Nigerian author, Chimamanda Adichie, gave a compelling lecture at the TED Talk where she cautions against believing a single story about people and cultures. 

Chimamanda Adichie recalls a time when she was studying abroad at a university in the United States and her American roommate expressed curiosity about Adichie’s Nigerian culture, yet allowed her general knowledge about Africa to color her perception.  Her roommate knew of Nigeria only as presented by some Western media, not as the vibrant and diverse Nigeria that Adichie calls home.

All too often, we learn about different cultures and society but only learn one story, or one side of one story. Adichie warns about the danger of a single story because “a single story creates stereotypes and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but rather that they are incomplete. They make the one story become the only story.”

Our increasingly interconnected world makes learning about differences possible, and thus, it is even more important to learn about all the unique stories and perspectives about our cultures.