# data[].attributes.body
Once you hear a certain story so many times it forms into a single story- which then causes that story to be the only story you think is correct. Single stories starts to create assumptions and stereotypes about cultures, groups, people and more which can be misplaced and or false.

# data[].attributes.body
When Chimamanda Adichi started to write is was from a young age, where all the stories she had read were British and American stories

# data[].attributes.body
"I was also an early writer, and when I began to write, at about the age of seven, stories in pencil with crayon illustrations that my poor mother was obligated to read, I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading: All my characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples"

# data[].attributes.body
When a single story is formed it then becomes the only story that is heard. Which causes misplaced stereotypes. Like when Adiche's professor said that the novel she wrote, and the characters she used was "too much like him, an educated middle-class man". So, when Adiche's professor made this comment she was hurt by it. She knew her novel may have needed some work but when her professor said that her novel was not "authentically African" it caused a stereotype with her culture, and how other people might have different and misplaced stereotypes and opinions.

# data[].attributes.body
"And so, I began to realize that my American roommate must have throughout her life seen and heard different versions of this single story, as had a professor, who once told me that my novel was not "authentically African." Now, I was quite willing to contend that there were a number of things wrong with the novel, that it had failed in a number of places, but I had not quite imagined that it had failed at achieving something called African authenticity. In fact, I did not know what African authenticity was. The professor told me that my characters were too much like him, an educated and middle-class man. My characters drove cars. They were not starving. Therefore they were not authentically African."

# data[].attributes.body
Single stories can create stereotypes and flatten and overlook the many other story's that form something or someone

# data[].attributes.body
The negative impact of  a single story is that it can cause stereotypes and can  change and effect things majorly just like how Adiche  was surpirsed that Fide's family can make stuff, "All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor." Poverty was Adiches single story of them and  to insist on only negative stories is to flatten  and to overlook the many other stories that formed Fide's family.

# data[].attributes.body
When someone has the  power to share a story that then becomes the story, the only story.  This single story builds up reputation and creates these false stereotypes. Adichie's roommate had a stereotype of all African people, "She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me." Many times in life we have these single stories that we have built up in our mind from the only things that we have heard. These stories then overpower everything else and that becomes our one representation of the topic that it is built around, in this case that is the definition of African people and what it means to be African.

# data[].attributes.body
"Then one Saturday, we went to his village to visit, and his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket made of dyed raffia that his brother had made. I was startled. It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something. All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor. Their poverty was my single story of them. "

# data[].attributes.body
" My roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe. In this single story, there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals."

# data[].attributes.body
Too often a storyteller gives just one perspective, so it is important here when the speaker says she will tell the reader "a few personal stories". She provides multiple stories revealing a more complete view of her identity. I believe this is an example of using stories "to empower and humanize". The speaker tells stories to complete our understanding of how various stories together give a more complete picture of a person or place. Putting the good stories together with tales of challenges makes her relate-able and believable.

# data[].attributes.body
Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person. The Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti writes that if you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story and to start with, "secondly."

# data[].attributes.body
"Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to 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 that broken dignity. "

# data[].attributes.body
"I'm a storyteller. And I would like to tell you a few personal stories about what I like to call "the danger of the single story."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Get a daily email featuring the latest talk, plus a quick mix of trending content.

By subscribing, you understand and agree that we will store, process and manage your personal information according to our Privacy Policy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.