In a fair sense, we are all victimized by stereotypes, but that doesn’t stop us from creating them ourselves. We create them, follow them, and do little to stop them. As an Indian, I have been exposed to many stereotypes that the American culture has formed about a country that the majority of her citizens have never been to. Of course, some stereotypes are true. While some Indians are taxi drivers and IT workers, that doesn’t mean that all of them are. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t eat Tandoori Chicken and Curry every day. Not all children in India have lives like Jamal Malik from Slumdog Millionaire. While poverty does exist in India, it is not the only thing that is in existence. It is upsetting to see that although we are such an educated country, there are a fair amount of people who unfairly assume negative facts about India, and associate ideas that may be true for the minorities of the population to be true for the entire nation’s population. It is the same for nearly every country. Mexico is now more closely associated with illegal immigrants and drug trafficking than anything else. Africa is simply associated with AIDs, starvation, and poverty. China associated with censorship and producing ninety percent of what America consumes. All of these are single stories, and they are harming the respect we give to other countries. Instead of looking at the country as a whole, and finding things that are respectable in their country, we stick with the stereotypes cause the most degradation of the country. Indirectly, and many times directly, we are insulting everything and everyone when we create a stereotype by not putting forth an effort to know the truth, the whole truth. Adichie says these single stories are caused by power, those who have power are able to express it through the single stories that are presented in our societies, and express a parental feeling on such countries who are associated with negative stereotypes. Our media, the music, movies, newsfeeds that are most commonly a part of our culture are responsible for the way we perceive other countries, if we haven’t actually been to them. The most relevant example to our situation today, is the way Muslims are looked upon. When I ask my friends, who have never seen a Muslim before, what a Muslim looks like, she gave me an apt description of Osama Bin Laden, complete with a white turban, long beard, and brown skin. Does every Muslim man look like this? No, they do not. The fact that Muslims are automatically associated as a terrorist is an outrageously scary thing, not just for Muslim-American citizens, but for the entire world. By only associating negative aspects with one particular culture or race, we are directly inhibiting our ability to look at them with the same amount of respect, care, and appreciation that we look at our neighbors or friends with. At the end of the day, what separate one human being from another human being are our choices. The difference between Osama Bin Laden and I is that he can kill hundreds of human beings, and I can’t deliberately kill an ant. Beyond that, we all have the same basic needs as every human. If we allow ourselves to believe that every Muslim makes the same choices as Osama Bin Laden, then people like Muhammed Ali Jinnah and Benazir Bhutto will quickly be forgotten.
The knowledge we gain from single stories is false, but yet it represents so much of our knowledge of other cultures and countries. Ethnically diverse groups are important in our societies, a blend of cultures being much better and more powerful than a single culture. If we allow ourselves to simply accept the stereotypes that are handed to us because of media, then the respect that every individual deserves will slowly diminish. The sense of one individual’s strength in comparison to another individual’s weakness will be heightened causing the idea of a global community to slowly disappear, and the idea of ego becomes more prevalent. The single stories presented in the media affect our perception. A few months ago, a television show Outsourced was broadcasted. While some episodes were funny, the way they presented India was borderline rude and was offensive to many Indian- American citizens. It didn’t go unnoticed by the shows viewers, that the only “smart” guy was the white guy, while all of the Indians were presented as stupid people who needed to be guided in everything they did by the white guy from their love lives to their jobs. The Indian characters were continuously subliminally insulted and degraded whereas the white guy was constantly portrayed as the hero of the show. When I watched the show, I took it for its entertainment value because I know that in reality there are Indians that are extremely intelligent and capable of pronouncing Chicago correctly. However, those who haven’t had any particular experiences with Indians beyond tech support and call centers will assume that Outsourced accurately represents what India looks like. Also, along with the picture of Slumdog Millionaire… the picture of India is definitely not a beautiful picture. While there is that aspect of India, it is not the only aspect. If only that feature is kept in mind, the perception of India and her citizens are negatively impacted, and will only harm our amalgamated wish to have a strong global community.
As much as I am a victim of single stories, I am also guilty of blindly believing in single stories. I too blindly believed in the single story of Africa before I watched this video. It’s important that when we make observations about other people, cultures, countries we keep in mind that our perception is affected by many influences and that perception should never be set in stone.
