Chimamanda Adichie Ted Talk Response

Adichie's TED talk discussed the very interesting concept of how one cannot describe a group of people just with a story. I found her point how this is often the case very interesting. She brought up some great points and examples during her discussion, one of my favourite being about her ignorant roommate. Her roommate had this preconceived notion that Adichie was an uneducated tribal figure, however as she soon found out this was not the case. Ideas and perceptions of an individual or society as a whole are a result of the single stories which is why they are so dangerous. Perhaps one of the most interesting points of her presentation was her view on stereotypes:

"The Problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make on story become the only story."

This is more or less the core of her presentation, that one story can be dangerous. Using Adichie's definition of a story, stereotypes themselves are "stories" to a certain extent. I do agree that a single story can have a damaging impact on the reputation of a group of individuals yet this goes two ways. On one hand you do have the damaging "stereotypes" however stories can also place a group of people in a positive light as well as a negative one. This point was best conveyed through her discussion at the beginning of the American and British books she had read as a child. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed her discussion, it was insightful and brought up a lot of great points some of which were very interesting, and others I had never even thought of before.