My Single Story Of Stereotypes

My single story is about stereotypes and how I didn't fit in. Some people thought it was necessary to classify me something they overheard, without realizing they heard one side, the negative perspective. To me, single stories are stereotypes to cause harm to a society rather than good. My name is Adrita and I am going to talk about my first time dealing with a single story. How I felt and how I reevaluated upon the situation years later.

I learned to be, looking or thinking dissimilar sometimes created consequences that no one deserved. I remember in grade six, the first time I encountered racism I didn't know how to feel about it, what to say or what to think about it. I had played the first soccer game of the day. I was thrilled by thinking about the other games I was going to play in. Both my schools and the opposing team were on a break. We were playing in another schools field. My friend and I went to fill up our water bottles as this particular day was very warm. After filling up our water bottles, we headed back to the field when these girls behind us were asking us what school we were from. Neither did my friend or I heard those girls asking us. All a sudden they were walking up to us. I did not bother about how the girls were walking up to us or what they were going to say. My friend and I were way too busy talking about strategies. When all of a sudden they stopped walking towards us. They raised their voice enough for us to hear that we were never going to get anywhere in life smelling like curry and being brown. As being brown was an insult to them.

Now during that situation, I didn't think about how they came up with those assumptions. Looking back and now realizing all those shows which would portray Asians different from others. As if Asians were aliens and were still back in time, not up to the trend. Many people believed these absurd stories without realizing or thinking twice. To think that Asians all had the similar personality and characteristics were as ridiculous. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie had said in her Ted talk “The dangers of a single story.” “I recently spoke at a university where a student told me that it was such a shame that Nigerian men were physical abusers, like the father character in my novel. I told him that I had read a novel called "American Psycho" and that it was such a shame that young Americans were serial murderers.”

What happened to me was minor but these comments can turn into hateful actions where someone's lives can be taken. In July 2018, two Muslim men were beaten because they looked like “terrorist” to the two men who have been blindly thinking that the negative perspective applied to everyone who dressed or looked like an anti-group.

There are many stories like this where minor comments influenced larger dangerous actions. Single stories have never been equal to both sides. They were either honoring one side while degrading the other. This caused problems affecting people emotionally and physically. Singles stories were always here, we all heard, told or saw it from an age. In honesty, we can never completely conclude single stories. We can try our best to not believe everything so blindly and to understand differences are what makes a society strong.