Nico Bartello

Prof. Anyango

Seminar in Composition: Diversity

5 February 2023

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie starts her ted talk off by talking about how she grew up in

Nigeria and started reading at an early age. She describes how she had never been outside of

Nigeria so she didn’t experience certain things like snow, having to worry about the weather, etc.

She states how she also thought taht books had to have foreigners in them and had to have things

which she couldn’t personally relate too, she then says how this would change drastically when

she discovered African books. We then move into her talking about her family by saying that

they were just a middle class and they would have live-in domestic help. This is the first single

story she told, it starts with a boy named Fide of which she was only told that his family was

poor. She would get the usual from her parents when she didn’t finish her food saying some

people cant afford it, but instead of some people it was Fide specifically which made her feel pity

for them. Her mother would eventually take her to his village to visit his family, where Fide’s

mother would show her a “beautifully patterned basket made of dyed raffia”. This would bring

her to the realization that she had only heard a part of his story, she didn’t realize it was even

possible for his family to “create” something. She goes on to talk about her American roommate

when she went to college in the U.S and how the roommate would have automatic pity just

because she was African. The roommate grew up only hearing a few stories related to Nigeria

and most of the were similar giving her the opinion that they had “Tribal Music”, did not speak

english, and didn’t know how to work a stove. It wasn’t possible to the roommate that she could

have any similarities to Chimamanda in any way. We then arrive at John Lok who was a
merchant taht started the trend of the single story views of Africans when he stated that they are

“beasts who have no houses” and “people without heads, having their mouth and eyes in their

breasts”. She then gave more examples of how she was guilty of a single story when it came to

mexicans. This would later change when she visited Guadalajara and realized that it was nothing

like the single story view she had in her mind. “Nkali” means to be greater than another which is

usually how stories are based according to her. She admires how people can thrive and push

through the difficulties of having failed infrastructure or failed government.

Just like she has experience, I have also experience plenty of single stories. These stories

range from every type of person, while I am not as unaware as her roommate I can admit that I

have stereotypes set up in my head cause of the things I’ve heard. I think things have only gotten

worse when it comes to the internets influence on things because now people will read headlines

or see a joke that they don’t realize a joke cause its online. There are specific examples where the

internet could better things like this but that heavily relies on the people to do the research which

most wont. Some of the most popular single stories I now realize I have are how there isn’t water

in africa, or there are still only pyramids in egypt. These are just things that if I really put thought

into I would realize that they are stupid and not true, but on the surface I don’t give them a

second thought.

I think the most important point that stood out to me during this TED Talk was how

important a multitude of stories related to the same subject are. Without multiple view points and

a variety of examples people tend to form their opinions of things too early, like how her

american roommate pitied her before they even met. Another important point is how you

describe things to kids, like how her mother described Fide’s family. If you don’t give a good

and fair description to a kid they will base everything off of what you said and go into meeting
them like that. Giving people single stories also may accidentally give them implicit bias when it

comes to other people and places. Implicit bias is very dangerous to form when it comes to

BIPOC because it can cause so many subtle issues that may grow larger eventually. Another

important point is to not only focus on the negatives when it comes to people or places. The most

common stories you hear are negative and not positive or informative. Hopefully eventually this

will change but unless the media has some big revolution it looks unlikely.