In her Ted talk, “The Danger of a Single Story”, Chimamanda Ngozi shares her personal experience with what she believes is the danger of only knowing one perspective, one narrative. While I was watching her talk, I couldn’t help but think of the many times where I had very similar experiences but in completely different contexts. When people ask where I’m from, I usually choose my answer depending on who is asking, how invested they seem to be in the conversation, and sometimes I’ll outright ask them “long or short version?”. Sometimes, people will simply ask “where are you from?” not out of genuine interest and curiosity but out of habit. So, I’ve formulated a couple of short answers: “I’m based in NYC” or “I was born in the US but I’m half Swedish half Chinese” and then quickly ask “what about you?”. The long answer, however, is much more revealing of who I am and goes something like: “I was born in Hawaii, but I didn’t grow up there. In fact, I don’t know anything about it because we moved to London when I was about 9 months old. When I was 5, we moved to Sweden and lived in a small town in the south west for about 7.5 years, and then we moved back to London, but only for 4 months, after which we moved to Kuwait. After 3 years in Kuwait, I decided to go to boarding school in South Florida for my last two years of high school, and then I went to Shanghai for university, and now I live in New York.” Ok, so what’s the point? Well, throughout all this moving, I have experienced the danger of a single story myself.
The single story of Sweden is that “The people are tall, blonde, blue eyed. Taxes are high, but you see the benefits. The social democracy is very successful. Everyone has free healthcare. Public schools are great.” While this is all true, there is so much more to it. And as Ngozi says, stereotypes are based in truth, but they don’t provide the full story. In hindsight, Sweden has worked so well because the population of 9-10M people is pretty homogenous. It’s easy to get along with people who look, sound, and behave like you. Recently, the population has become a bit more diverse (nothing in comparison to London or NY), with an influx of refugees from Syria. Last year, the Sweden Democrats, a political party with neo-Nazi roots, became the 3rd largest party in the government, causing no majority to win the election. Sweden had no effective government for several months. However, this is not the single story told about Sweden to the rest of the world. And, in order to keep up with kind of news, I have to of course follow local channels.
When I was 16 and moved from Kuwait to Florida, I also learned the single story of Kuwait. I will never forget when a classmate of mine in history class in Florida asked “Do they have cars or TVs? They ride camels there, right?”. I was flabbergasted. Kuwait, the country with incredible wealth disparity, where young men would speed through highways in their Lamborghinis and Ferraris…of course they had cars and TVs. I also learned the single story of Islam. The religion that has for long been and continued to be associated with terrorism. Of course, Kuwait has its downsides, but these should not define the country or its people (every country has its downsides!). If my parents hadn’t decided to move there, then I am sure I wouldn’t know 99% of the things I know about the country, culture, language, religion, and food. I wouldn’t have known how hospitable the people can be. I wouldn’t have had some of my closest friends who are like family to me. I wouldn’t have known the full story. I wouldn’t be who I am today. When I was 15, I was more Arab than I was American, and even though I have no Kuwaiti roots whatsoever, I will always to some degree relate to Kuwait.
The danger of a single story goes beyond being a more understanding, knowledgeable, and empathetic human. It helps you celebrate change, differences, and similarities. It alters your position in the current social construct. By experiencing multiple stories, you participate and are then empowered to tell more than one story. You can then contribute to altering and improving our combined social consciousness. We should aways consider challenging assumptions and questioning the narrative.