Talk Clearly about What is Reality – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I take a college class three times a year to broaden my horizons and keep the brain in gear. In a Women's Literature class I took last year, I learned of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from a Ted Talk entitled, "The Danger of a Single Story." She tells it clearly just like it is, discussing the effects of putting one person's story on top of the hierarchy as more important than another.

We are now at a time in the history of the United States when a single story of Donald Trump could impact what our country has stood for historically. According to Adichie, "Now is the time to counter lies with facts, repeatedly and unflaggingly, while also proclaiming the greater truths: of our equal humanity, of decency, of compassion. Every precious ideal must be reiterated, every obvious argument made, because an ugly idea left unchallenged begins to turn the color of normal. It does not have to be like this."

"Now is the time to refuse the blurring of memory. Each mention of “gridlock” under Obama must be wrought in truth: that “gridlock” was a deliberate and systematic refusal of the Republican Congress to work with him. Now is the time to call things what they actually are, because language can illuminate truth as much as it can obfuscate it. Now is the time to forge new words. “Alt-right” is benign. “White-supremacist right” is more accurate."

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/now-is-the-time-to-talk-about-what-we-are-actually-talking-about