Flawless Adichie Analysis

I was familiar with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s work through Beyonce’s song “Flawless.” Challenging social norms appears to be a reoccurring theme in Adichie’s work. In “Flawless,” Adichie questioned gender roles, and in “The Danger of a Single Story” she challenged the public to look beyond a single perspective. As simple as it may be to propose, the reality is not as straightforward. We are indirectly or bet yet directly products of our environment. This should not to be used as an excuse, but as many stories go, the truth is not always as black and white.
Movies and television present a medium of information that exceeds the TV-listing. I judged what “normal” was from the characters on the screen. Like Adichie, it was an egg hunt finding programming that featured people who looked like me (at least in a positive light). I found myself stumbling on shows like “The Cosby Show,” “Maury,” and “Fresh Prince of Bel-air” that provided a broad comedic twist to life as a Black American. There were occasional overlapping themes that simultaneously broke and reinforced certain stereotypes. This was all okay because the shows provided a platform to address those stereotypes. Adichie mentioned that stereotypes where both revealing and incomplete. A stereotype may be perceived as humorous, however, it may rob a person of

their identity when it is the only point of reference.
“How to Write about Africa” satirically critiques writers that cage their perceptive to a mire stereotype.

Similar can be said about articles about immigration. Portraying immigration as a catastrophic event may be just as dangerous as seeing it as a completely advantageous endeavor. There is possibly an unavoidable forced perspective given the author’s personal experience and/or relationship with an immigrant. The question then becomes: how do we extend our viewpoint? So far engaging with different types of literature has given me a better outlook on the situation. Conversely, it may also be helpful to carefully observe points of opposing

viewpoints.
In “Show and Tell” we saw stereotyping from the antagonist Billy to a Vietnamese refugee. The story shared moments of comedic relief, but that did not mask the underlying message. “Show and Tell” addressed stereotyping from a child’s perspective. It may be easy to totally cast Billy off as the villain, but there are many layers to his disposition. His ideas on Vietnamese people were adopted from his father’s experience in the war. Even Robert was not too fond of mentoring Cao, but that was more of eighth grade politics. After Robert was encouraged by the teacher to befriend Cao, he was forced to see beyond a single story.
Cao and Robert mutually benefitted from the friendship. In hindsight, I found the title of the piece to be pretty cleaver. Not only was it eight-grade show and tell, but also Cao was able to show his story through drawings while Robert told it to the class. This narrative defines the development that comes from exploring beyond a single outlook.