Hello, I am Himanshi Parmar, student of MK Bhavnagar University. This blog i have written as a response to Thinking Activity, Which is a Part of my academic Work. Which we get after each unit. In this blog, i am going to discuss about three video talks by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Before that it is important to understand who Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Was born on 15 September 1977. She is Nigerian writer. She is known for writing fiction, short story, novel etc. She was described in The Times Literary Supplement as "the most prominent" of a "procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors, is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature", particularly in her second home, the United States. She is known by her pen name Amanda N. Adichie. She was received numerous awards like In 2008, she was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant. She was the recipient of the PEN Pinter Prize in 2018,MacArthur Fellowship (2008)International Nonino Prize (2009) etc.
She is known for her works like novels 'Purple Hibiscus' (2003), 'Half of a Yellow Sun' (2006), and 'Americanah' (2013), the short story collection 'The Thing Around Your Neck' (2009), and the book-length essay 'We Should All Be Feminists' (2014).Her most recent books are 'Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions' (2017), 'Zikora' (2020) and 'Notes on Grief' (2021) and many more. Watch this video to know more about her.
Talk - 1
The Danger of a Single Story.
First video titled as 'The Danger of a Single Story'. It's aTed Talk of July 2009.She talked about negative influence and aspect of Single story. Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie uses the phrase “single stories” to describe the overly simplistic and sometimes false perceptions we form about individuals, groups, or countries.
She started writing when she was just Seven year old. In her childhood she used to write stories exactly she read. In her talk she said that all the characters as a child she portrayed in her story was white and blue eyed, played in the snow, ate an Apple, it is totally opposite narration with the place she lived, she lived in Nigeria, and never being outside there.They didn't have snow, they used to ate magos and they never talked about weather because they found no need of it. Though she gave British touch all the way to her characters, her characters used to drink Ginger beer a lot, because people in Britain used to drink it a lot. By sharing her childhood experience she tries to explain how expressionable and vulnerable we are as a child.
After reading books by African writers her perception and mentality got changed.she realized that characters can also be with chocolate skin colour, black, with curly hair and so on. She started writing her own perceptions and experiences afterwards.later on she said that African writer made huge impact on her, she said that,
"African Writers saved me from having a single story".
She came from middle class family. Her father was professor and mother was administrator.They were lived in Mexico. Later she share her experience with her new room mate named 'Fidee' belonged from extremely poor family background and creative too.Which helped to mauled her thoughts and helped to creat new narrations. Then she share her experience as a student in United Kingdom. How her fair skin roommate feel pity for her even before seeing her, the prejudice she had about Nigeria and it's people, falk songs, and how she got shocked when she heard Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaking English so well. Because her roommate had single story about Africa. The dystopic Africa. She wasn't aware that Africa is much more than she ever thought.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said that before she came to US she never thought herself as a African identity, but in US it was implied on her, it was like forceful implemented. She referred quote by Jhone Lock About African who sailed to West Africa in 1561, the quote was,
"They are also people without heads, having their mouths and eyes in their breasts".
She saying that this what single story is, people see one thing over and over again and that they became. It is impossible to talk about single story without talking about power,
According to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Power is the ability not just to tell a story of another person but also capable to make definitive story of another person. Adichie talks about the effect of political and cultural power on stories. Power controls “how [stories] are told, who tells them, when they're told, how many stories are told”.
Later she speaks about her childhood, probably she had happy, cheering childhood but her grandfather died in refuge camps, her brother Polly died because lack of health care, one of her close friend died in plane crash because it has no water available to maintain fire in plane. She grew up under repressive military government, who sometimes devalued education that her parents didn't paid sallery. And all this negative experiences formed her as who she is. Sharpened her writing.
She refred quote of Palestentine poet Mourid Barghoti’s quote “if you want to dispossess people the simplest way to do it is to tell their story and to start with secondly. Begin with arrows of native Americans and not the British; start with failure of the African state."
According to her it is impossible to engage with the people or place without engaging with all the stories related to that place and people.sigle story emphasis how people are different rather than how they are similar, and that's the tragedy. She end her talk with wonderful quote.
“When we reject a single story, we regain a kind of paradise”.
Talk - 2
We Should All Be Feminist.
The second video titled as,'We Should All Be Feminist'. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said that she don't know what word feminist means, but she call her 'Happy Feminist'. She said that Feminism is not a culture, and she would like to call herself as a African Feminist because her mind was corrupted by British books. Most of the books she read was Feminist and that effected on her deeply. She call herself 'Happy African Feminist' who does not hate men, who like high hills not for men but for herself. She opposed a Feminist culture that hate men, Bras, African culture etc. Later on she share her personal experience. She said that when she was 9 year old, there is a class test in the beginning of year, and it's the rule that whoever get highest marks will be the class monitor.Chimamanda Ngozi got the highest marks but her teacher refused her to be class monitor because she was a girl and class monitor should be boys only as per her teachers mentality. This how patriarchy works. She shared many other experience also.
Men and women are different. They have different appearance, body structure, sexual organs.she also pointed out physical strength of men and women, men are physically more powerful than women. Women's population is higher than men.52% are women among the total population of world. Yet all the higher positions in the world are hold by men. She also refred one quote that The late Kenyan Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai put it simply and well when she said,
"The higher you go, The fewer women there are".
She also made a point that how for the same Work/job men and women got paid different sallery. It is showing patriarchy in economical condition. Patriarchy started in ancient time when physical strength was the most important to survive, and men has that physical strength so women because of lack of physical strength considered as a inferior at that time. But today we are living in totally different world, today, to lead, we need creativity, innovativeness, intelligence. And there is no hormonal changes to attribute it.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her talk highlighted the point that how from childhood it's taught to boys that their masculinity is the most important thing, they are supposed to superior than girls, they has to "Hard Men", Crying is something banned for them because those who weak can cry only, like girls. She gave example that how men always willing to pay hotel bills, taxis bills to show their masculinity. Another point raised here was marriage, girl has always taught that marriage is one of the ultimate goal of their life. There are many Indian Hindi serials and Bollywood movies that is representing this point. For example Bollywood movie 'Dilvale Dulhaniya le jayenge', kajol is the female protagonist in the movie whose been forced to get marry and left her all choices, and education behind. Most of the female protagonist from aerials are doing nothing but trying to prove themselves as a best daughter in law (BAHU) and wife. For example, Kundali Bhagya, Tarak Mehta ka Oolta Chashma, Anupama and many more. That is showing how women has been taught to put marriage as a priority. She also said that,
"Language of marriage is a language of ownership rather than partnership."
We teach girls how to walk, talk, sit, behave, eat, dress and everything, but it is rarely taught to boys. She also told that the problem with gender is that it prescribe how we should be, rather than recognizing how we are. One example she gave of gender inequality is, cooking is considered as a work of women undoubtedly, though most famous and majority cooks are men. The way to come out of gender inequality is to think it as a serious problem by both men and women.she further quote that,
"Culture does not make people, people does make culture ".
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie also gave beautiful definition of the word 'Feminist'. That is,
"A person who believes in the social, political,and the economical equality of sexes."
She ended up by giving her own ddefinition of 'Feminist',
"A Feminist' is a man or woman who says, yes, there is a problem with gender as it is today, and we must fix it, we must do better".
Talk - 3
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie addresses Harvard's Class of 2018.
This video titled as 'Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie addresses Harvard's Class of 2018.' She was 2018 class day speaker in the video. She shared one incident of an English woman who, despite her best intentions, somehow mauled her name in front of an audience, calling her “chimichanga.” While explaining post truth era, she said that do not lie, do not lie too often. The word, idea of lying has political potency in America nowadays but it somehow feels very apt above all eles do not lie. She later said that we must protect and value the truth.
We routinely lie about minor things in our life for example about our height and weight, being in traffic when we are late for meeting or gathering with friends, lie because the another person not get hurt and so on. When we feared towards truth, we started lying. Telling a truth is a biggest courage. Telling a truth doesn't always workout. She later said that,
"Sometimes the hardest truths are those we have to tell ourselves".
It is hard to tell ourselves the truth about our failures, our fragilities, our uncertainties. It is hard to tell ourselves that we never done the best that we can.according to her It is hard to tell ourselves the truth of our emotions that may be what we feel is hurt rather than anger. For her literature is her religious which show her the right way, and the way of truth, give courage to stand, speak for truth. She added that think people as people not as abstraction who have to conform to bloodless logic but as people fragile, imperfect with pride that can be wounded and hearts that can be touched. We humane are flawed, but even when we flawed, we enduring goodness. We cannot be perfect before we can do what is right. She refred quote of Shonda Rhimes,
"You have to do something until you can do something eles".
Later she said about experience that how experience serve us in a way we do not even expect. Experience is the best way to teach something. She also share her experience while writing her second novel which was so special for her. Through that she explain procrastinating. procrastinating is a form of fear. And it is difficult at acknowledge fear. But one cannot creat value of anything without self doubt, without self doubt we become complacent. The biggest fear we have is of measuring up. To explain that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie share lovely lines of the poem Mary Oliver,
"Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination."
Chimamanda end her talk by refred ebow scene "Vanya G Cooney Bhutesu xia", it translate as, "whenever you wakeup that is your morning".
Here is my favorite quote of her.
I hope my blog will be helpful to you. Thank you.
WORD COUNT - 2020
IMAGES - 5
VIDEOS - 4
