Friday, November 13, 2015
Danger of a Single Story
I enjoyed this TED talk because it is something society struggles with daily. As a future youth worker and from my personal experience growing up in Central Falls, I know how important it is not to go by a single story. We risk critical and cultural misunderstanding when we forget that everyones lives and identities are composed of many overlapping stories. It is true, the single story does create stereotypes and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. Whether it's intentional or not, we create stereotypes which then create a single story. By not doing this and sharing our personal experiences with others we tear down the single wall we created and hear the important stories that matter. When working with youth it is critical to be able to build trust so that they are able to share stories and sharing your own stories is just as important as well.
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Milena,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. You made a good point when you said listening to one story allows people to assume and be stereotypical. If everyone does this, how well do we really know who we are dealing with? How can we really help the youth grow into healthy adults? How unfair!
This is good! i like when you said, " It is true, the single story does create stereotypes and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete." In the Ted talk she talks about how knowing more than one story about the same person not only allows us to fully understand who they are, but also transforms their identity in the eyes of other people.
ReplyDeleteLove the "single wall" image. Let's knock that thing DOWN
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