Rejecting the Single Story

While patiently waiting for the video to buffer, I found myself already making my own judgments about the lecture, thinking it to be another boring, lengthy discussion.  However, after listening to all twenty minutes, I saw Adichie's lecture as something new and interesting, even more so than the discussions we held in class the other day.  She brings about the issue of the single story and how easily many listen to only one side of a given situation.  She even admits to herself falling into this trap too.  From her discussion, I gained the knowledge that the danger of a single story leads to incomplete information, and this incomplete information leads to a number of unnecessary and hurtful ideas and judgments.  Because her roommate only listened to the single story of Africans, she felt a "patronizing, well meaning pity" towards Adichie upon their initial meeting, unaware of the wrongness, or danger, in her judgments.  But she is not wrong for acting according to the story she had always heard.  Rather, it is her fault that she did not gain further insight about the culture by obtaining another story from a new point of view.  In the same way, most people only act upon the first story they hear without even acknowledging the presence of another story at all.  This leads to further inaccuracies and bias, but most fail to see the errors in their thought processes because they can just see a small side to an issue instead of the entire picture.  So, this means that the person or group who places the initial "single story" into place ultimately has the power to control the masses.  Adichie mentions the importance power plays into shaping the stories that circulate around the world.  After hearing this, I better understood the importance the textbook issue in Texas.  The Democrats and Republicans fight and will continue fighting to take control over who includes what in the textbooks.  Whoever wins this battle will have shaped the millions of students who only see the single story to US History. Students will be manipulated directly in front of their faces, and they will not notice.  They will listen to what they initially hear because they probably won't think about the possibility of another side to the whole picture.  And this is the danger Adichie warns us about: the ignorance to see what is past the surface level.  Similarly, Orwell warns us of this ignorance through 1984 with the government that eliminates all evidence of a second story with the constant rewriting of history.  How can we fight against this ignorance?  Perhaps just by knowing the presence of another story could help.  But then again, even with this knowledge, how will we know that each person will take the initiative to look past the first story?  Even when it is so much easier to listen to the first thing we hear?  Here lies another problem that Adichie mentions, and through her lectures, she hopes to begin solving the problem.  If she can inform her audiences of the dangers to the single story, then maybe her audiences will learn to reject the single story and see beyond it.