In her powerful TED Talk, Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi spoke to “the danger of a single story.” Even 17 years later, her message remains pertinent – power continues to control “how [stories] are told, who tells them, when they’re told, [and] how many stories are told” (9:25). Sometimes, she argues, single stories come from simple misunderstandings and generalizations; other times, they can intentionally and maliciously suppress the stories of other groups that have less access to power.

The White male Founding Father story of the US is one such single story. On the eve of its 250th birthday, this version of American history continues to be the dominant way American history becomes available to the public, as federal policy seems more set than ever to shut down any voices that tell other stories. In this class, we will look beyond this story, investigating the exceptional level of violence used to maintain it.

On the one hand, we will therefore be exploring the systemic manifestations of this violence, such as “slave patrols,” Indigenous child abductions, Jim Crow, vagrancy laws, Night Riders, Operation Wetback, Chinese Exclusion Act, Palmer Raids, McCarthyism, COINTELPRO, ICE, among others.

On the other hand, we will attempt to include the perspectives of the people who have and continue to suffer from structural violence by focusing on individual “stories” of survival and of excellence that have also shaped the history of the US in the face of this very violence. One way to do this is to understand the depth of contributions by Black, Brown, Asian, Latinx, and Indigenous men and women in the fields of medicine, technology, and the arts. Oftentimes, their legacy has been silenced or overwritten due to systemic racial power dynamics – or what do we really know about the people who invented, e.g., dry cleaning, chemotherapy, the doorknob?

To this end, we will look to historical documents and texts, literature, the law, and the media, rereading and uncovering the evidence of other stories through an intersectional and feminist lens to critically reflect on the myths and generalizations that often shape this discourse within the dominant narrative.

Ngozi Adichie, Chimamanda. “The danger of a single story.” TED TALK, 7 Oct. 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg.