TED Talks - The Danger of A Single Story

Out of all the speeches I watched, Adichie's speech about the danger of a single story was exceptional and deserves recognition so that more individuals can become enlightened about this topic.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian novelist, gave a speech about the danger of a single story. She talks about how she has encountered people with single stories about certain places, including herself. She gave an example of how at an early age, her parents hired a houseboy, Fide, whose family was so poor that they couldn't afford food. With that mentality embedded in her mind, she pictured the Fide's family as one incapable of being in possession of something worthy let alone have the ability to make/do something astonishing. One Saturday she visited Fide's family and was startled to realize that his brother had made a beautiful patterned basket; their poverty was Adichie's single story of Fide's family. She also gives an example of how when she visited Mexico, she was overwhelmed with shame due to the fact that what she encountered wasn't in her range of Mexico's perspective, which she had been fed by the media. Adichie also tells a story of how her roommate had a single story of Africa, which she had also been fed by the media (poor, populated by AIDS victims, babies lacking nutrition, e.t.c.). So when her roommate asked to listen to Adichie's tribal music, she was surprised to hear Mariah Carey's voice; Africa's poverty and misrepresentation was her single story of Africa. Adichie continues further and adds how individuals continuously refer to Africa as a country. Because of all these single stories, danger arises of stereotypes.

As an analysis to Adichie's speech, she succeeded in every category because of the way she presented her speech, not only was she relaxed and dressed accordingly, but she also used techniques to appeal to her audience. Her stories about individuals having single stories about people and/or countries based upon their poverty due to influenced perspectives by sources like media, appeals to the audience's pathos, which makes them more sympathetic to Adichie's concern about the dangers of a single story. Another technique Adichie used to appeal to her audience is humor, which is how she grabbed and kept the audience's attention. She started her speech with her former perspective of an American (white, blue eyes, always talking about weather), which was humorous and made the audience want to know more about her speech. Although many may argue that Adichie's body language wasn't engaging since she was just standing at one place for eighteen minutes, I refute that statement because even though she wasn't moving she used eye contact to her advantage and with that, along with her amazing speech, she was able to draw in the audience and captivate the audience into the moment. So much so that, as an individual watching the speech online, I couldn't look away or open a new tab even though the attention and the camera was on her the whole time. So, in my perspective, this speech didn't fall short at all, in fact, it exceeded my expectations due to the speaker's and the speech's greatness and relevance to our day to day lives.