Sharon Flake

While the stories she writes about do not impact the single story I am currently studying, Sharon Flake brought up a good point. She explained how people who didn't fit her characters' descriptions would feel that it was "their story." Single stories need to be told because other  people can relate to them. Readers can understand that they aren't the only ones going through or feeling something. It also allows readers to have that realization that we are all human, the African American teenagers that Flake writes about and her reader, no matter their gender or race, can understand the deeper human connection of emotion. The women I am reading about have all faced oppression. I have faced it too, not as much as them but I can empathize for and with them while I read. We are both human. And that's why it is so important to allow yourself to dive into a single story, to understand that we are all human.