TED TALK: The Danger of the Single Story

Chimamanda Adichie in her TED talk “The Danger of a Single Story” argues why it is

necessary to have different versions of our perspectives about people and places. Adichie

emphasizes the importance of telling the different sides of people and their lives and not relying

only on stories told by people on their own and is not respective of the culture from where the

story is based to. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie indicated that a single story would not only create

stereotypes but also “robs people of dignity “making it difficult for us to see equality in every

human being. Instead of seeing one another as similar, due to single stories, we see each other

differently- with bias and with personal injustice.

Accepting only a single story endangers our perspective about people. It was devoid of

ourselves to see the different qualities that make those people. For example, like the story of

Fide, since Adichie was told by her mother that Fide’s family was poor, she had lived with that

perception and put that into her mind. Telling Fide’s story from that single perspective, made

Adichie in disbelief that Fide’s family could do other things and that they were industrious and

were good in craftmanship.

Adichie pointed out that her reading of the Western books made her believe that her kind

would be in no way should be included in the book. It distorted her perception of her kind,

thinking that the lives of the white people – British and American- were far better than her life

because these were the characters she found in those books. Moreover, it made her limit her

perception of what Africans were truly capable of.

Adichie pinpointed that to avoid single stories, we must look into the stories told by

other people most especially told by the individuals of that culture. For example, to better

understand the role and importance of African American women in society, she emphasizes the
works of Camara Laye and Chinua Achebe, instead of the works of foreigners to the land, whose

initial expressions were recorded and were eternalized despite it being wrong. She stresses the

importance of reading the works of the different authors as a representation of the culture of the

particular location, like how she read Tyler, Updike, Steinbeck, and Gaitskill to understand

America.

“When we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of

paradise.” This was a reminder by Adichie in where she indicated how we can build stronger

communities when we make our communities have greater access to the diverse stories being

brought by different people. In this way, we are building a positive change in our communities,

allowing one another to make society and its process more inclusive to one another.

Adichie was told by her mother the single story of Fide’s family, which she had brought

with her for many years. However, this changed as she was able to get to Fide’s family house

and discovered how they were not just the adjectives she has known of them.

The danger of a single story could occur anywhere at any given time. When people are

restricted of information and prohibited to access information about the diverse culture, attends

them to the only e able to listen to single stories of their places. A single-story arises when the

perspective of one’s culture only appears from one source. This means for example that in the

case of Adichie, stories about African life come only from the books told by foreigners who

never had any experience living in America. Adichie reminds us that instead of relying on these

stories, people should look into the writings of other authors, especially those with African

ethnicity and who have real experience of the culture.