Name: 【TED】Sisonke Msimang: If a story moves you, act on it (If a story moves you, act on it | Sisonke Msimang)
Uploaded: 2017-02-10T04:41:27.000Z
Duration: 12 min 47 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Basic passive voice

I was informed that I would be doing a TED Talk.

and in between the excitement and the panicking,

and my research primarily consisted of Googling how to give a great TED Talk.

So I was Googling her because I always Google her

but also because she always has important and interesting things to say.

on what happens when we have a solitary lens

through which to understand certain groups of people,

It's the talk that I would have given if I had been famous first.

You know, and you know, like, she's African and I'm African,

and she's a storyteller and I'm a storyteller,

So I decided that I was going to learn how to code,

and then I was going to hack the internet

and I would take down all the copies of that talk that existed,

and then I would come here and deliver it as if it was my own speech.

So that plan was going really well, except the coding part,

to the news that the wife of a certain presidential candidate

that sounded eerily like a speech given by one of my other faves,

And so I decided that I should probably write my own TED Talk,

I'm here to talk about my own observations about storytelling.

I want to talk to you about the power of stories, of course,

but I also want to talk about their limitations,

particularly for those of us who are interested in social justice.

So since Adichie gave that talk seven years ago,

and if there was a danger in the telling of one tired old tale,

then I think there has got to be lots to celebrate about the flourishing

In fact, today, if you are middle class and connected via the internet,

you can download stories at the touch of a button

about what it's like to grow up Dalit in Kolkata.

You can hear an indigenous man in Australia

talk about the trials and triumphs of raising his children in dignity

to talk about the deaths of people in our societies

who don't matter, because they make us care.

and I actually work for a place called the Centre for Stories.

that challenge mainstream narratives about what it means to be black

or a Muslim or a refugee or any of those other categories

after a long history as a social justice activist,

that people talk about nonfiction storytelling

as though it's about more than entertainment,

as though it's about being a catalyst for social action.

that stories make the world a better place.

Increasingly, though, I worry that even the most poignant stories,

particularly the stories about people who no one seems to care about,

can often get in the way of action towards social justice.

Now, this is not because storytellers mean any harm.

Storytellers are often do-gooders like me and, I suspect, yourselves.

are often deeply compassionate and empathetic people.

Still, good intentions can have unintended consequences,

and so I want to propose that stories are not as magical as they seem.

So three -- because it's always got to be three --

that stories don't necessarily make the world a better place.

Firstly, stories can create an illusion of solidarity.

There is nothing like that feel-good factor you get

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【TED】Sisonke Msimang: If a story moves you, act on it (If a story moves you, act on it | Sisonke Msimang)

instinct

applause

panic

necessarily