The Danger of a Single Story, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will be addressing the 264th Penn graduating class on May 18th. (Photo by Howard County Library System | CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.
We also miss the plethora of possibilities that that is obscured by a single lens. This is an important understanding for all anti-racism work.
“When we reject the single-story, when we realize there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.”
Inspired by Nigerian history and tragedies all but forgotten by recent generations of westerners, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novels and stories are jewels in the crown of diasporan literature. Her TED talk is most helpful to those trying to understand the full landscape of anti-racism.