Being an African, Chimamanda’s talk really started to resonate with me when she first started to talk about how her interactions with her roommate when they first met. She stated that the emotions that her roommate had experienced in the first few days of meeting her were of shock, pity, and disappointment. Her fear of America's hearing only one story and having a pre-existing notion of every single person from that area holds weight. One of my English professors was teaching a lesson on a story set in Ghana, West Africa, where my parents were born. The story mentioned a mall that was located in Accra, the countries capital. One of the girls in the class raised her hand and asked whether the book was a fantasy. The professor said no and asked …show more content…
She goes onto describe how those who are powerful (government officials, textbooks writers and editors, etc) are the same people who are crafting the story of the people who are different from them. The system of the powerful telling stories of those who are lower in wealth and status only allows for more separation. The storytellers are not able to witness the full side of the story and only end up telling the sides that they witness, which unfortunately, is of some of the hardships people in the area face. As Chimamanda put it, “tell the stories of the Native American’s arrows before you tell of the British colonization, and you will get a different story.” Like Chimamanda’s roommate did unto her, someone who has witnessed the single story that does not paint people from that area in a good light will most likely fall into the cycle of ignorance when it comes to dealing with not only Africans, but even people who come from third world countries where they’ve seen certain