A521.2.3.RB_FodenJohn Danger of Single Stories

The diversity we embrace generates our new possibilities…engenders innovative thinking and reflection. Familiar and “comfortable” thinking simply constrains our vision of community and world. Ms. Chimamanda Adichie, in her powerful TED discussion “The danger of a single story” compellingly asserted that a “single story(line)” limits readers to a “slimmed down” version of the context. Ms. Adichie challenged us to pursue new narratives (themes) to challenge the entrenched understandings of our world.

In his book “The Professional Communications Toolkit,” D. Joel Whalen suggested audience members “remember the first thing they hear and the last thing said.” Ms. Adichie adeptly began her discussion stating “I’m a storyteller and I want to share a few personal stories about what I call the danger of the single story.” In those few words, Ms. Adichie alerted us to the unpleasant consequences of familiarizing ourselves to only one story(line). However, she ended her discussion with an appeal to choose wisely and beyond the singe story, stating “When we reject the single story, we regain a kind of paradise.”

I’m convinced Ms. Adichie effectively identified and conveyed her disappointments, reflections, and hopes that we challenge ourselves to move beyond a single story in better understanding our world. Her experiences growing up as a young woman in a middle-class, Nigerian family gave her unique perspectives as she engaged with American friends and Western ideas.

During her first couple of minutes in the introduction, Ms. Adichie exemplified the power and limitations of speaking extracted from Whalen’s “Professional Communications Toolkit.” She shared embarrassment with her realization that she imposed prejudices from her early reading of Western culture/orientation and subsequent transposing that onto her early writings. She grew up reading books (and writing) about blond-haired, blue-eyed Caucasians, snow, talking about the weather, and ginger beer. Yet, she and her family/friends didn’t experience these things in everyday life in Nigeria.

Later in her talk, Ms.Adichie shared how she began writing (and reading) more works relating to her Nigerian heritage. Whalen plainly wrote about the importance of connotative symbols in communicating ideas across a spectrum. The meaning of a word can change from person to person as each person’s narrative differs from experience. Ms. Adichie shared several examples of one-way thinking about other nationalities developed via labeling (not personal interaction). She shared stories of the ignorance of her college roommate referencing Ms. Adichie’s supposed familiarity (or lack thereof) with respect to tribal music, western kitchen appliances, and English (as a first language). Ms. Adichie even shared her own embarrassing personal misconceptions were due to a constrained narrative about Phillipe (her family’s Nigerian “house boy”) whose family was supposedly too poor to make baskets or own nice things or her early views that Mexicans were lazy and just wanted to cross the border illegally for jobs and free health care.

Ms. Adichie leveraged springboard stories throughout her narrative calling out the dangers of relying on single stories to frame personal thoughts. She followed Denning’s (2011) framework for creating and sharing springboard stories which were detailed in his book “The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling.” Denning pointed out leaders prefer to employ a springboard story because this style “communicates a complex new idea and inspires action to implement it.” (pg. 59)  Ms. Adichie relied on several springboard stories inspiring her audience to ignore the single story and explore more and less obvious possibilities. She employed springboard stories whether they referenced her reading/ writing books as a young child, building an opinion of her family’s domestic help, adjusting her view of Mexicans, or educating her roommates on what it “means” to be African.

Denning (2011) stressed orators leverage springboard stories to motivate listeners to “invent the future” which was exactly the intent of Ms. Adichie’s dialogue. She clearly showed how easy it is for anyone (but especially for Westerners) to formulate opinions and viewpoints based on a single prevalent narrative…which typically turned out to be inaccurate. She was concerned about overcoming what she defined as “African authenticity”…the perception that many Africans are too middle class, professional, and advantaged and not sufficiently poor, uneducated, pitied.

Ms. Adichie closely followed the model Denning (2011) outlined for incorporating a springboard story in to her presentation. First, she generated attention for her TED session by introducing negative stories with respect to her parochial awareness of her life which then fostered a single story (reading/writing Western ideas about Africa and her understanding of the experiences of hired help). Her stories attracted her audience to her narrative because her narrative is our narrative in that everyone tends to stereotype the unfamiliar.

Second, once Ms. Adichie defined her dilemma which generated stereotypes, she sought to stimulate a desire for change. She emphatically proposed that a single story creates a stereotype. The issue isn’t that stereotypes are untrue, but that they are incomplete. Stereotypes make one story become the only story. She reminded us that Africa is more than just famine, crime, lost resources, disease. Focusing on negatives robs people of dignity. In convincing her audience that stereotypes leave the audience’s understanding as incomplete, she challenged it to access and  investigate more stories.

Last, Denning (2011) proposed the storyteller reinforce change with compelling reasons to solidify the audience’s commitment. Ms. Adichie showed the change to multiple stories as convincing because audience members would no longer limit their understanding by a single story. The audience’s understanding would now be opened to nuanced realities extracted from multiple sources vice “black and white” opinions formulated from a narrow source.

            Ms. Adichie’s narrative was enlightening and convincing. She brilliantly defined her purpose: uncover the “ugliness” of the single story and then implored the audience to commit to creating more realities based on multiple and differing stories and nuanced ideas.

References                            

Adichie, C. N. (2009). The danger of a single story. TED. Retrieved from

           http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

Denning, S. (2011). The leader’s guide to storytelling: Mastering the art and discipline of  

            business narrative. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Whalen, D.J. (2007). The professional communications toolkit. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

            Publications, Inc.