Black History Month: Honoring Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at USC

By: Sumaya Hussaini ‘22

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was honored by the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism with the 2019 Everett M. Rogers Award, being recognized for her impeccable talent for storytelling and for working towards changing the discourse on gender, race, and identity.

The award was named in honor of the late USC Annenberg professor Everett M. Rogers, and is presented each year by the Norman Lear Center on behalf of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. 

An Introduction from Danai Gurira

Adichie was introduced by actress, playwright, activist, and friend Danai Gurira. Gurira is known for starring as Okoye in the SAG Award-winning Black Panther and Michonne in AMC’s award-winning show The Walking Dead, and she explained how much of an influence Adichie was for her while growing up as an African woman in a world dominated by Western standards.

Gurira admitted that as a child, she was immersed in American literature like Nancy Drew, Judy Blume, and Malory Towers, because that was what she and her African sisters were given access to — options were limited. She became emerged in a world of predominantly white characters, and began to envision herself attending British all-girls boarding schools. The perspective of these narratives were always Eurocentric and created a society where black girls were the outsiders, and the lives of Westerners were what they should aspire to achieve.

“This world was not fashioned with you in mind,” Gurira said. “It makes it seem obvious that you must assimilate into the dominant culture in order to succeed. Storytelling can and does deeply shape how we perceive the world and ourselves.”

The first time Gurira read a book by Adichie, “a thirst was quenched” as the lives of people like her were suddenly being written about for the first time. She stressed the importance of reading literature that you are able to identity with, so you realize that your life matters and there are people out there struggling through similar experiences as you. Gurira joked that after reading Adichie’s “Americanah,” a novel about an African woman who leaves military-ruled Nigeria for the United States, she felt disturbed, as if Adichie had stolen her diary and turned it into a novel.

Adichie’s Insight

Adichie’s inspiration for the content of her work can be traced to the experiences of Gurira and millions of other African woman. Her TED Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story” is one of the most-watched of all time, and criticizes how Africa is portrayed in Western media and literature. Western authors write about Sub-Saharan Africa as a place that is drastically different, dark, and backwards. Adichie joked about how when she attended college in America, her roommate “asked if she could listen to what she called my ‘tribal’ music, and was consequently very disappointed when I produced my tape of Mariah Carey.”

Adichie admits that while growing up, like Gurira and many others, she read British and American books and was extremely impressionable and vulnerable while reading these stories, especially as a child. She became convinced that books had to be about things with which she couldn’t personally identify with. Once she discovered African books, which were rare and limited in access, she experienced a mental shift in her perception of literature and realized she had to write stories about people like herself.

Despite her recognition of the dangers that a single story can hold, Adichie admits that she herself has fallen into the trap many times. She explains that during her first time visiting Mexico, she was taken aback and shocked, expecting something extremely different given how Mexicans are portrayed in American media. She felt ashamed and realized she had bought into the single story of Mexicans as the abject immigrant.

Similarly, she tells the story of how when in the United States, she saw a white man in a truck staring at her and suddenly was filled with panic and feared for her life. She had never felt like this before, and knew his intentions could not be good. However, her fears were quickly alleviated when he said her hair was beautiful, with an empathetic and non-threatening tone. Adichie quickly realized that she, again, had given into the single story in a country where the political tone is one of division and hate.

Takeaways

Adichie’s experiences and literature can teach us many things, but I want to focus on three important takeaways from her visit to USC:

The first is that representation matters. In media, politics, sports, literature, everywhere. Everyone deserves to have characters they can relate to who share similar struggles and experiences so their existence is validated and so they know that they are not alone. For Adichie and Gurira and their African sisters, representation was limited in their access to literature, which denied their sense of self and caused them to believe that Western culture is what matters and is what they should aspire to. It’s easy to ignore this fact, especially for people who come from positions of privilege, but representation allows one to embrace their culture and identity. Everyone deserves to see themselves as a hero. Simply put, there are stories that are missing in the media. And we cannot continue to view this as normal or acceptable.

That’s why I was stoked to find out that Adichie’s Americanah is being made into a mini series by Danai Gurira and Lupita Nyong’o. Following Danai and Lupita’s iconic roles in Black Panther, the dynamic duo are working on turning Adichie’s novel about a young Nigerian woman who leaves behind her high school sweetheart to immigrate to the United States for university into a TV hit. Adichie said she was honored and knows her novel will be in good hands with Danai and Lupita. This work will hopefully be a step towards making American media more inclusive and representative of the general population, but there is still plenty of work to be done.

The second major takeaway from Adichie’s visit is that the single story is everywhere, and it’s a major source of oppression that we’re all vulnerable to falling victim to. It is 2019, yet so much of American literature and media is still dominated by Eurocentric and Western standards that leave out immigrants and people of color. Not only is the single story prevalent in the media and literature, but it’s a pressing issue in our current political climate. President Donald Trump has created a single story for just about every group in society, portraying Mexicans as criminals, women as inferior, Muslims as terrorists, and so much worse.

It’s easy to give into these characterizations, but we must remember Adichie’s words of wisdom: “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.”

Adichie said that her greatest fear is that “this country is sliding into an ugly ordinariness. An ordinariness that makes it difficult for citizens to feel seen. So all of you young people change that, please.” The next time you read a novel or watch the news or a presidential campaign, keep in mind that whatever you are listening to or watching may be a single story, and there is always another side to the issue or story at hand — always be open-minded.

The final takeaway is Adichie’s emphasis on the importance of reading. In one of her National Bestselling pieces, Dear Ijeawele, a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, Adichie published a letter to her childhood friend that includes fifteen suggestions on how to raise a daughter to become a strong, empowered, and independent woman. The fifth suggestion in the book is to teach your daughter how to read and love books. Reading will help one to better understand themself and teach them how to question the world. This reading should not be limited to schoolbooks; rather it would be more valuable for one to read autobiographies, novels, and histories.

While at USC, Adichie admitted that she is “most worried about the possible death of critical thinking skills and empathy because both are central to the challenges we face.” If one is able to think critically, they’re able to exercise empathy, because listening to other people’s stories is a way to become alive in a body that is not your own. It’s a way to understand worlds that are different from your own and to truly see people for who they are, rather than having your perception be clouded by the media’s single story narrative.

Given that February is Black History Month, I know that as a USC student, I was honored to have Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speak at our school on behalf of the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism. She is an inspiration to women of color, aspiring writers, and anyone who wishes to break free from the single story narrative that dominates media and literature. Her work has had a major contribution towards challenging the discourse on race, gender, and identity, and I, along with so many others, am so excited for her future work and the debut of Americanah as a TV series.

More importantly, let us never forget the positive influence Adichie has had on African women who have been affected by the dangers of the single story. Like Gurira stated wonderfully, she “is to black girls what James Baldwin was to black people in America. Our bold, unapologetic, powerful intellect full of humor and riddled with humanity.”

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