Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie • "The Danger of a Single Story"

Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize.

I've always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity.

Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.

“We live in a world shaped by stories. Stories are the threads of our lives and the fabric of human cultures. A story can unite or divide people(s), obscure issues, or spotlight new perspectives. A story can inform or deceive, enlighten or entertain, or even do all of the above. Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives,... See more

So that is how to create a single story, show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.

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.