The Roles Of A Quotation By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Introduction
For the purpose of this assignment I will examine a quotation by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I will address the context to which my chosen quotation speaks and provide some background about the author of the quotation. I will explain the contestation raised by the quotation by exploring the nature thereof and identifying the parties involved. I will examine the role of power dynamics in shaping this contestation. Finally, I will provide an example of how I personally relate to contestation at hand.
1. The Danger of a Single Story
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (40) is a Nigerian novelist and speaker (Tunca, 2017). Claire Kelly (my Diversity Studies lecturer) first introduced me to her work through one of Adichie’s TedTalks where she spoke

Her father was a university teacher (professor) and her mother was an administrator (Adichie, 2009). They had live-in domestic help, who would often come from nearby rural villages. When she was eight they got a new “house boy”, called Fide. All Adichie knew concerning Fide was that he came from an extremely poor family, as her mother told them (Adichie, 2009). Adichie’s mother used to send his family food and old clothes, and whenever Adichie did not finish her dinner her mother would say, "Finish your food! Don't you know? People like Fide's family have nothing." For that reason, she commiserated for Fide's family. When the Adichie’s visited Fide’s village one Saturday, his mother showed them a beautifully patterned basket, made of dyed raffia, that his brother had made (Adichie, 2009). Adichie was caught by surprise, because she never envisioned for anybody in his family to be able to make something [useful]. All she knew about them concerned their poverty, which made it very difficult for her to see them as anything else but poor. Their poverty was Adichie’s single story of Fide and his family (Adichie,

All her memories about Fide and his family came rushing back when she first encountered her new American roommate, who was completely shocked by Adichie. Her roommate inquired where she acquired the ability to speak English so well, and was perplexed when Adichie informed her of the fact the English happened to be Nigeria’s official language (Adichie, 2009). After which, her roommate made a request to listen to what she referred to as Adichie’s "tribal music," and was consequently rather disappointed when she was presented with a tape of Mariah Carey. She further carried the assumption that Adichie did not have the slightest idea as to how a stove is used (Adichie, 2009). The thing that made the biggest impression on Adichie, was that her roommate pitied her without having encountered her. The natural inclination she had towards Adichie, as an African, was “a kind of patronizing, well-meaning, pity” (Adichie, 2009). Clearly enough, her roommate had a single narrative about Africa as a place of catastrophe. Sadly, this single narrative provided no way for Africans to be alike with people like her roommate, by any means. It left her roommate incapable of expressing feelings any deeper than pity, with no potential of interconnectedness between them as equally