Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story
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Uploaded by TEDtalksDirector on Oct 7, 2009
http://www.ted.com Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10
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love the video - I try to watch for the single story.
comments so disturbing, just when I was starting to feel good.
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@dwitt1126 dont feed the trolls, they are obviously so fucked up on the inside tht they have to take their anger towards the internet
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@Timmyvirus111 OH FUCK IT'S SO CRINGE WORTHY !!!!
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The problem is... her rich middle class family is the exception in Nigeria and Africa in general. Sure, when wealthy Africans are sent abroad to study and are met with stupid questions it must annoy them. But the reason all we see on tv is poor Africans is because most of them are poor.
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@dwitt1126 still a nigger
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Such an amazing speech! Really eye-opening for the world.
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@chozmo0809 And you are ignorant.
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@delight469 nigger
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I've believed for many years that our stories make us who we are, what we believe, what we hope and dream, and how we know the world -- until we begin to acknowledge, then overcome our own limitations. Those stories we first learned, then began to become. I once wrote this in a play, via one character to his long lost love after she disagrees saying: "Stories don't make up people -- people make up stories!" He responds, "But can you? Don't they?" Great lesson, magical story!
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The guy at 18:34 hahahaha
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@lover90210 Chimamanda Adichie is not African American. She is Nigerian.
MyOwnWoman 3 months ago 13
I can soooo relate to this. I come from a middle-class Indian family. What I read in my English school books was so different from me. What I heard about poor Indian families was shockingly untrue (remember Slumdog Millionaire?)
The western perspective of India was so disturbing. It was so elephants/maharajas/snakecharmers. Now the west has two stories about India, the second being outsourcing/bollywood. Still so far from the truth. Maybe Nigeria and India are similar to each other.
dhawal1 4 weeks ago 3