One Side Stories; Guilty Victims

After listening to Chimamanda Adichie's ted talk on the dangers of one-sided stories, I find myself wavering between two discerning feelings. One one hand, I relate to what she is talking about and feel, as a Colombian, a victim of one-sided stories too. On the other, I feel ashamed for being much like Chimamanda's roommate in a lot of ways; I have a handful of predispositions towards the world because of one-sided stories I chose to blindly absorb.

First, I felt ecstatic. This woman was talking about something Colombians suffer from every single day: one-sided stories. Not only was she pointing out the ridiculousness of this, but also she was able to inspire her listeners to reflect upon the issue. The story of her roommate being incredulous at her fluent English repeated itself recently on my trip to Washington D.C during October Break. While riding a cab with some people I had met, I started singing to the song that was being played on the radio. A guy who was sitting next to me turned, surprised, and said, "Oh my God, how come you know the lyrics to this song?". I stared at him and replied, "Well, Colombians also listen to this type of music." He was bewildered at the fact that Colombians actually heard pop music, and additionally seemed a little confused that I could sing the song, which meant I knew, or could at least decipher, English. This comprehensibly opposed his one-sided story about Colombians being indigenous, ignorant, barbarian drug dealers.

Nonetheless, I have to admit that I too have been guilty for formulating one-sided stories. I am incredibly ashamed of accepting this but as I heard Chimamanda's talk I felt surprised by the fact that she, an African, could fluently speak in English. This is ironic, having in mind that I suffered from the same discrimination during my recent trip. But then I quickly wondered, why is it that people in Africa are only thought of as HIV infected natives?  Well, one-sided stories. The exact same reason why Colombians are though of as close-minded, uncultured terrorists.

Chimamanda not only inspired me to speak up for my country and against its one-sided prescribed reputation but also to have an open mind before taking any other stories in. People should have, as she emphasizes, a "balance" of stories before judging people, countries, or just anything around us. We need a balance of stories before we can understand anything that happens around us.