The dangers of a single story was a powerful Ted Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a novelist.  She talked about how incorrect a stereotype can be and she related it back to her life of being a novelist from Africa.

In my life this snap judgment and forming a stereotype of someone is something I experience everyday.  Being in a fraternity here at Ohio State has taught me that not everyone has experienced Greek life and many people have certain beliefs about them whether they are based in fact or not.  I have experienced as well as heard stories from my brothers, that we are viewed in a negative light because of the publicity that fraternities get.  Some of these assumptions include never going to class and partying all the time or even worse, sexism and racism.  In truth, many of these stereotypes are actually false and can be quite damaging to those who are the victims of these stereotypes/prejudices.  

Everyone is guilty of prejudging someone or forming an assumption before they knew them, even me.  In my case, I was guilty of prejudging one of my previous roommates of being a party animal that did terribly poor in school.  When I first moved in a was forming these judgments all I could focus on was how many nights he would go out to bars and drink all the time while sleeping in.  Without any additional information i just assumed that he did not do well in school because of this.  He actually had a very high GPA because when he wasn't going out he was in the library hard at work and just because his classes didn't start early in the morning doesn't mean he did not go to them at all in fact they were in the afternoon and he went to every single one.  None of my previous assumptions were correct and I only made this assumption because of what i was exposed to in the media.  After I got to know him and figured all this out we actually became really good friends, quite the opposite of what i was expecting. So remember, don't form the assumptions before you have all the facts and be impartial.