We like to hear one side of the story. It keeps things nice and tidy for us; it avoids disrupting our world.
But it is narrow and limited. And it negatively impacts those whose stories are not being told.
Richard Beck, in his review of Michael McRay's Letters from Apartheid Street, refers to these single stories and how hearing the other stories – or, to put it differently, the stories of others – counters the effects of the single story:
Reversing the dynamics of dehumanization, Michael describes this as a process of rehumanization (pp. 25-26):From http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.ca/2013/06/letters-from-apartheid-street.html, (quoting from Letters from Apartheid Street: A Christian Peacemaker in Occupied Palestine by Michael McRay. Emphasis added.)
...the danger of the single story. Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie warns of the danger of single stories--that is, stories which depict only one side to a person or event. Such stories, when repeated often, convince the audience that the description within the story is the whole truth...Michael finds this second story in conversations he seeks out and recounts with some of the Israeli soldiers. It's a wonderful example of how you, practically, go about learning to love your enemies.
...I must confess...I have a single story of soldiers...
...I want to take seriously Jesus's call to love my enemies...[But without] another story to add to the original, though, I cannot create a fabric of humanity in which to clothe them. I have needed a story to re-humanize the Israeli soldiers occupying this land...