know well what happened.

Video reflexion

beatrizmachingomez — 2020-09-18 09:45:42 UTC

Most of the time, the story is told by white people, about our traditions, problems and our daily life. Stories have lots of stereotypes, we take for granted much things that aren’t real. You never have to listen and believe only one story because probably it won't be entirely true, since in this world there are many different people, opinions, feelings and situations. We all see the same things but in different ways. Some people think that africans are all poor, live in little villages incommunicated, in horrible conditions and sad. Some of them yes, but others are like us, with a school, clothes, books, with a happy life, beautiful habitat, great variety of animals..In fact in Madrid there are also lot of poor people without food or house, but in stories all people of Madrid are suppose to be wealthy and happy.

Video reflection

mariammohamed3 — 2020-09-18 11:16:31 UTC

Most stories are told from one point of view or viewed from one side, which is clearly the negative one. This does not only have an effect on a whole country’s self confidence but also their dignity. which will always let people feel pity and feel sorry for them without even meeting them or knowing the whole story, with its positive and negative sides. Unfortunately, history is mostly told as a single story. The story shouldn’t be published incomplete, it should be balanced, in which, instead of breaking peoples' dignity, it can repair it and instead of using stories to dispossess or to malign, it can be used to empower and to humanize. To sum up stereotypes is an over-generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. They are collected points of views, which shouldn’t be taken as the whole story or everything, not everything is complete or said a 100% truly. No one talks about the advantages and the positive things as they do about the negativity.

What is the purpose of stereotypes?

paulayanguasespinosa — 2020-09-18 12:19:02 UTC

I think we have always normalized stereotypes, when it is harmful and painful for many people.
Stereotypes are, after all, prejudices because they compare belief in some characteristic of someone and exaggerate it.
By stereotyping we give another person an understanding of something that is not really like that. A very common stereotype is that someone from Africa comes to Spain to steal our jobs, when that is totally wrong, what the boss of that company does when he sees that he comes to do the impossible to get money to have food and a house, what the boss does is to scam him, if for example it is 10 euros an hour, he will pay him 5 and so what he gets is to scam him, that’s why when they get a job they look first for that person than for you.
Other stereotypes are machism, for example: if you tell a boy that the boys play soccer and the girls to the dolls the boy gives to understand that it is normal and if he sees the contrary it is wrong, if that boy sees a girl playing soccer and will tell him that it is not normal.
My conclusion is that if we continue normalizing this our society will continue with a closemind.

The danger of the single story

mikelvallinapiera — 2020-09-18 14:38:22 UTC

It is clear that we live in a world of prejudices and stereotypes, and that means we are all living in a lie. Unfortunately we learn history as a ''single story'' because throughout history many people, including black people, have been inferior in all aspects and have been surpassed by people who make up and change reality completely. And the new generation we are obliged to listen to these prejudices and to believe them. It is true that in Africa for example there is a lot of poverty and even the place where there may be more in the world but this is not the title of Africa, if not a characteristic of what it really is. People throughout history have given a false title to a totally different book and the saddest thing is that it not only happens with the subject of Africa, there are many more.

Video reflexion

camilamarroquinrojas — 2020-09-18 16:53:20 UTC

Stereotypes are what mostly define everything, and we can have an idea of how is something. But stereotypes are just like a part of a story, we don't know the complete story of something unless we investigate a bit, they also can harm people because they group one characteristic with a whole country or continent, which leads people to relate that characteristic even if they haven't visited that place, one example would be Egypt, Egypt is thought to not having new technologies for example, while it is a normal country as any other with WiFi, cars and mobile phones.
With Africa is the same story, it is related with poverty, sadness, thirstiness and carving, but did you know that Africa has around 40 to 50 museums? Probably no, and that is an example th at we only see one face of Africa, I am also pretty sure that people also can believe there are no African famous people, well here are famous people who are African or have African origins, such as Barack Obama, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Charlize Theron...
Sadly, a lot of people still believe that Africa is a continent which haven't progress at all, but is the opposite, Africa as I said contain museums, famous people, there are six car brands which are really nice, and there are more incredible things of this continent. We must start to break stereotypes and erase them.

Video Reflection

rosmarymatosloarte — 2020-09-18 19:18:49 UTC

Video Reflection

2020-09-19 07:31:52 UTC

In the world we all live with prejudices and it is already normalized. Living with prejudices is living in a lie. Many people think that it is normal that in a story only white people can be protagonists and that is not true. We can not only listen to a story and already know everything with that.Many people just by hearing the word African already associate with poor and living in really bad conditions,it is obvious that in some parts of Africa people are very poor but that happens in all parts of the world not only in Africa. When people hear other part of the world they think that they live in really good conditions but that is not true because in all parts of the world poor people exists.

Video Reflection

andreagallegoaguado — 2020-09-19 08:04:12 UTC

video reflection

sayendominguezgarcia — 2020-09-19 11:32:24 UTC

When we steriotype we are making a negative generalization of a country , collective , continent , etc made of small concepts based on prejudices , power scales , lack of information and ignorance . That makes us forget that each person is made of thousand of storys and unique and individual characteristics as well as each country , collective , continent ,etc . The problem with stereotypes is that they limitate everything in to one thing , people assume them as the reality and that doesn´t let us see the rest of the stories.

Do we learn history as a “single story”?

adrianaspataru — 2020-09-19 12:11:25 UTC

Normally the history is written or told by the same person or group of people ,the white people ,so they count what they see or they point of view of the things. Its true that now we can search more points of view and differents storys ,but how they teach us only one thing ,we assume that it is the only one and the true story . This makes the stereotypes.

Video Reflection

albertonavarrobravo — 2020-09-19 12:19:51 UTC

We all know that steriotypes are all over the world, mary stories that talk about the life of for example Africans, that said they are so poor and cant not have normal lifes like countries that have more money, they are not telling the truth, why Aficans cant have not have a normal life like others? A lot of people that we think that they are unhappy dont have food etc... Its because we lived in a steriotypes ,many of these situation happend by the influentation of writers or people that think like , then this idea spread all over the world and we pay attention and think the same.
In conclusion, Dont judge people that you think are different to others, that after all they are the same as you

Video Reflection

pabloprietojimenez — 2020-09-19 15:47:37 UTC

Stereotypes are not new nowadays, they have been since the creation of the world. A stereotype or a single story can be dangerous because they can be used as a political weapon, we saw this with the Nazis who blame Jewish people for bad things that happened in the Nazi Germany. A single story can be preserved for many years if the person who creates this single story has power or influence, but apart ,the problem of stereotypes is that they are very easy to assume because it is easier to blame people instead of looking our own mistakes. Critical thinking can save us from stereotypes or from a single story, we need to doubt about everything and compare information with many sources, specially in this period where information is in all places. In my opinion, a story is told when you want to hear it. In conclusion, the facts are more important than the words.

The danger of the single story

pablomorenogarcia — 2020-09-19 20:37:45 UTC

Probably you have prejudiced someone at least once without knowing him, me too. It is a fact that we usually stereotype a determinated group of people of a certain religion, breed, country, etc. without even have talked to him. We should stop stereotyping people, its wrong to do that, I mean, probably some africans are starving, some musulmans are terrorists, some germans are nazis and some blond are stupid, but that doesn´t mean everyone is like that, moreover, how can you actually be something just for having some condition that you haven´t even chosen? Its suppose that if you are borned in Germany you are automatically nazi? Of course not.
Besides, that person that is being prejudiced probably notices it, and I´m sure that its annoying to see that people is looking to you and is thinking that you are "facha" just because you wear something with a flag of your country. For example, I think we should stop helping old people in absolutely everything, otherwise they may think that they are useless and very dependent, I mean, we can help them, but we have to let them do some things that probably they are able to do from themselves.
I think its annoying to feel that you are giving pity

Stereotypes show how vulnerable and influential we are.For example, in the story in the stories there were only white characters, blond with blue eyes and instead of putting foreigners and different races.Foreign people thought that Africans did not know how to use a stove, or how to use spoons.Foreigners have an idea of Africa as a catastrophe, full of poverty and there was no possibility of a connection as equals.But there are other stories from Nigeria that are not just catastrophes and it is important that the world know this and that they do not see Nigeria as anything less.A simple story can break the dignity of a people but it can also repair that broken dignity.

gemma_rojasreyes — 2020-09-20 09:24:17 UTC

My reflection

mariadepedroatienza — 2020-09-20 09:41:20 UTC

Obviously the history , at the same as storys, had been tell by the people that when that particular incident occured had more power and influence. So they were in charge of sharing the best part about them.
I think that nowadays is still happening the same and not only on history, in all the aspects of our life. The thing that I think we should do is have our own judgment and contrast versions of a same thing in all the possile sources, for later being able to form our own account of the fact and the version that adapt more to our way of thinking.
Here also enter the called stereotypes, when we only know a part of the story is common to make false ideas and wrong judgement, so because of that we should open our mind and think in the other way of the story.
So the conclusion is that is history, as everything, we only kwon the point that the people wanted us to know.

Single stories create stereotypes

gaelvallesmarin — 2020-09-20 10:18:45 UTC

Every story have many different points of view, but people normally only focus on one and they think that this point of view is the correct, creating the single story. The problem with single stories is that it creates stereotypes which are generalizations of countries, groups of people, ethnic groups... that focus only on the bad or different aspects of this groups. Single stories are created from a position of power. This is why Africa, which doesn't have a position of power over other continents such as Europe or North America, is usually victim of every kind of bad stereotypes about their way of living, which then create very serious problems such as racism and hate towards different cultures.

video reflection

2020-09-20 10:20:00 UTC

History is told by people who can tell it, by powerful people. A servant, for example, could never have told his story, History from his perspective, because he did not have the right, he did not have the power, but for example, A king could, and he did. He told the Story from his perspective, and when he wanted, because stories / History are told when it benefits one

Alba Perez

Reality of a single story

2020-09-20 11:48:11 UTC

Stories and above all history has been told by powerful pople, we all have listened to them and thats why most of the time we instill that idea in our minds, what we hear it is what we belive, and that shouldn't be like that we should try to read, to inform our selfs about all kind of things. If we only listen to people who tell us what is wrong and whats is right, or say that, that is the reality, but it isn't we create stereotypes, for exaple about people who live in Africa, we've always been told that they all live in huts ,they are all poor. As they don't have a position of power as big as other continents like Europe, most people have made bad stereotypes about them and how do they live.
And we do all ,or most of us learn history as a single story, because people teach us most of the time the same things, but those how teach us, they haven't been in the past to prove all the things they tell us, part of it might be real or as the way they say it to us but in other hand part of it isn't a hundred percent real at all.

Cristiana Tsekova

My reflection.

iriaromangomez — 2020-09-20 11:53:23 UTC

When we talk about history, we are talking about a real story usually written by the powerful people who just told their victories, talked about their big palaces and explained their luxury lives, but we did not have the others version, the poor version let’s say.

Nowadays we are lucky, we know in a more accurate way what may really happened, but, we used to have just one version of what happened formerly, and believed that was the truth, having just the point of view of the conqueror (one single story) creating with this a weak version of the natives, as their mother countries where negatively described.

Stereotypes can in someway come from this, they are based on illogical beliefs, prejudices and culturally transmitted role models that we all as a society have created. They are not always true, but they give us an easy way of making our own deductions on how those people are or act, from what we hear from those places, and in some cases, stereotypes are not that bad, but, we have created wrong stereotypes, as we have made with Africa in this case. We sometimes refer to it as an individual country first of all, and it actually is not, it is a continent, but, when we talk about it, we encompass all the countries on it as poor, with old cities or with lots of illnesses, and yes, some countries are like that, but others are not, for example, if I make you think of Egypt, does your image of it have big modern buildings or just desserts with few inhabited areas and pyramids? That is an easy example of how we have created a stereotype of the city.

We should start teaching history from different points of view to remove those stereotypes that affect everyone in the world, because some discriminations are precisely created by the stereotypes we have of someone or something.

The danger of the single story

catalinmotcalin — 2020-09-20 13:00:07 UTC

Probably you have criticised something or someone even without having any idea if what you are saying is true or not, only because you have heard it many times. As you heard it so many times you finally think it's true because if one person says to you something you can think that is false, because a person can make a mistake easily, but if instead of one person, several people tell you the same thing you start thinking that that idea is probably true. Because we think that as many people say something, that thing has lower probabilities of being wrong, so that are stereotypes the idea of many people who thinks that something is in a way when actually is in the other way around.

As Chimamanda Adichie mentioned in the video, when she lived in the U.S. she heard many stereotypes about Mexicans, as she says: in the U.S. immigration became synonymous with Mexicans. So as she heard that about Mexicans she was surprised when she went to Mexico and she saw the Mexicans going to work, rolling up tortillas in the marketplace, smoking, laughing. That occurs because the stereotypes that were in the U.S. made her see Mexicans as immigrants, as people who were fleecing the healthcare system, sneaking across the border, being arrested at the border. Something far from reality.

I think that we have to stop stereotyping people, because that is something that makes us think bad about people as we generalize, and for example that makes us think that all Africans are poors, all muslims are terrorists… When in fact are things that aren't really true, our problem is that we generalize too much and that makes us think that all persons of being of a place or a culture are in a way so that is what creates the stereotypes.

What is the propuse of sterotypes?

enmagarciamunoz — 2020-09-20 13:00:51 UTC

For me a sterotype are some caractheristics that someone inculcate us to create the idea of how is something that we are thinking about. Sterotypes create the mind of the society you live in as well as sterotypes are based on the idieology of the society you live in. The sterotypes only make you see a part of the story, so sterotypes are incomplete.

I think the propuse of sterotypes is to create a ideology. So people follow a concrete idea or a way of behavior. From my point of view you can't follow a sterotype without a global thinking or more than one opinon about it, but uncounciously we follow many sterotypes in our daily live.

In conclusion if we follow a sterotype we are only paying attention to one opinion, so we are only listening to a single story.
Enma García

The Danger of the single story

joaolucasperezdesouza — 2020-09-20 14:09:59 UTC

First of all, I was fascinated, in the good and the bad way, how easy it is to change the opinion and perception of a person towards something or someone, just with a simple history you, maybe even made up in the fly, you can change the way a person thinks his whole life until he or she hears the truth, if they even hear it, people can live and die convinced that for example, all africans are starving to death, or that all africans males rape constantly, it is something very scary, and as mentioned fascinating how complex it is the human but how easy it is to mold someone the way you want to with a simple history.

I think the purpose of sterotypes is to categorize socials groups among the society, I think that instead of following the sterotype to the verbatim, you should have some overall knoledge about that sterotype, so then you can mixe both the sterotype and the information that we have access to nowadays.

I think that people hear a few histories but only stay with the one that fits their way of thinking or ideology, that is when the "Single History" is created, with the single history we don't learn history, it haves a worse influence than a good one to our general knoledge, I think this is a problem of the way of how the humans think, maybe the solution to this is just to show us real stories and not made up stories based in sterotypes.

What is the purpose of the sterotypes?

pabloromeroolmedo — 2020-09-20 14:39:03 UTC

One of the most shoking parts of the video was when she talk about her experience with one of her servants, Fide.
Her mother only talked about how poor was Fide`s family, because of that, she thought that Fide and all his family was completly useful, and we cant judge her, is that type of thought is completly normal if you have heard only one part of the story. She had a sterotype inculcated by his mother about the poor people, a wrong idea of how they are, but thanks she saw how reality is, she could reject that sterotype.
For me, the purpose of the sterotpes is to create a "global" thinking in people, a ideaology of certain people, religions, country, type of clothe, tatoos, and more things. This only creates ignorance in people who dont know how is the reality, because is more easy to say what is others say.

My reflection.

2020-09-20 14:46:26 UTC

Juan Salgado Tébar.
This video shows us how influential we are and teaches us that we always have to listen to both versions of a story. As much as someone comes to tell you anything, you should not trust until you check it yourself. Not because you are poor do you have to be best or worst or because you are from one country or another to be more or less civilized. This stereotypes are created by the single stories that we listen, and we forget that there are more histories apart of the most "famous"

Stereotypes

faustopena — 2020-09-20 15:21:33 UTC

Simplicity, making things simple to understand, digest, share, that is something we've been craving since the start of our existence.
And it has worked us well, we're communicating with people all over the world left and right, moving across large paths rapidly...
But it has also hurt us... We tend to have a single idea, "a single story" about certain people, we have this idea that, africans live miserable lifes, that mexicans sell drugs...
Because that's all we see, we learn, it's what we're told to belief...

The danger of a single story

2020-09-20 16:14:29 UTC

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories

This video shows us how compelling we are and instructs us that we continuously have to be tuned in to both adaptations of a story.

For example her mother talked around how necessitous Fide' s family was. because of that she thought Fide's family was totally poor

Meaning each story have diverse focuses of see but individuals more often than not as it were center on one

For me, the aim of stereotypes is to build global people's thinking and also for categorizing social classes.

Rares

What is the purpose of stereotypes?

dianaramosprieto — 2020-09-20 16:14:54 UTC

Stereotypes have a purpose, everything has a purpose but there are some stereotypes that are imposed and it is difficult to think beyond them, such as those related to Africa, or like the stereotypes of Spain that there are also, there are stereotypes about all the things, people, places ...
That is why it is necessary to inform us, that someone else tell their stories, other perspectives, to be able to see something beyond stereotypes, that is why who tells the story matters, also the questions that are asked about that story and who answers them, surely someone who lives it day by day does not respond the same as someone who has lived through it for a week to find out to write the story.

Danger of a single story.

saramartineznunez — 2020-09-20 16:24:48 UTC

When a person with a lot of power tells a story, many people are going to hear it, this story may be the truth or not but not all the people that have heard it are going to check if it is true or not, they will believe it and move one with their lives.

Otherwise when an unknown person tells the same story but from their point of view, going against the person with a lot of power, they will be judged by the people who didn't check the story told by the powerful person, going against the unknown person since they believed the story told by the powerful person.

In the news we hear the politicians talking about what is good for the country and for the citizens, but I hardly ever hear ordinary people discuss issues that affect themselves, and when a citizen appears on tv, It is always a question that the reporter has thought about previously which he has to answer in a matter of seconds, which does not allow them to express themselves adequately.

Danger of a single story

2020-09-20 16:39:11 UTC

Silvana Moreno

Everything said in the video is quite true, I think we have all ever judged people just by where they are from, but this is because when someone has power and says something, many people believe it regardless of whether they are right or not then already we begin to believe the version that counts without seeing that reality is different. It is very bad manners to discriminate against another based on the wrong story told about where it comes from and worst of all is that many people in today's society do not realize this, they do not believe that by relating the origin of a person with the wrong story they do a lot of damage and the only thing they achieve is that society does not advance.

Danger of a single story by Santiago

2020-09-20 18:07:07 UTC

We have lived with stereotypes for centuries , in fact que continue to hear them today.These Rangel from stereotyping one person for their ideas to stereotyping an entire country.As the writer says , her partner felt compassion and assumed her interest for coming from another continent.All this leads me to think about how much stereotypes influence , since if from a young age a person IS brought Up by telling him only half of the story, he may feel hatred or pity towards another person or group of people without even knowing their story. Another interesting thing is that the person or nation that tells the story usually has a los of power. As we heard in the Talk, the United States , being such a powerful nation.What is truly dangerous is when we combine hate and power , since we can reach the level of the Nazis that with a leader who had the power , he managed to convincen of how "horrible" the jews were , which caused to hate to the jews without even knowing them. My conclusion is that we must question the beliefs that we have, since they could be the result of stereotypes and thus perhaps we could know the whole story

The danger of a single story.

2020-09-20 18:56:08 UTC

To begin with I have to say that what Chimamanda Ngozi says is shocking but true and that not everyone wants to notice.
I hate inequality and the way we judge people because of where they are. When a person who has power and says only the bad thing about that country because he does not like or does not want that country to get ahead as we accept everything he says and we think like him, instead of knowing the good of that country (because in all countries there is something good)and changing our perspective on that country.
When they ask us what poor countries are on earth, we think directly of Africa and some countries in Latin America, because that’s all they’ve told us about those countries, and the reality is that there are poor people in all the countries of this world,but if you only tell us half the story, we don’t make any progress, and it makes me sad and angry at the same time.
By Belen Muñoz

Reflection

candelamendozaalmanza — 2020-09-20 19:22:11 UTC

As Chimamanda said, we all believe a story we are told by several individuals who, at the same time, were told by powerful people who we don't even try to question. Doing so we make more and more people believe this story, ending with a single story which may be incorrect or just incomplete.
Through this process we also create stereotypes whose purpose is to control our way of thinking about a specific subject. One good example of this are the news since they show us only the things they (superior people like the government) want us to know or perceive,making us have the same opinion about one type of person or issue.
We could say history is taught as a single story because depending on the perspective from which we are taught, we have a different thinking. But in this way, we can deduce what we are meant to know and what not.