The sun hits the mountain just right. In the center, you can make out the shape of The Madonna. The vision was gone just a few moments later. It’s all about perspective. Photo by Susie Taylor
Everyone Has a Story
I have maintained for a very long time that everyone has a story — the kind of story that makes you shake your head and think: “I could never go through that.”
There’s something about hearing someone else’s story. The more you know about people, the more you are able to offer compassion and empathy to that person for the wrongs and hardships he or she has experienced.
I think a problem in our culture today is that we really only know one story. And when you base your beliefs and life decisions on one, single story, you are more likely to be judgmental and critical of people for the decisions they’ve made in their own lives.
I recently was listening to the “Stop Writing Alone Podcast” by my friend Nicole Rivera. She turned me on to a Nigerian writer who gave a Ted Talk in July 2009 on “The Danger of a Single Story.”
'The Danger of a Single Story'
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Ted Talk has had more than 22 million views. It’s only about 20 minutes long, but the message is profound. Adichie talks about how, as a child, she read many books by British and American authors. When she started writing her own stories, her characters were white, had blue eyes and played in the snow — because those were the characters that appeared in the books she was reading.
“What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children,” she says in her Ted Talk. “Now, I loved those American and British books I read. They stirred my imagination — opened up new worlds for me. But the unintended consequence was that I did not know that people like me could exist in literature.”
She then says that her discovery of African writers and their books saved her from a single story of what books should be.
She tells how her American college roommate was shocked that she spoke English so well, despite the fact that English is the official language in Nigeria. She said her roommate had a single story of Africa and what it was like to grow up there — a single story in which everyone is poor, speaks some tribal language, cooks on an open fire. The girl’s story led her to have pity for Adichie even before the roommate met her.
“So that is how to create a single story,” she says. “Show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.”
What's the Story You Tell Yourself?
I believe one of the major issues we have going on in our country today is that we tell ourselves a single story about people of color, about law enforcement officers, about protesters, about rioters, about lawmakers. That single-story concept is what tells us all law enforcement officers are racist, that people of color, when they resist said law enforcement officers, get what they deserve.
We tell ourselves a single story about the young woman with several small children around her in the grocery store. We tell ourselves a single story about the man sitting on a bench in the middle of the day. We tell ourselves a single story about the homeless person we see at the corner with a sign asking for help.
I wonder how the world would change if we knew more than one story about each other. If we could look at the young woman and see someone trying to start a childcare business. If we would look at the man on the bench and realize he is a doctor who just told a patient the cancer is inoperable? If we could look at the homeless person and see how close each of us are from becoming homeless.
What's Your Story?
What are the stories you tell yourself? What would you want others to know about you so they could make an informed judgment about your character?
When you watch the news this week, or read a Facebook post, consider that you may not be getting the WHOLE story.
Maybe if we would take the time to hear each other’s stories, we could make our world a more respectful and peaceful place.
A Few Resources
- Check out Nicole Rivera’s podcast “Stop Writing Alone.”
- Watch Adichie’s Ted Talk.
- Learn more about Adichie and her writing.