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426a2ff
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The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it's a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America. When you are black in America and you fall in love with a white person, race doesn't matter when you're alone together because it's just you and your love. But the minute you step outside..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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29b4470
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You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man. Do you hear me?" Aunty Ifeka said. "Your life belongs to you and you alone."
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men
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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87c3fda
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Racism should never have happened and so you don't get a cookie for reducing it.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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ed3efde
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Some people ask: "Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?" Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general--but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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c4a742a
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Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.
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feminism
women
humanity
gender-equality
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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34a7fde
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If you don't understand, ask questions. If you're uncomfortable about asking questions, say you are uncomfortable about asking questions and then ask anyway. It's easy to tell when a question is coming from a good place. Then listen some more. Sometimes people just want to feel heard. Here's to possibilities of friendship and connection and understanding.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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1b82ec8
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The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn't have the weight of gender expectations.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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9ff9588
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This was love: a string of coincidences that gathered significance and became miracles.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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5c452d6
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We spend too much time teaching girls to worry about what boys think of them. But the reverse is not the case. We don't teach boys to care about being likable. We spend too much time telling girls that they cannot be angry or aggressive or tough, which is bad enough, but then we turn around and either praise or excuse men for the same reasons. All over the world, there are so many magazine articles and books telling women what to do, how to..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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0cf07a0
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I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femaleness and my femininity. And I want to be respected in all of my femaleness because I deserve to be.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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047833e
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Why did people ask "What is it about?" as if a novel had to be about only one thing."
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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c1ba8bc
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A woman at a certain age who is unmarried, our society teaches her to see it as a deep personal failure. And a man, after a certain age isn't married, we just think he hasn't come around to making his pick.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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8f25c6d
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Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice.
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racism
white-privilege
racism-in-america
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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9e5e5f7
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There are some things that are so unforgivable that they make other things easily forgivable.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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d015506
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Teach her that if you criticize X in women but do not criticize X in men, then you do not have a problem with X, you have a problem with women.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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1b7162b
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my point is that the only authentic identity for the African is the tribe...I am Nigerian because a white man created Nigeria and gave me that identity. I am black because the white man constructed to be as different as possible from his . But I was Igbo before the white man came.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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4d03825
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My own definition is a feminist is a man or a woman who says, yes, there's a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better. All of us, women and men, must do better.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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2bf0cdd
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We teach girls shame. "Close your legs. Cover yourself." We make them feel as though being born female they're already guilty of something. And so, girls grow up to be women who cannot say they have desire. They grow up to be women who silence themselves. They grow up to be women who cannot say what they truly think. And they grow up -- and this is the worst thing we do to girls -- they grow up to be women who have turned pretense into an a..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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2e815e2
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Your feminist premise should be: I matter. I matter equally. Not "if only." Not "as long as." I matter equally. Full stop."
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feminist
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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ef76e63
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Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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a4e06d5
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Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I'm Jamaican or I'm Ghanaian. America doesn't care.
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race
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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949402e
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How easy it was to lie to strangers, to create with strangers the versions of our lives we imagined.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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bef775f
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She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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36b92c6
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Relaxing your hair is like being in prison. You're caged in. Your hair rules you. You didn't go running with Curt today because you don't want to sweat out this straightness. You're always battling to make your hair do what it wasn't meant to do.
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black
hair
race
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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242ae8f
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You can't write a script in your mind and then force yourself to follow it. You have to let yourself be.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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42483df
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Teach her that the idea of 'gender roles' is absolute nonsense. Do not ever tell her that she should or should not do something because she is a girl
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equality
feminism
inspirational
gender-roles
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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16d34fe
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The knowledge of cooking does not come pre-installed in a vagina.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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25924f2
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Teach her that the idea of 'gender roles' is absolute nonsense. Do not ever tell her that she should or should not do something because she is a girl. 'Because you are a girl' is never reason for anything. Ever.
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feminism
inspirational
gender-roles
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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be267bb
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We did that often, asking each other questions whose answers we already knew. Perhaps it was so that we would not ask the other questions, the ones whose answers we did not want to know.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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5bfac87
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The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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35a8734
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If you're telling a non-black person about something racist that happened to you, make sure you are not bitter. Don't complain. Be forgiving. If possible, make it funny. Most of all, do not be angry. Black people are not supposed to be angry about racism. Otherwise you get no sympathy. This applies only for white liberals, by the way. Don't even bother telling a white conservative about anything racist that happened to you. Because the cons..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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f80ab5e
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Gender as it functions today is a grave injustice. I am angry. We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change. But I am also hopeful, because I believe deeply in the ability of human beings to remake themselves for the better.
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gender
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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29e1d51
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Alexa and the other guests, and perhaps even Georgina, all understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls, but they would not understand the need to escape from the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness. They would not understand why people like him who were raised well fed and watered but mired in dissatisfaction, conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else, eternally convinced that real lives ..
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nigeria
immigration
race
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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babd1de
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And then we do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males. We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls: You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man. If you are the breadwinner in your relationship with a man, pretend that you are not, especially in public, otherwis..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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5112983
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I often make the mistake of thinking that something that is obvious to me is just as obvious to everyone else.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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8a75e7f
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The real tragedy of our postcolonial world is not that the majority of people had no say in whether or not they wanted this new world; rather, it is that the majority have not been given the tools to negotiate this new world.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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566ecc4
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I am angry. We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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aa7e77c
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A Nigerian acquaintance once asked me if I was worried that men would be intimidated by me. I was not worried at all--it had not even occurred to me to be worried, because a man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the kind of man I would have no interest in.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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08bae8d
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She wanted to ask him why they were all strangers who shared the same last name.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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9c16683
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She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself. With him, she was at ease; her skin felt as though it was her right size.. It seemed so natural, to talk to him about odd things. She had never done that before. The trust, so sudden and yet so complete, and the intimacy, frightened her.. But now she could think only of all the things she yet wanted t..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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275982b
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If we do something over and over, it becomes normal. If we see the same thing over and over, it becomes normal.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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99aec4f
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That her relationship with him was like being content in a house but always sitting by the window and looking out
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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4b31fd9
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When it comes to dressing well, American culture is so self-fulfilled that it has not only disregarded this courtesy of self-presentation, but has turned that disregard into a virtue. "We are too superior/busy/cool/not-uptight to bother about how we look to other people, and so we can wear pajamas to school and underwear to the mall."
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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6777282
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I am trying to unlearn many lessons of gender I internalized while growing up. But I sometimes still feel vulnerable in the face of gender expectations.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |