Jonathan Sumpter
5/8/2018
Comparative Reflection
Signature Assignment for the Social Justice Core
1. The “danger of a single story” is a ted talk narrated by Chimamanda Adichie, in which she explains the concept of what she appeals as the “single story.” Adichie says, “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” Adichie claims that many individuals view things as what they have been taught or accustomed to. This becomes a problem because not all those things about someone are complete. Her reason for this is that her roommate felt sympathy towards her without having seen her, but simply for knowing that she was from Africa. Adichie’s roommate did not think it was possible that Adichie could live a life similar to that of a middle class American citizen. Just like many other people who here about Africa on the news, her roommate assumed all Africans live in poverty. She also fell victim to this with her friend fides. Adichie’s mother always told stories on how poor his
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Kapuscinski says, “The knowledge of equality with the other only happens to the human mind very late on, many thousands of years after man first left traces of his existence on Earth.” He agrees that there was discomfort with the first human interaction. Archaeologist have found that very early human clusters lived in small family tribes of close to 30 – 50 people. These tribes were very efficient for movement and able to defend themselves. The people of this tribe thought that they understood the world and its entire people. However, when this community comes across another family tribe they are conflicted between three options: start a conflict with the other family tribe, dismiss their presence, or get to know them. Kapuscinski believes that these choices are still in existence today. That human’s cannot succeed to understand each other is the nature of the
Many texts often exclude and marginalize readers from its content. Writers produce their writings without thinking about the accessibility of their work and what type of readers they might not be reaching due to the lack of a not carefully considered document design. Natasha N. Jones and Stephanie K. Wheeler turn to Universal Design for Documents (UDD) as the best solution to this problem on their article “Document Design and Social Justice”, because it implies the writer has established values and considered inclusiveness when designing their work. Their suggestion also aims to not prioritize one audience over another, evening out their discourse community.
In Thomas King's short story "Borders," a Blackfoot mother struggles with maintaining her cultural heritage under the pressure of two dominating nations. Storytelling is important, both for the mother and for the dominant White society. Stories are used to maintain and pass on cultural information and customs from one generation to another. Furthermore, stories can be used both positively and negatively. They can trap individuals into certain ways of thinking, but they can also act as catalysts that drive social change within society.
The definition of a stereotype is the ”A generalization, usually exaggerated or oversimplified and often offensive, that is used to describe or distinguish a group” (Dictionary.com,2017). It is precisely this unjust generalization of others which Chimamanda Adichie addresses in her speech on Ted Talks. However, Adichie confronts this issue through the telling of stories and through mundane language, rather than through condemnation and convoluted language. Through these stories, Adichie effectively approaches and evaluates stereotyping and discrimination through the appeals to ethos and pathos, as well as her use of parallelism, and her tone.
The ted talk The Dangerous of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, begins by telling us a story about what she would write about as a child. The important of the concept of what she calls “a single story” this is important to the study of La Raza Studies because you need the analysis from more than just one group. A group that did not immigrate from Latin American for example how She would write stories that were like the foreign stories she would read which confined white child with blue eyes, nothing like her. She found African stories is when she realized that people like her could be in stores as well. When we read stories about a part of the world we tend to distinguish that part of the world as the stories describe those places towards the people that live in those places weather the one story shows these places and people in good or bad light with or without
In the first four chapters, he explains the currents in modern African-America thought. In chapter one he tells us stories of victimology. The second chap...
In 2009 Chimamanda Adichie gave a TED talk about the ‘danger of a single story’. A single story meaning, one thought or one example of a person becoming what we think about all people that fit that description, a stereotype if you will. In today’s America, I believe that we have all felt the wave of stereotypical views at some point or another. Adichie gives many relatable examples throughout her life of how she has been affected by the single story. Her story brings about an issue that all humans, from every inch of the earth, have come to understand on some level. A young child reading only foreign books, a domestic helper that she only perceived as poor. Her college roommates single story about Africans and her own formation of a single
“When we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise” (5). Our present world has saturated itself with single stories causing people to become shocked when they meet anything other than their single story. This issue has developed into a danger in society. A danger that has “robbed people of dignity” (4), obscured society’s vision of equality, and emboldened differences in culture rather than similarities. Chimamanda Adichie demonstrates this through her own personal experience in her speech “The Danger of a Single Story.” Adichie’s speech addresses how an isolated point of view creates stereotypes, and therefore, is a harm to our society. In response, I agree
In her speech “The Dangers of a Single Story”, Chimanda Ngozi Adichie argues that every story is one version of a single story, which conveys readers a false perception of the groups portrayed in those stories, in my opinion Adichie is correct about a universal single story. Many stories and movies that you can see or read are adaptations of another book or movie. In her speech, Adichie talks about how when she was growing up in Nigeria most of the books she read featured blonde haired and blue eyed characters, as a result of this most of the characters in she had written also had blonde hair and blue eyes. The stories that Adichie wrote directly reflected the stories that she had read as a child. After years of reading books from
The TED talk Dangers of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains the meaning of a single story that creates many stereotypes in society. These dangers include the concept of stereotyping. Stereotypes are judgements toward a specific group or individual that include false beliefs. These stereotypes can limit the knowledge of an individual because they will associate every group as if they are the same. One particular story can never give us the full aspect of anything. Single stories will eventually give off huge misunderstandings that individuals tend to run off with. Adichie believes that as an African woman from Nigeria, that people had a negative stigma about her. It made her feel as if she was seen as inferior. How does one person feel the need to stereotype others based upon a false idea that was made by someone else? Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian author who is seeking to utilize her voice by speaking and teaching about African literature. In our daily lives, we mainly use ethos and pathos to convey
We agree with the author’s ideas because his usage of personal anecdotes give us a new perspective, helping us understand the falsity of various racial stereotypes and the negative effect it has on people.
“All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that's an alibi for my ignorance.” This quote, by the social commentator and actor Will Rogers, expresses that you can’t always take what the media says at face value. Television and the news don’t always depict reality faithfully, not to mention all of the critical diction used in stories which can distort actuality even further. For better or for worse, this fact is especially prevalent in the instance of racial stereotypes in America.
“Social Justice in Education” by R. W. Connell discusses the role of education in society and the implications that social justice issues have on education. Connell begins by establishing that education and social justice can be examined separately yet they are inescapably linked through the social medium of their implementation. “Education concerns schools, colleges and universities, whose business is to pass knowledge on to the next generation. Social justice is about income, employment, pensions or physical assets like housing.”(Connell, 1993) Three points validating the equal importance of social justice and the education system to people of all delineations are: 1.) in Western society public schools are key forums of social interaction and comprise some of the largest social institutions 2.) educational institutions are highly economic bodies and have become “major public assets” (Connell, 1993) 3.) teaching becomes a vehicle by which society is ultimately determined and has a great influence over society’s morality. Connell describes the meaning of justice in education as being “a question of fairness in distribution… equality.”(Connell, 1993) “Justice cannot be achieved by distributing the same… standard good to… all social classes.”(Connell, 1993) By stating this, Connell summarizes that in the attempt to achieve equality, unequal means must be employed.
Throughout time, humans struggled with issues of conformity and individuality. In the modern world, individuality is idealized, as it is associated with strength. Weak individuals are usually portrayed as conforming to society and having almost no personal ideas. In “Desiree’s Baby”, a short story, the author Kate Chopin deals with the struggles of African descendants in the French colonies during the time of slave labor. The protagonist is a white woman named Desiree who is of unknown origin and birth as she was found abandoned as an infant at an aristocrat’s doorstep. Eighteen years after her discovery, she and a fellow aristocrat, Armand Aubigny, fall in love and get married. They soon have a child, yet conflict arises when the child is discovered to be black. The young family is destroyed when the baby’s father, Armand, refuses to accept the child. In “Desiree’s Baby”, Chopin demonstrates through Armand’s conflicts how weak humans conform to environmental norms.
... best political system has caused dispute between mankind in which the pursuit of the answer turned our very own kind against one another. The search for the answer could not have pushed us further away from the initial question. The question being what is the best way to treat one another on the largest known scale? It seems that although we are able to pursue such important questions, our animalistic instincts get in the way of the answers. We find ourselves defensive and skeptical of each other’s actions and thought. There must be a push in better understanding of happiness, comfort, and virtue, in alignment with every human. Once humans can understand one another as equals of the same wants and needs, self-reflection of one’s intentions, and the pondering of others intentions will draw parallel, without doubt, and create once again innovation of thought.
Homo Sapiens, or what we know today as modern man.. The topic of this paper is