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e7aaf1d
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For heaven's sake, what kind of question is that? Would you want to be friends with Humbert Humbert? Would you want to be friends with Mickey Sabbath? Saleem Sinai? Hamlet? Krapp? Oedipus? Oscar Wao? Antigone? Raskolnikov? Any of the characters in The Corrections? Any of the characters in Infinite Jest? Any of the characters in anything Pynchon has ever written? Or Martin Amis? Or Orhan Pamuk? Or Alice Munro, for that matter? If you're read..
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Roxane Gay |
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5b1ed21
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I've noticed while cooking, how ingredients in their individual and naked state and be a bit repulsive but necessary, kind of like people.
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Roxane Gay |
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950616e
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I looked plenty close, Mireille, and saw many beautiful things but I also saw terrible things. I can't pretend otherwise. You shouldn't expect me to." "Right,"
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Roxane Gay |
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2c11913
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Many comedians are very proud of themselves for saying the things others are supposedly afraid to say. They are at the forefront of this culture of entitlement where we get to do anything, think anything, and say anything.
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politics
rape-culture
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Roxane Gay |
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5596343
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During my twenties, my personal life was the hottest mess. The hottest. It will never be that messy again because I've grown up and I finally give enough of a damn about myself to avoid burning myself in that kind of fire. I'm still a mess, but I'm a different kind of mess now. I can generally identify what the mess is and where it's coming from.
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Roxane Gay |
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723015b
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I know that hunger is in the mind and the body and the heart and the soul.
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Roxane Gay |
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fbaeade
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The story of my life is wanting, hungering, for what I cannot have or, perhaps, wanting what I dare not allow myself to have. Many
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Roxane Gay |
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4a9f2a3
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I appreciate that at least some of who I am rises out of the worst day of my life and I don't want to change who I am.
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Roxane Gay |
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6e50465
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It's scary believing that you, as you are, could ever be enough.
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Roxane Gay |
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cd9c06f
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I don't want my lover seeing only a moment from my assault when they look at me. I don't want them to think me more fragile than I am. I am stronger than I am broken. I don't want them, or anyone, to think I am nothing more than the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
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Roxane Gay |
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a3bd7bb
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I want to look good. I want to feel good. I want to be beautiful in this body I am in.
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Roxane Gay |
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94585e0
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She didn't care if he was telling the truth. Milly felt nothing but she was very good at making men think otherwise. Sometimes, she nearly convinced herself.
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sex
love
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Roxane Gay |
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9b909d9
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Playing the Game of Privilege is mental masturbation - it only feels good to those playing the game.
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Roxane Gay |
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913c97c
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I remember so little from high school, but in the past few years, as my profile as a writer has gotten more visible, I've started to hear from the kids I went to high school with and, oddly enough, they all remember me distinctly. They reach out via e-mail, or Facebook, or at events, and ask me, eagerly, if I remember them too. They share anecdotes that make me seem like I was interesting and not as unbearable as I remember myself. I
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Roxane Gay |
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1bdd09c
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Milly is not, in fact, ugly, but she might as well be. She has a pretty face, which is the same thing as ugly when a woman is fat. In the complex calculus between men and women, Milly understands that fat is always ugly and that ugly and skinny makes a woman eminently more desirable than fat and any combination such as beautiful, charming, intelligent, or kind. Milly is all those things. She knows it doesn't matter.
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Roxane Gay |
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6e005d3
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At the time I was, and would continue to be for many years, obsessed with the Sweet Valley High books. I read them voraciously because I was nothing like Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield or even Enid Rollins. I would never date a boy like Todd Wilkins, the handsome captain of the basketball team, or Bruce Patman, the handsome, wealthy bad boy of Sweet Valley. When I read the books, though, I could pretend that a better life was possible for ..
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Roxane Gay |
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5d3594f
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A different day has come, though. I flinch less and less when I am touched. I don't always see gentleness as the calm before the storm because, more often than not, I can trust that no storm is coming. I harbor less hatred toward myself. I try to forgive myself for my trespasses.
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Roxane Gay |
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e53a2df
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Thank you to Law & Order: SVU for always being on television so I can have something familiar in the background as I write.
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Roxane Gay |
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1ebb67b
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Respectability politics suggest that there's a way for us to all be model (read: like white) citizens. We can always be better, but will we ever be ideal? Do we even want to be ideal, or is there a way for us to become more comfortably human?
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Roxane Gay |
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d5edfc0
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just one more reminder that the rules are always different for girls, no matter who they are and no matter what they do.
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women
girls
rights
rules
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Roxane Gay |
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c4aecc8
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I was always a good girl. I was a straight-A student, top of my class. I did as I was told. I was polite to my elders. I was good to my siblings. I went to church. It was very easy to hide how very bad I was becoming from my family, from everyone. Being good is the best way to be bad.
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mental-illness
mental-health
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Roxane Gay |
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a0906df
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Trayvon Martin is neither the first nor the last young black man who will be murdered because of the color of his skin. If there is such a thing as justice for a young man whose life was taken too soon, I hope justice comes from all of us learning from what happened. I hope we can rise to the occasion of greatness, where greatness is nothing more than trying to overcome our lesser selves by seeing a young man like Trayvon Martin for what he..
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Roxane Gay |
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e9fa27b
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Often in literary criticism, writers are told that a character isn't likable, as if a character's likability is directly proportional to the quality of a novel's writing.
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writing
likeability
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Roxane Gay |
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6faa602
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The older we get, the more labels and categories we collect
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Roxane Gay |
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0c4c184
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To read narrowly and shallowly is to read from a place of ignorance, and women writers can't fix that ignorance no matter what kind of books we write or how those books are marketed.
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Roxane Gay |
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980b151
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How do we reconcile the imperfections of feminism with all the good it can do? In truth, feminism is flawed because it is a movement powered by people and people are inherently flawed. For whatever reason, we hold feminism to an unreasonable standard where the movement must be everything we want and must always make the best choices. When feminism falls short of our expectations, we decide the problem is with feminism rather than with the f..
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Roxane Gay |
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3cbcf20
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We tend to believe that accusations of privilege imply we have it easy, which we resent because life is hard for nearly everyone.
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Roxane Gay |
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539bfbb
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Kindness bridges many differences too, and so does a love of One Tree Hill or Lost or beautiful books or terrible movies.
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Roxane Gay |
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2b01e70
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For every step forward, there is some asshole shoving progress back.
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Roxane Gay |
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8642fea
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Nostalgia is powerful. It is natural, human to long for the past, particularly when we can remember our histories as better than they were.
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past
nostalgia
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Roxane Gay |
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1140bf8
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You are willing to be abused for the mirage of fame in the desert of your life.
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Roxane Gay |
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cdfd05c
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I am often drawn to unlikable characters, to those who behave in socially unacceptable ways, say whatever is on their mind, and do what they want with varying levels of regard for the consequences. I want characters to do bad things and get away with their misdeeds. I want characters to think ugly thoughts and make ugly decisions. I want characters to make mistakes and put themselves first without apologizing for it.
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Roxane Gay |
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3b2982b
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When women respond negatively to misogynistic or rape humor, they are "sensitive" and branded as "feminist," a word that has, as of late, become a catchall term for "woman who does not tolerate bullshit."
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Roxane Gay |
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6bf5da6
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Too often, we fail to ask ourselves what sacrifices we will make for the greater good. What stands will we take? We expect role models to model the behaviors we are perfectly capable of modeling ourselves.
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Roxane Gay |
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08be09a
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It took you twelve years to see that being "good" had gotten your piano teacher everywhere and you nowhere at all. So you decide, for the first time in your life, that you aren't going to be one of the good girls anymore. You decide that "good" is not an adjective that ought to be applied to a person, as it only rendered you inanimate and inhuman, like a piece of cheese or a watercolor painting."
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Roxane Gay |
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5016ade
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If you're reading to find friends, you're in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities.
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reading
life
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Roxane Gay |
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57119be
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Take, for example, someone like Don Lemon. He is a black man, raised by a single mother, and now he is a successful news anchor for a major news network. His outlook seems driven by the notion that if he can make it, anyone can. This is the ethos espoused by people who believe in respectability politics. Because they have achieved success, because they have transcended, in some way, the effects of racism or other forms of discrimination, al..
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Roxane Gay |
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848080a
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We are, after all, supposed to be one nation indivisible. Only if we act as such, might we begin to truly effect change.
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Roxane Gay |
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665dbf3
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Girl children are not safe in a world where there are men. They need to learn to be strong. There
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Roxane Gay |
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fdf922b
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Feminists are 'just women who don't want to be treated like shit'.
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feminist
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Roxane Gay |
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ebd5b2f
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At night, Marcy worried about her ass and thighs. Her husband always said, "Baby, you are perfect," and she flushed angrily. His assurances were so reflexive as to be insulting."
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Roxane Gay |
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2d72de6
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Perhaps we expect gay public figures and other prominent queer people to come out, to stand and be counted, so they can do the work we're unwilling to do to change the world, to carry the burdens we are unwilling to shoulder, to take the stands we are unwilling to make. As individuals, we may not be able to do much, but when we're silent when someone uses the word "gay" as an insult, we are falling short. When we don't vote to support equal..
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Roxane Gay |
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152bda0
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but women are the only ones who can get pregnant
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Roxane Gay |
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7943b74
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If you're reading to find friends, you're in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn't "Is this a potential friend for me?" but "Is this character alive?"
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Roxane Gay |