This TED Talk was recommended to me and sounded interesting so I clicked on it. Part of the way through I realized that I had seen it before, but it’s such a good one that I finished the talk and think it’s worth sharing. Adichie talks about how when only exposed to one narrative about a person/country/ethnic or religious group, then we form stereotypes based on that single story. She used a lot of examples from her own life as a Nigerian author. Adichie made a compelling and eye-opening argument about how a single story “robs people’s dignity” and “emphasizes differences over similarities.”

I think this talk is super relevant to the readings and discussions we’ve had about how people’s personal biases or interests are intermixed with the narratives that they tell, which can make the portrayal in the story more inaccurate and give it a message about the people, places, or things in that story. Adichie hit on this in a very similar way by talking about how historically, white people have given no attention to black people because they were “lesser beings” and “economic vehicles.” She emphasizes the need to change this and expand the stories and images that we hear or see because that breaks the biases that we hold about large number of groups. This same conclusion that she came to reminds me a lot of the numerous discussions we’ve had about the importance of diversifying the representation of people in our many different forms of media.