One example of the African stories Adichie points out in the TED is that at 19 years old, Adichie says, “She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me. Her default position toward me, as an African, was a kind of patronizing, well-meaning pity” (Adichie, 2009). Further, Adichie says accordingly, “there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals” (Adichie, 2009).
For other groups, what Adichie holds is that single stories do not define people or places for whom or what they are. Instead, they give a different meaning to what we see and think. When one rejects the single story published about a people or a place, we gain a kind of paradise we leave behind following the concepts established by others. We are made to leave the kind of paradise behind, following what has been selected based on one side.
In psychology, the Dunning Kruger effect is a cognitive bias type where people believe they are more capable and innovative. Principally, the product makes people with a low ability not possess the required skills essential in realizing their incompetence (Sundaram, 2019). The result reinforces racism because many racists underestimate their inherent racism due to their inability to develop the skills essential in realizing they are prejudiced mentally.
The single stories that have been told of my race are that we are inferior compared to other races. Since the color of one’s skin has been used as the benchmark of inequality, being dark-skinned has positioned my race to prejudice over what other races, particularly the white race, consider as equals. The negative outcome of such discrimination has been subject to low quality in terms of health care and education, to name a few.
Adichie borrows from the Igbo word “nkali” when she defines power. According to her understanding of the word, which helps her definition of power, Adichie thinks nkali, as it is loosely translated to “to be greater than another,” is power (Adichie, 2009). Therefore, power is the ability not just to tell another person’s story but to make it the definitive account of the same person.
How people view others is subject to what has been established. Often, the selected picture lacks in documenting the reality of what other people or places are, and in so doing, our perspectives of other people and areas are shaped based on how others coin them. Significantly, by comparing the two sides of every story, it is possible to see the reality of things about others.
In the documentary film, It’s a girl, the social behaviors enhancing preference of boy over girl child is the considerable costs in dowry that families have to pay when a girl is born into the family. Further, girls are lost to marriage, but in a society where girls pay for dowries, it is a double loss for the family. Families are the social institutions enabling these behaviors since boys are considered a simple strength to the family, and many prefer having male children over females.
In the documentary Killed in the womb for being girls: India’s missing daughters, the cause for the 44 million gender difference between men and women is primarily sex-selective abortion. With disease, neglect, and inadequate nourishment, India loses two million girl children every year. On different occasions, families are the social institutions enabling these behaviors. However, with technology, the girl is killed in the womb before being born.
In How I survive female genital mutilation, people never talk about FGM while growing up, while families are the social institutions enabling these behaviors. FGM outcomes have been associated with death and the inability to urinate, among others. While the act is celebrated as a rite into womanhood in some parts of the world, Soraya survived it, in her mind, by documenting her ordeal to teach others.
In the Alarming rise in suicides among Afghan women, one of the ways women seek to escape the life of abuse is by burning themselves. In the year before shooting the film, close to 500 women chose disfigurement or death as an escape route from forced marriages, slavery, domestic abuse, or rape. For those who live after attempting suicide, the scaring is a form of sentencing in itself since a majority of them cannot return home due to the shame they bring to their families.
In Female genital mutilation, survivors in the U.S. are fighting back; families are the main actors in FGM. The justice system also plays a part in the act since it cleared eight doctors of nine cases related to FGM in 2018. In Rapists Get Custody, Visitation Rights, 31 federal states allow men who father their children through rape to get custody and visitation rights to their children. In Rape, the victim was forced to co-parent with her attacker; the law caused the victim to comply with visitation rights from half an hour supervised to two and a half hours unsupervised every week. The same actor, the state, is involved in the film Judge holds an order granting the rapist joint custody of the victim’s child. In the film Trailer, Excerpts of ‘The Invisible War,’ the military propagates sexual assaults.
References
Griffiths, S., Heather, S., & Eric, C. R. (2017). Introduction to sociology 2nd ed. 12th Media Services.
Sundaram, S. (2019). Dunning-Kruger effect, stages of competence, and the need for endoscopy training. Journal of Digestive Endoscopy, 9(4), 211-212. Web.
TED Talks (2009). The danger of single story. [Video] YouTube. Web.