The Coming Of John

Chimamanda Adichie argues that the potential danger of a single story is that it simplifies complicated, complex people into one-dimensional stereotypes. Insufficient understanding of a group of individuals is produced when only one story about them is given. This results in bias, misrepresentation, and a persistent lack of understanding for the variety and depth of experiences that exist within every group. The one tale ends up being the sole perspective used to evaluate people, which is damaging in addition to being untrue.

"Nkali" describes how power is used when one group dominates the discourse about another. Adichie offers the example of how Western media frequently presents Africa singularly, mostly in terms of poverty, conflict, and illness, which minimizes Africans to one-dimensional victims, to illustrate her point. According to Adichie, stereotypes have the problem of not only simplifying a culture or a group but also depriving it of its complexity by neglecting the diversity and depth of people's lives.

The most important idea I’ll take with me is Adichie’s call to tell multiple stories. The most important idea I’ll take with me is Adichie’s call to tell multiple stories. She stresses the value of hearing other viewpoints and life experiences in order to obtain a more complete and accurate picture of the world. She serves as a reminder that the complexity of human experience cannot ever be adequately conveyed by a single story. Every individual, every community, and every culture has a variety of tales to tell.

W.E.B. Du Bois introduces two individuals, both named John, who stand in for radically different experiences and life paths in Of the Coming of John. The white character, John Henderson, is raised in a wealthy, segregated world where his privilege and rank are upheld through education. However, while he attempts to get an education, the black character, John Jones, experiences racial injustice and discrimination. Jones's education signifies both a traumatic encounter with the harsh truths of racial discrimination and a personal emancipation, whereas Henderson's education serves as a means of validating his supremacy in society. 

I feel like in order to examine the wider ramifications of race, education, and inequality more universally and symbolically, W.E.B. DuBois may have decided to write Of the Coming of John as a fictional tale. Rather than merely narrating a situation from real life, Du Bois was able to illustrate the profound emotional and psychological impacts of racism through the use of fiction. By employing the lives of the two Johns as metaphors for the more significant structural problems of race and oppression that African Americans encountered, fiction also gave him the opportunity to craft a potent, emotionally stirring story. 

Education plays a transformative and painful role in the life of John Jones. As he becomes educated, he is forced to confront the harsh realities of the racial divide in his society. Preparing for a future career certainly has the potential to change a person. It can expand one's worldview, expose one to new ideas, and encourage critical thinking.

Despite his education, John Jones's potential is limited by the one narrative of racial inferiority that society has forced upon him. Similar to this, Adichie's talk discusses how a single narrative about Africa or any other group of people can minimize their diversity and humanity by reducing them to stereotypes. Both pieces emphasize how critical it is to challenge and go beyond these constricting views.

George Floyd, a Black man, was killed in May 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by a police officer who kneeled on his neck for more than nine minutes while making an arrest. This is one horrific example. The incident brought attention to the persistent problems of racial profiling, police brutality, and systematic racism in the US and led to significant protests and cries for racial justice. Even while there has been a lot of progress since the Jim Crow era, there are still large racial disparities, as demonstrated by Floyd's death and the protests that followed throughout the world.