We need many stories
I have always had close relationships with Americans. I have relatives in New England, like most people who live in my region. Our countries’ economies are interdependent. We cannot ignore each other. Our cultures share a lot in common, and there are many instances of collaboration.
There are two stories told in my part of Canada that illustrate not just the economic ties between Canada and the US, but the long history of our deep friendship. The first is the Halifax Explosion. In 1917, a Norwegian vessel and a French cargo ship full of highly explosive material collided in Halifax Harbour and caused one of the largest explosions in history, destroying massive swaths of homes on both sides of the harbour and killing over 9,000 people. As the city became quickly overwhelmed by the destruction, the people of Boston and other parts of New England immediately sent relief in the form of medical personnel, engineers, clothing, food, and medicine. To mark this act, the province of Nova Scotia selects, cuts, and ships a Christmas tree to Boston every year to stand in Boston Common.
The second story involves the terrible events of September 11, 2001, when not only 3,000 people died, but thousands more were stranded as American air space closed. The town of Gander, Newfoundland, population 11,000, accepted over 6,500 air passengers from all over the world, feeding, clothing, and housing them for almost a week. This remarkable effort is the story told in the Broadway hit Come From Away.
So, when I hear people who are not American talk about Americans, I hold not only these stories, but the personal relationships I have had since childhood. Since November 2024, I have overwhelmingly heard a single story about Americans: “They elected their current president with a majority. They had a chance to fix things and they blew it. And, now, they have to fix it.”
I reject this oversimplified narrative. I reject it because I know many Americans who did not vote for the current president, who rallied and door knocked and phone banked and protested and wrote to their elected officials and stood up to family members. I know Americans whose lives are at risk every day they stay in their state, and I know others risking a great deal to advocate for and support those who need it.
This has made me think of other disrupters in other countries and histories. What about the many who failed in their efforts, or the movements that didn’t make a big enough difference to be included in history books? What about all the people who worked for good, even died, but the oppressors won anyway? Turning the people who lived through a time of oppression into a single story leaves really good people forgotten.
In her brilliant Ted Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story,” Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi reminds us “how vulnerable and impressionable we are in the face of a story.” I would add especially a well-told story, one amplified by the media we consume. The danger of a single story, according to Adichi, is how we can “show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become” (emphasis mine).
Speaking from her experience as a Nigerian woman who spent part of her life in the United States, Adichi’s talk refers primarily, and rightly, to how racialised people are turned into a single story. But she makes, I believe, an important point about how we distinguish ourselves from other humans because we refuse to understand them better. We allow for our self-understanding a complexity and nuance that we neglect to apply to others. It allows us to project and criticise traits in others which we excuse in ourselves.
How do we avoid this danger of a single story? Well, one of the first things Adichi refers to in her talk is the power of stories to make an impression on us. So what if we told not just one story, but many stories? What if we read not just the news but the reports and blogs of organisations and individuals who are resisting and disrupting, whether or not they are successful? What if we participated in conversations just to find something to identify with in another person, even if it isn’t the issue at hand? Could we treat the single stories we hear not with acceptance but suspicion? For example, we may become more alert when a story’s first word is the name of a people group—Americans, Palestinians, Republicans, Israelis, etc.
One of the things I am grateful for in my life is the travelling I have done through Canada, the US, Europe, and India. Every time I travel I encounter the single stories I hold of others, and when I confront these stories I become more able to see the complexity of each person, community, and geography. Not everyone can travel as I have, but we now have extraordinary access to so many stories of remarkable and unremarkable people and communities. Listening to and engaging with these stories can build our capacity to understand what is happening in our world in its complexity, without the need to oversimplify it.
