It
isn’t easy to stand in front of a room of complete strangers from international
backgrounds and discuss racial and economic differences; however the TED
speaker I’d like to discuss today was able to attack these hard issues with a
hint of comedy and humility. Novelist
Chimamanda Adichie discussed the danger of a single story during her 2009 TED talk. She started her speech with a
slight quiver in her voice and smile on her face. Through addressing her background and
upbringing she was able to bring the audience to a place of trust and
understanding. As she described her
enlightenment through literature she says she realized after reading African books
that, “Girls like me with skin the color of chocolate whose kinky hair could
not form ponytails could also exist in literature.” Although this young woman had grown up in a
middle class family, she soon found that stories are more powerful than she
could have ever imagined.
Chimamanda
describes her personal experiences with the single story including people with
a single story of who she is and where she comes from. One very powerful story she discussed was
when she first came to the United States to study at an University. She describes how her roommate’s single story
of Africans left her with first hand experience of a single story hindering
understanding from those who only know that story as fact. Through her words she illustrates how she
learned how to understand that learning more than one story about a person or
place was more valuable than listening to one popular story or watching what
information is simply placed in front of you.
Chimamanda relates to the audience by illustrating that she is no
different from anyone in the room, because she is African through the mention of
popular music and literature references.
Her ability to expose her background and uncomfortable experiences
opened a window of trust that otherwise may have been slighted.
Chimamanda’s
speech allowed me to take a deeper look at how the industry uses stories to
either develop or destroy a brand’s image.
As an entertainment business professional it is my responsibility to
ensure that my brands entire story is told.
Our lives and cultures are a collection of overlapping stories that add
to the fabric of who we are. Chimamanda
Adichie expressed how through her journey she found her authentic cultural
voice, but she warned listeners that if we only accept a single story as fact
about a person or place then we risk misunderstanding them and potentially
misjudging their situation.
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