by Chisom Edoziem

I’d began with the definition of a story. It’s a message that tells the particulars of an act or occurrence or person or course of events presented in writing or drama or cinema or as a radio or television program. Stories can be told in many ways though.

“The single story is defined as: showing a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again and that’s what they become.”

In my view, I’ll say, single story is a one-dimensional and single perspective way of telling a story of a person, people and other things.

My name is Edoziem Chisom Valentine. A graduate of Information Management Technology, Federal University of Technology Owerri, and I’m 23 years of age .I was victimized grossly of social stereotype in my university days. My course mates often said I was unfriendly, closed, mean and unapproachable. I was tagged with ego, pride and self-centeredness. They also said I was opportunist. They knew nothing about me except for my name- Chisom. Some said I’d once snubbed them. Others said I was cruel and wicked in a silent way, many others were upset about me being introverted and basically, hardened. I was never easy. An Opportunist, They concluded. This was the single story about me. They saw me as only one thing- Negativity, over and over again. They’d a single view, single impression, single perspective, they were rationalized in one dimension, and that’s what I’d become. Meanwhile, I’d keenly studied myself. I had good friends, close, sweet and best friends. Friends I could rely on, hang on, bank and hope on. I laughed, cheered and was very happy with them. I attended their birthday parties and fun nights. Some people joked with me, as I did in return also.

“It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power. There is a word called ‘NKALI’ which loosely translates to ‘to be greater’. Stories are defined by the principle of NKALI. How they are told, who tells them, when they are told, how many stories are told, are really dependent on power.”

Stories about me were dependent on power. The caliber of people that told them. People with power, like my course adviser and course representative had influence, they’d influenced these stories. Most of my stories were told via gossips. Some in open, others in whatever way. The people who told them also mattered. So many stories, different and similar, in whatever form were single stories about me because they conveyed just one thing- Negativity. Most of my stories were even told before a person got to know me, in fact, that was when it often when they were told.

“Power is the ability, not just to tell the story of another person but to make the definitive story of that person”

The definitive story, the classic story about me was often negative. A negativity that termed me an Opportunist, snub, egocentric and mean. Power had been incurred to make a true and
definitive story about me.

“If you want to dispossess a person, the simplest way to do it is to start their story with secondly. Start their story with their failures, and you would have an entirely different story”

My course mates tried to dispossess me with their stories. Stories spiced with negativity and sentence. They only told my second story, my one story; my single story and this formed entirely, a different story about who I truly was.

“The single story creates stereotypes and the problem with stereotypes is that they are not untrue, but they are incomplete. They make one story become the other story”

Stereotype is a conventional or formulaic conception or image. The single story about me had created just one type of image- an image of an opportunist, a stereotype of veto, a convection and conception of negativity. Basically, what people said about me wasn’t really untrue but they had made it my only story, an incomplete story.

“The consequence of a single story is that it rubs people of their dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.”

The aftermath of my single story is this, it rubbed my real person. It fractioned who I was, my self-esteem, worthiness and personality. These stories made me different; and it made my credit and acknowledgement stern. It punctuated how different I was rather than how alike I was with other people.

“What if we had an African television network that broadcast diverse African stories all over the world?”

What if they knew I had other lovely friends? What if they knew I could rely, hope, and bank on people? What if they knew I attended invited birthday parties and fun nights? What if people knew
I was funny, cheerful and playful? What the late Nigerian Writer, Chinua Achebe calls ‘a balance of stories’.

“Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to marline but stories can be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a person; but stories can be used to repair that broken dignity.”

I had a one story, a single story. Many stories, different stories weren’t told about me. The story had an effect on my dignity. It bankrupted my self-esteem and breached my worthiness. But if many stories, different stories, other stories are told about me, it would restore, mend, repair that broken personality.

“That when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is no single story of a person, we regain a kind of paradise”

Finally, if only they could disdain, reject and refuse the single story about me, if they actualize that there is no such thing as a single story, they will recover a sort of Eden with me.

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All quotes were extracted from “Dangers of a single story” by Chimamanda Adichie on TEDTALKS, OXFORD ENGLAND, July 2009.

This entry was submitted as part of the Nigerian Voices competition organized by YNaija.com.

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