Response to “The danger of a single story” (Vivian Zhu)

When I watched this video, the most impressive thing is that how stories form one’s impression towards a thing, and how limited could a story describe this thing hence resulting in prejudice and misunderstanding.

In the talk, the speaker illustrates how she was affected by American and English literature that once she believed books by nature shall have foreign characters and things. During that time, she enjoyed the pride when she wrote things exotic to others. But on the other, she was frustrated by the stereotype the westerners think of Africans. From which she realized the story can only be a tool that reflects partiality of a thing.

This reminds me of the “Five Obstructions” we watched last week, where the film markers tried to measure the limits of the creation. In this Ted talk, the speaker experienced a measurement to the limitation of a story passively. At last she points out the danger of reading a single story—like the story only about the Africans being sympathized, being assisted, and being tortured by wars and commotions. I think that’s also the warning for our story-telling in the video project.

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