Dear fine people,
Yes, I know the above picture is a bit blurry and my little Arty political experiment didn't quite go to plan. Oh, well. Life's a bitch. I got over the picture thing a few seconds ago, but I love it so its staying. I know it's been a hot while since I've posted a blog and for those of you who are actually following me (like you know actually caring what I have to say, like genuinely interested in the little things I attempt to do and fail to do well), apart from a particular woman who holds my life at the tips of her supernatural fingers (you know who you are), then I solute you.
I'm kind of slouched at the side of my bed, and it's approximately 3.19 in the afternoon and by the time I finish writing (after tons of unneccessary long breaks and phone calls and trillions of bad food), it'll be 4 am or something. But still.
I shall write, because writing is like breathing (cliches..you have to love them)..but it's true.
So anyway, if you have been keeping an open eye then you would've by now probably been thrown off or quite repulsed, or..a little startled by my fascination with the writer Chimamanda Ngozi (if you don't know her, google her. She is A-M-A-ZING with two Z's and G's..ZZINGG). It is her I think I sometimes live and write for.
And of course, it was her who brought up the dangers of a single story in a talk at Oxford. Dangers of a single story = consequences of stereotypes. Now, I know you're probably at this point thinking 'next blog' or even 'urr here we go..a monthly period of big emotions'. NO, fear not - this isn't your typical rant about stereotypes. I'd like to think that I come with a refreshing angle to stereotypes because of course as a writer and I think as human beings in fact, Chimamanda's words are essential.
As a child growing up in Nigeria, she grew reading childrens books by British classics like Rawl Dahl, and only ever wrote about the weather, apples and white people! Funny, I know. Here was this little black girl from Nigeria writing about things she'd never seen but only heard of. But I completely relate to her. When I used to write as a child, the thought of even having characters of the same race as me never once occured. I'd been so washed with this ideology that 'good' books only had white characters..and whoah to talk about Congo (where I come from) in your books? NO WAY.
Like me, all Chimamanda knew of in books as a child was white characters who played in the snow and never said 'Mama' as we sometimes do in Africa. No, they only ever used Mum and Mother (which reminds me I should stop calling my mum - mummy. I'm like nearly 19..YUK). This was of course until she read the book Things Fall Apart by an old Nigerian writer called Chinua Achebe. She cites him as being a huge inspiration, someone who gave her permission to write about Africa.
And we're not talking about the conventional Africa that Western society is used to. Not the Africa that we see on TV, or read about in the newspapers where only war, poverty and those Oxfam adverts consisting of small malnurished children with bloated bellies and flies batting at their eyelids are the only things mentioned. As if there are not other sides to Africa, as if that is only what we have to offer. We're talking about the other sides to it, the sides that does still include the corruption and colonialism but also good food, good people and great minds (whose countries could be the richest, if all the filthy greedy bastards like, King Leopold, didn't steal off our land..)
Because that is a great example of a single story. Knowing only one side to the picture, only one part of the puzzle. You can't put it all together unless you have all the pieces and the scary thing is, we are all and have been at some points subjects of a single story!
Like I'm sure in the past, a person of a different race has looked at me and been surprised that I speak 'good' English, or the fact that I have a septum piercing and like listening to The Maccabees. People seem so suprised which is patronising.
No, I do not dance around my living room like a baboon, and eat off a floor, and poo in a leaf. No, I do not play music by batting my chest and stamping around like a monkey. Yes, I too love eating bangers and mash, fish and chips (now I know, I know there's more to Brits than those stereotypical dishes but you get my drift..) and listening to 'pop' music (well I don't love pop thaat much actually..) and hey, do you know that my parents love Classical music and dance to Shakira (well I just have weird parents..)? And did you know that Africa isn't a country but a continent?
....at this point I think I should breath and calm down. Because I know at one point, I was surprised when my Pakistani friend said she loved Jay Z. What was I thinking? That her parents were capable of killing her if she didn't marry her second cousin and that Jay Z was not 'part of my culture' and ooh my speaking of black boys in her home would get her stoned?
But that's where you can become swamped in this bubble if you go by the single story, if you don't open up your mind and realise that we all have our differences (which is a beautiful thing) but we also have similarities, whether you're black, white, yellow, blue, orange. We all love curries occasionally..(I, myself prefer Chinese..urr I'd love one now actually).
As a writer it's imperative that I don't use single stories in my characters, otherwise it's feeding these false images of fake people. That's where I love Chimamanda. Her characters are real, and her books have an emotional truth to them that many others books lack greatly. I'd like to think that when I do finally finish my novel, all my characters are realistic, but above everything else, contain more than one single story about themselves.
