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15a95b9
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He looked people in the eye not because he was interested in them but because he knew it made them feel that he was interested in them
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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5ca9a48
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It felt strange to call them directly, to hear her father's "Hello?" after the second ring, and when he heard her voice, he raised his, almost shouting, as he always did with international calls. Her mother liked to take the phone out to the verandah, to make sure the neighbors overheard: "Ifem, how is the weather in America?"
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parents
parents-and-children
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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1186a2e
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They are always so quiet," he said, turning to Papa. "So quiet." "They are not like those loud children people are raising these days, with no home training and no fear of God," Papa said, and I was certain that it was pride that stretched Papa's lips and lightened his eyes. "Imagine what the Standard would be if we were all quiet." It was a joke. Ade Coker was laughing; so was his wife, Yewanda. But Papa did not laugh. Jaja and I turned an..
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fathers
suppression
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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0288526
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Please do not go to Kmart and buy twenty pairs of jeans because each costs five dollars. The jeans are not running away. They will be there tomorrow at an even more reduced price. You are now in America: do not expect to have hot food for lunch. That African taste must be abolished. When you visit the home of an American with some money, they will offer to show you their house. Forget that in your house back home, your father would throw a ..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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5eb09ee
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I didn't know I was even supposed to have issues until I came to America.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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5775331
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When Ifemelu met Obinze, she told Aunty Uju that she had met the love of her life, and Aunty Uju told her to let him kiss and touch but not to let him put it inside
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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23fb443
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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." --
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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9c8952b
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You read American fiction to learn about dysfunctional white folk doing things that are weird to normal white folks.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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30c0048
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We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be, in Nigerian-speak, a hard man.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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4d175ec
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Are you the first person to have this problem? You have to get up and hustle. Everybody is hustling, Lagos is about hustling," Nneoma said."
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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34416ca
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Still, I was struck by this. Because I am female, I'm expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Marriage can be a good thing, a source of joy, love and mutual support. But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage, yet we don't teach boys to do the same? I
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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1c4c038
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Papa said that the parish priest in Abba was not spiritual enough. That was the problem with our people, Papa told us, our priorities were wrong; we cared too much about huge church buildings and mighty statues. You would never see white people doing that.
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judgment
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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b83f63e
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It is easy to say, 'But women can just say no to all this.' But the reality is more difficult, more complex. We are all social beings. We internalize ideas from our socialization. Even
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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187c4b4
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We raise girls to see each other as competitors - not for jobs or accomplishments, which in my opinion can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way boys are. If we have sons, we don't mind knowing about their girlfriends. But our daughters' boyfriends? God forbid.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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94802ee
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And so girls grow up to be women who cannot say they have desire. Who silence themselves. Who cannot say what they truly think. Who have turned pretence into an art form. I
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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e8c04e5
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Our world is full of men and women who do not like powerful women. We have been so conditioned to think of power as male that a powerful woman is an aberration. And so she is policed. We ask of powerful women: Is she humble? Does she smile? Is she grateful enough? Does she have a domestic side? Questions we do not ask of powerful men, which shows that our discomfort is not with power itself, but with women. We judge powerful women more hars..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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86e8356
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Everything is about them now." "One day they will be grown and leave home and you will just be a source of embarrassment or exasperation for them and they won't take your phone calls or won't call you for weeks,"
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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2742076
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Our world is full of men and women who do not like powerful women.
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feminist
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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80a51a2
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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. I
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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325c04a
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breadfruit seeds she had offered him was untouched--he no longer ate anything at all of hers--and she looked at him, this man wearing trousers, and a rosary around his neck, and wondered whether she had meddled with his destiny.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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5505606
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Grace would ponder this story for a long time, with great sadness, and it would cause her to make a clear link between education and dignity, between the hard, obvious things that are printed in books and the soft, subtle things that lodge themselves into the soul.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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d9617dc
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Try listening, maybe. Hear what is being said. And remember that it's not about you. American Blacks are not telling you that you are to blame. They are just telling you what is. 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..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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93ef5b7
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When I lost my whole family, every single one, it was as if I had been born all over again," Inatimi told Richard in his quiet way. "I was a new person because I no longer had family to remind me of what I had been."
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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e74cd50
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Feminism and femininity are not mutually exclusive. It is misogynistic to suggest that they are.
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feminism
misogyny
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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5832d03
|
What struck me--with her and with many other female American friends I have--is how invested they are in being "liked." How they have been raised to believe that their being likable is very important and that this "likable" trait is a specific thing. And that specific thing does not include showing anger or being aggressive or disagreeing too loudly."
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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dcd2d0d
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She felt bitter toward them at first, because when she tried to talk about the things she had left behind in Nsukka--her books, her piano, her clothes, her china, her wigs, her Singer sewing machine, the television--they ignored her and started to talk about something else. Now she understood that nobody talked about the things left behind
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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1f885a7
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Siempre he tenido la impresion de que es imposible conocer debidamente un lugar o a una persona sin conocer todas las historias de ese lugar o esa persona. La consecuencia del relato unico es la siguiente: priva a las personas de su dignidad. Nos dificulta reconocer nuestra comun humanidad. Enfatiza en que nos diferenciamos en lugar de en que nos parecemos
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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f95fbba
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My name is not Sah. Call me Odenigbo.' 'Yes, sah.' 'Odenigbo will always be my name. Sir is arbitrary. You could be the sir tomorrow.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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ae2fee9
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Education is a priority! How can we resist exploitation if we don't have the tools to understand exploitation?
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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9b3c227
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His mind had not changed at the same pace as his life, and he felt a hollow space between himself and the person he was supposed to be.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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a9ee191
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Talk to her about sex, and start early. It will probably be a bit awkward, but it is necessary.
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sex-education
parenting
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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5e3829e
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When Buchi said "Amen!" with that delight, that gusto, Obinze feared she would grow up to be a woman who, with that word "amen," would squash the questions she wanted to ask of the world."
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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5cf6552
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You know, like race is a brew best served mild, tempered with other liquids, otherwise white folk can't swallow it.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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87a4118
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Men's grooming is never suspect in the way women's grooming is--a well-dressed man does not worry that, because he is dressed well, certain assumptions might be made about his intelligence, his ability, or his seriousness. A woman, on the other hand, is always aware of how a bright lipstick or a carefully-put-together outfit might very well make others assume her to be frivolous.
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feminism
fashion
sexism
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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7bb4f3a
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Never speak of marriage as an achievement.
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feminist
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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1888034
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Never apologize for working. You love what you do, and loving what you do is a great gift to give your child.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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3b83444
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Let's have a child," he said again. "A little girl just like you, and we will call her Obianuju because she will complete us."
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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1bff097
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Does she have a domestic side? Questions we do not ask of powerful men, which shows that our discomfort is not with power itself, but with women. We judge powerful women more harshly than we judge powerful men. And Feminism Lite enables this.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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7f4effd
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Red was the blood of the siblings massacred in the North, black was for mourning them, green was for the prosperity Biafra would have, and, finally, the half of a yellow sun stood for the glorious future
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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9e33dad
|
She looked at him in wonder. This was love: a string of coincidences that gathered significance and became miracles.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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08a3d75
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it's wrong of you to think that love leaves room for nothing else. It's possible to love something and still condescend to it.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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eb9ba19
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I am an agnostic respecter of religion.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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3668b20
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He blamed her for making him a person who was not entirely in control of what he was feeling.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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f8fc5d1
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Love was a kind of grief.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |