The TED talk I chose to listen to was “”The danger of a single story” by Chimamanda Adichie. This talk is one of the more popular ones, but it is popular for a reason -which also speaks to how good the talk is. 

The goal of the talk is to remove the unfinished narrative that surrounds many ideas in the world. These narratives can be cultural or just on simple ideas, but the speaker is trying to convey that the known story surrounding many of these ideas are only showing one aspect, not the whole. This turns into what she references as the ‘single story’ and how that idea is dangerous to society. 

Instead of viewing everything through the single story, Adichie asks the audience to be more open to content that is contrary to what stereotypes say. A line that I found to be everso interesting was when she states how stereotypes may not be completely false, but they are never finished. This idea that if we leave any prejudices behind and take a deep dive into different cultures, we may find them to be more similar than different. 

To be truthful, I sometimes find myself falling into the trap of the single story, as unfortunate as that is. It is hard to break away from the stereotypes that have been set in place surrounding different countries and cultures for centuries. Adichie’s words definitely helped me to realize that and make me want to view the full stories. 

In my opinion, while the message is very profound, it is the delivery behind it that really seals the deal. Adichie stands up at the podium and speaks strongly and powerfully about her culture and beliefs. There is a twinge of humor in the delivery that helps to engage the audience. I personally found myself laughing at some of the ironic stories that she was telling to help support her point of people being unaware of other cultures. 

Overall, Chimamanda Adichie’s TED talk “The danger of a single story” reveals a new take on the views that people have on different cultures and countries. When I first heard this talk it truly opened my eyes to how oblivious we can be to countries that are smaller or less privileged than the U.S. is. Even though this talk came out in 2009, it still stands today. People continue to not try to understand the cultures of other countries and succumb to only viewing them through their stereotypes.