A521.2.3.RB - Danger of Stories

View the TED video Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story. Adichie uses several episodes from her own life's story to deliver her powerful message. Use your blog to reflect on Adichie's message . How do you view her message in terms of what you have learned in this module?
Stories can change the way we think, act, and feel about a topic or situation. They can form new perspectives (Denning, 2011), and in this TED video, they have the power to break down barriers and turn bad situations around.

In the book "Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins" the author discusses the format of business stories: there are "who-I-am" stories; "why-I-am-here" stories; teaching stories; vision stories; values-in-action stories and I-know-what-you-are-thinking" stories (Simmons, 2007). 

The story of Chimamanda Adichie's experience as a wealthy African in her homeland and as an African in America is one of unique and ironic parallels. '"What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children."

Adichie notes that as a child, she had been indoctrinated into believing that she was a person from a family of have, and her family worker was from a background of have nots. As a Nigerian, she saw herself as proudly African, good more specifically, held a pride about her immediate network more so then as a representative of her country, her confident, and her race. Adichie recalls that she held many assumptions about internationals. in the book she read as a child, the fictional characters, presumably from European ethnicities, seemed much different than her. They were interesting and she desired to live their lives. As a child, Adichie presumed that the lives of Americans and the British were realistically similar to the whimsical storylines she read. Adichie says:

Now, I loved those American and British books I read. They stirred my imagination. They opened up new worlds for me. But the unintended consequence was that I did not know that people like me could exist in literature.

In some ways, Adichie seems to see her access to books, in the education, as a luxury. In comparison to her work boy, she is grateful to have things that his family does not. She believes that his family does not have food to eat, does not value education, and lacks creativity. She is shocked to find that he comes from a very creative family, that is able to make money from their developments. Her naivety stems from the ignorance of her parents. They constructed in her mind that there was a such thing as less than within humanity. Alas, Adichie comes to find that she is also a part of the grand dynamic of a perceived human hierarchy. When it be to visit America to come to college, she is in for a rude awakening from her housemate:

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.

Adichie's roommate was disappointed because of the symbols Adichie utilized to explain her experience. As in Chapter 3 of  The Professional Communications Toolkit notes, humans are symbols-seeking creatures. Adichie's roommate desired to see new, foreign things from Adichie's collection of belongings. She became disappointed when her expectations of an assumed primitive culture were dashed. Perhaps Adichie's roommate thought she would be able to shine a light on the Adichie continues:

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.

Reflecting on the way see saw her house boy, Adichie realizes the error in her ways. In relocating, Adichie now is put into the same box that she put her house boy and his family. She is seen as a survivor of the African experience.

Chapter 2 of The Professional Communications Toolkit discusses how when a speaker is doing a great job communicating, they essentially disappear (Whalen, 2007). Adichie's story is a combination of a few of formats of persuasive stories. She discusses who she is by painting a picture of her affluence, which the audience may not assume by looking at her. This presumptive piece details the "I-know-what-you-are-thinking" portion of her story. She acknowledges that those who are looking at her assume she is African, and before she even speaks, are already prepare to hear a story that aligns with their negative assumptions of Africa, African people, and perhaps black people as a race. Over the course of her story she explains why she is there speaking with them: to quell the epidemic of stereotyping and reducing groups of people to one unfortunate experience they may or may have not faced within their perceived box within the human race. Her goal is to teach why stereotyping can be so ineffective, and how it makes individuals seems ignorant and unworldly.

As noted by Whalen (2007), "successful communication begins with your desire to deliver messages you've mastered and have a passion to deliver." It s apparent in her delivery that Adichie has seen the error in her ways of thinking about a flat approach to people - all people are complex and more than meets the eye, particularly when the eye is narrow.

References

Denning, S. (2011). The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business  Narrative (Revised and updated edition). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons/Jossey-Bass

McKay, M., Davis, M., & Fanning, P. (2009). Messages: the Communication Skills Book (3rd  edition). Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.

Simmons, Annette. (2007). Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins: How to Use Your Own Stories to Communicate with Power and Impact. New York, NY : AMACOM

Whalen, J.D. (2007). The Professional Communications Toolkit. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage    Publications.