Why You Should Never Trust Stereotypes

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie started her TED Talk in 2009 by telling what she does, she is a storyteller. And I knew her from this side and yet I’m still not convinced how much I like and how much I don’t like of her work. What is certain is that I loved her talk and her definition of stereotpyes which are not necessarily untrue but “incomplete”.

That’s what Chimamanda mentions when speaking about the “Danger of a single story”: by knowing only one reality, one side, one voice, you definitely don’t know enough. Not only this, in your mind you unconsciously build an idea about things and people. Like in my case, they’ve told so many times to the Italian population that black is equal to foreigner, hence I was told more times than I like to admit: “wow, you speak very well Italian!”

Well Chimamanda explains it egregiously. You can listen to her here.