[L, diary, ephēmeris] 1) BLOG

THE DANGER OF A SINGLE STORY

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Author & Speaker

Mon, Nov 6, 2023 at 1:54 -Almost a year ago I began composing this post inspired by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TedTalk:

“They sat around, reading the book themselves,
listening to me read the book,
and a kind of paradise was regained.”
—Alice Walker—

"How impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story,

particularly as children...

"...how to create a single story:

show a people as one thing,
as only one thing,
over and over again,
and that’s what they become.

“Stories matter. Many stories matter.
Stories have been used to dispossess and malign
 but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize.
Stories can break the dignity of a people,
but stories can also repair the broken Dignity.

“The consequences of the single story is this:
it robs people of dignity.
It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult.
It emphasizes how we are different, rather than how we are similar."

--a final thought--
“… when we reject a single story,
when we recognize that there is never a single story about any place,
we regain a kind of paradise.“

THE DANGER OF SINGLE STORIES - (2009) TedTalk