Paper Talks About The Different Demerits Of Stereotyping (Essay Sample)

Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
Course
Date
Tragedy of Stereotyping
Stereotyping has been a common phenomenon in people’s everyday life, and no one is immune to such social, cultural, or geographical pigeonhole. The article “If You Shouldn’t Call It the Third World, What Should You Call It?” and TED talk “The Danger of a Single Story” represent the phenomenon of stereotyping in their own way, which tries to convey few common messages. The reasons for such stereotyping have been explored in the both representations.
The article talks about an age old issue about referring to different parts of the world, specially the non-Western nations, which are poor and do not belong to any particular political affiliation (Silver). Similarly, the TED talk explains the perils faced by a Nigerian when she moves out of her continent to US in order to pursue her master’s (Adichie). The common feature in both the discussions is that when people start describing a nation or culture through a single lens it leads to stereotyping. No one can stamp all Africans to be uneducated or every Indian to be poor, which has been highlighted in the Ted talk. Likewise, the article explains that there are several urban and rural pockets in the so called developed countries where people are unemployed and poverty looms large (Silver). Hence, there is a need for understanding and telling stories about all aspects of a country, region, culture, or society in order to truly know the socio-economic background of a country or society.
Through numerous examples both the Ted talk and the article tries to convey the message that there are several drawbacks in the way people refer to different cult...