34 Part I The Transition to College Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. “It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.” —Madeleine Albright (Schnall, 2017) Facet #3: The Danger of a Single Story “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story… I’ve always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.” —Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Adichie, 2009) Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a prolific writer of fiction and nonfiction. She is also a social commentator and cultural critic, a feminist, and a powerful public speaker. She grew up in Nigeria and completed her postsecondary education in the United States. In her 2009 TED Talk, Adichie describes the powerful and pervasive practice of consuming and internalizing single stories about groups of people or entire cultures. She opens the talk with examples from her own child- hood and how only having a limited view about a particular person meant that she could only see him and imagine his life in that narrow way until, eventually, she was exposed to more of his story. She brings up the salient example of common American perceptions of Africa. Based on media coverage, representation in movies, and the way it is discussed in politics, Americans consume the single story of Africa as a struggling and desolate place in need of help rather than a continent with over 50 individual countries with vast political, economic, cultural and geographical diversity, and advanced technologies. Americans often tell a single story that fails to recognize there are enormous, bustling cities, entrepreneurs, people fighting for equality, educational institutions, and so many other hallmarks of a complex and modern society. THINK ABOUT IT Cite a message you received about who “you” are or are supposed to be. Who or where did you receive it from? How did you respond? What was at stake?