The danger of a single story
is a flat, one sided view and/or opinion of a topic, country, person, etc… Like
Chimamanda Adichie
talked about her single-story view of literature and how she was writing about
things she had no real experience of. Chimamanda Adichie stated that when she
began to write at the age of 7 she wrote about weather, ginger beer and the
characters were white with blue eyes, all of which were foreign to her. A
single story can also foster ignorance.

A single-story view can spread like wild fire. Single story views can
affect our views on countries, people, literature, television, music, and the
list goes on and on. Like Chimamanda Adichie mentioned about her professor
saying her novel was not “authentically African”. Or as Christina Sterbenz
pointed out in her article, “The Most Popular Map of The World Is Highly
Misleading,” is that “A misconception is that Alaska
is nearly as large as the continental U.S., but in reality, Alaska can fit
inside the continental U.S. about three times.”. Stereotypes
create walls and judgements without actual knowledge. Like Chimamanda Adichie
mentioned people would look to her when discussion of Africa arose and how many
countries lump Africa into one large country when in all actuality it is a continent.

This
topic is relevant to Human geography because we will discuss other cultures,
countries and locations and our single-story views of these things could lead
us to misconceptions and misinformation. I will be honest, I had no idea that
Alaska was so small.

I
loved this week’s content and am now more excited than ever for this class. I
look forward to learning more and reading everyone’s discussion posts.