12April2024
During class our professor had us watch two videos where African people spoke about knowing who you are so that others cannot label or define you. After watching the two videos, I found that it is important to know who you are, to be comfortable with your own identity, or else, someone will label you and their label will become who you think you are. In the Adichie video, I think her whole point was do not judge a book by its cover. Just because you hear something or even see something, you shouldn't assume all you see and hear on the surface is the truth. Before passing judgement, you should seek to know the truth by digging deeper. The danger of only staying on the surface and seeing a single story is that you will miss the truth and you will tell your stories based on assumptions and not truth. In Kumol Dumor's Ted Talk, he kept our attention with his humor, but beneath his humor he was trying to tell us that labels of origin really do not matter and that as we progress, those labels are becoming blurred. Whether you are from Nigeria or Ghana or Botswana, you are a person of African descent and capable of succeeding anywhere in the world. The key point he was trying to make is that if you want the truth of a story or situation, get your reports from the people that live it on a daily basis. He also talked about seeking out truth by talking to the people that live the story.
I think that our professor provided a diverse list of media outlets so that we could see the different labels and persuasive ways that people tell stories to either get you on board with their point of view or with the truth. In the coming exercises, we need to see the various ways that stories are told so we can learn to discern the truth. Both videos relate to the exercise we just completed about Haiti because it tells a story of how people feel about Africa from two different perspectives, the same way the two Haiti videos did. These videos relate to the objective of our class because it gets us communicating more about Africa and how to understand the truth about the dissemination of our people and not by just the labels that some media outlets want you to see.
Maybe we should ask ourselves, does the world define you or do you define yourself?
Hi Willie,
I enjoyed your analysis of the videos and the professor's message! I agree that Adichie was urging us not to believe everything we hear as the truth and even if it is the truth there can be more to the truth. Your concluding question is very thought-provoking!
I like your title define yourself it goes well with your blog and the speakers. Both speakers said your identity is very important and stop listening to the stereotype. The media can be your biggest enemy because you don't know what to believe until you see it with your own eyes and do your own research.