The following is a video from TED of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discussing the danger of monolithic storytelling and how it can breed misunderstanding. The partial transcript below is from a blog post on JamesClear.com:

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.
Years later, I thought about this when I left Nigeria to go to university in the United States. I was 19. My American roommate was shocked by me. She asked where I had learned to speak English so well, and was confused when I said that Nigeria happened to have English as its official language. She asked if she could listen to what she called my “tribal music,” and was consequently very disappointed when I produced my tape of Mariah Carey. She assumed that I did not know how to use a stove.
What struck me was this: She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me. Her default position toward me, as an African, was a kind of patronizing, well-meaning pity. 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.

Click here to view the full transcript.

Auxoro is an independent and mostly self-funded platform that relies on people like you to push the conversation forward. At the moment, we have no sponsors or outside investors. Everything from travel expenses to podcast equipment to web design is paid for purely out of pocket and by the people like you who support us. We love what we do and are happy to invest in ourselves, and a little help goes a long way as we continue to bring the biggest and best conversations to you. Thank you for your donation, however small, and for expressing support for our work and its continued survival.

SUPPORT AUXORO ON PATREON (Thank You)

SUPPORT AUXORO ON PAYPAL (Thank You)

SUPPORT AUXORO ON VENMO (Thank You): @Zachary-Ross-4

AUXORO NEWSLETTER - JOIN OVER 1,000 OTHERS & SUBSCRIBE

AUXORO MERCH - HOODIES & TEES NOW AVAILABLE