The Ted talk given by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is about how she realized the stereotype she has on “the outer world” and how herself is also tracked in the stereotypes of others on the Nigerian in Africa.
When Adichie raised the topic of the power, it reminds me of Foucault’s theory of “Power Discourse”, meaning that people/institution with more power will have more resources to control the way certain phenomena are told. The power is not just about the ability to tell a story, but more importantly, the ability to attach significance of the story. And the group of people who is in the story don’t actually have the chance to say something against this narrative because they don’t have the “power” to tell another version. A single story is dangerous, as Adichie mentioned, not because the story itself is not true, but because many other stories are ignored in this narrative, many details and diversity are narrowed in the storytelling. And the perception and understanding of a certain group of people are narrowed down. This is unfair to the people who are depicted, for they are labeled with something that is actually not true about themselves. And it’s also unfair to the people who heard of the story, because they are not given the chance to know the whole story. So it’s crucial for the storytellers to be careful about the way they tell the story, and it’s also important to facilitate an atmosphere that encourages different stories to be told.