Summary
In "The Danger Of a Single Story", by Chimamanda Adichie, we follow the concept of 'a single story' and the effects of it as well as what it feels like on both sides from the perspective of Adichie. Adichie opens up her speech by telling us about her background. She was a reader and a writer so naturally she would consume a lot of literature. The problem with this is that she was only exposed to British & American writing, which didnt reflect her environment or culture in the slightest even to the point that she believed her stories had to have foreigners and incorporate the same characteristics as these Western stories. Luckily though, she discovered African literature that would have saved her from keeping the single story that literature must only look a certain way with characters that look a certain way. She goes onto move to the US where her college roommate expected her to not be able to speak English and only listen to tribal music, even going onto think that she wouldn't know how to use a stove. She describes though that after she lived in the US after a few years, seeing the stories that were portrayed of Africa she understands her roommates expectations of her.
On the flip side though, Adichie tells us about how she also had a single story of the Mexicans where she believed that they were just immigrants trying to escape from an impoverished country but when she went to Guadalajara , Mexico and saw the locals laughing, talking and she felt an enormous amount of shame. She later asks the question in a later paragraph, " So what if before my Mexican trip I followed the immigration debate from both sides the U.S. and Mexican? ".The question emphasizes how the danger of one perspective portrayed from a position of power can cause one to take that perspective as truth. This leads us to the position power plays in the single story. Chimamanda explains that power is the ability to tell someone else's story and make it the definitive story of that person. The most memorable examples of this when she says " The Palestinian Poet Moored Barghouti writes that if you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do is to tell their story and to start with "secondly". Start the story with the arrows of the Native Americas, and not with the arrival of the Brtitsh and you have an entirely different story. " Adichie goes onto give more examples of the duality especially highlighting the positive stories and people of Nigeria. She also started a non-profit with her fellow Nigerian publisher called the Sarafina trust which she's making efforts to make literature more accessible to the Nigerian and African public as well as refurbish the facilities where the materials are stored and where we can access them. She ends by suggesting that when we reject the single & realizing there's no single story about any person or any place we gain a kind of paradise.
I appreciated this so much especially being from the Caribbean and moving to America and experiencing a lot of the same expectations from ignorant people, it felt like she spoke about something I faced in a really sensitive and clear to understand manner. Well done Adichie!
