A while ago, novelist Chimamanda Adichie gave a keynote speech at TED Talks titled “The Danger of a Single Story.” What’s Africa’s single story? The tainted lens through which the news media portrays Africa to the world; mostly starving kids too weak to drive away the flies that swarm them, famine, hunger, water projects etc. Then there’s the Hollywood narrative. African men are mercenaries, warlords and blood thirsty. This is mostly what the West is exposed to about Africa and Africans.
Now, many of those portrayals aren’t completely untrue. But, they are a single narrative out of many – most of them still untold. Just like the guests on Jerry Springer’s show don’t represent the U.S. narrative, these stories don’t represent all of us across Africa either. Continue Reading