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a00770a
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As with Inglourious Basterds using World War II, Tarantino once again managed to find a traumatic cultural experience of a marginalized people that has little to do with his own history, and used that cultural experience to exercise his hubris for making farcically violent, vaguely funny movies that set to right historical wrongs from a very limited, privileged position.
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Roxane Gay |
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72027a0
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Even at that young age, I understood that to be fat was to be undesirable to men, to be beneath their contempt, and I already knew too much about their contempt. This is what most girls are taught--that we should be slender and small. We should not take up space. We should be seen and not heard, and if we are seen, we should be pleasing to men, acceptable to society. And most women know this, that we are supposed to disappear, but it's some..
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Roxane Gay |
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df1e68d
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We hold all people to unspoken rules about who and how they should be, how they should think, and what they should say. We say we hate stereotypes but take issue when people deviate from those stereotypes. Men don't cry. Feminists don't shave their legs. Southerners are racist. Everyone is, by virtue of being human, some kind of rule breaker, and my goodness, do we hate when the rules are broken.
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stereotypes
rule-breakers
feminists
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Roxane Gay |
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7561164
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Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read. Reading and writing have always pulled me out of the darkest experiences in my life. Stories have given me a place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forget. They have allowed me to imagine different endings and better possible worlds.
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Roxane Gay |
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f682205
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I learned how to live in my head, where I could ignore the world that refused to accept me,
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Roxane Gay |
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c3628d0
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I felt so utterly alone and because I no longer need the layers of protection I built around myself but pulling those layers back is harder than I could have ever imagined.
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Roxane Gay |
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8616096
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We have spent countless hours focused on manners, education, the perils of drugs. We teach them about stranger-danger and making good choices. But recently I've become aware that we must speak to our children about boundaries between the sexes. And what it means to not be a danger to someone else. To that end, we are making an effort to teach our sons about affirmative consent. We explain that the onus is on them to explicitly ask if their ..
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Roxane Gay |
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08afcd0
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What this debate shows us is that even in this day and age, the rights of women are not inalienable. Our rights can be and are, with alarming regularity, stripped away. I struggle to accept that my body is a legislative matter. The truth of this fact makes it difficult for me to breathe. I don't feel like I have inalienable rights. I don't feel free. I don't feel like my body is my own.
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Roxane Gay |
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d6afcdc
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The majority of people who are stopped and frisked in New York are black or Latino because these demographics fit our cultural profile of danger. These are the supposed barbarians at the gate, not the boy with the "soulful brown eyes."
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Roxane Gay |
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6a11ba6
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I no longer want to believe these problems are too complex for us to make sense of them.
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racism
race-relations
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Roxane Gay |
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b3e295e
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We are all free to be assholes, but we are not free to do so without consequence.
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freedom-of-speech
free-speech
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Roxane Gay |
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9b46abd
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Honey, you're not crazy. You're a woman.
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Roxane Gay |
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09ea93c
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Here I am showing you the ferocity of my hunger. Here I am, finally freeing myself to be vulnerable and terribly human. Here I am, reveling in that freedom. Here. See what I hunger for and what my truth has allowed me to create.
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hunger
vulnerability
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Roxane Gay |
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20dfd95
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Angry women are always the villains.
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Roxane Gay |
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32816c7
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We need to get to a place where we discuss privilege by way of observation and acknowledgment rather than accusation. We need to be able to argue beyond the threat of privilege. We need to stop playing Privilege or Oppression Olympics because we'll never get anywhere until we find more effective ways of talking through difference. We should be able to say, "This is my truth," and have that truth stand without a hundred clamoring voices shou..
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privilege
understanding-oneself-and-others
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Roxane Gay |
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be06c20
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People see bodies like mine and make their assumptions. They think they know the why of my body. They do not.
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Roxane Gay |
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b04b4e7
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Change requires intent and effort. It really is that simple. The
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Roxane Gay |
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309b2e7
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It is startling to realize that even Oprah, a woman in her early sixties, a billionaire and one of the most famous women in the world, isn't happy with herself, her body.
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Roxane Gay |
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f5c4fe5
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This is the woman who brought us the idea of living our best life, of becoming our most authentic selves. And yet. In 2015, Winfrey bought a 10 percent stake in Weight Watchers, an investment of $40 million. In one of her many commercials for the brand, she says, "Let's make this the year of our best body." The implication is, of course, that our current bodies are not our best bodies, not by a long shot. It is startling to realize that eve..
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Roxane Gay |
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b6e8c84
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sheltered. I knew nothing about anything. I didn't know I could suffer or the breadth and scope of what suffering could be. I didn't know that I could give voice to my suffering when I did suffer. I didn't know there were better ways to deal with my suffering. Of all the things I wish I knew then that I know now, I wish I had known I could talk to my parents and get help, and turn to something other than food.
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Roxane Gay |
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6afc187
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no one wants to hear fat-girl stories of taking up too much space and still finding nowhere to fit. People prefer the stories of the too-skinny girls who starve themselves and exercise too much and are gray and gaunt and disappearing in plain sight.
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Roxane Gay |
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c90d1ab
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Why do we view the boundaries people create for themselves as challenges? Why do we see someone setting a limit and then try to push? Once, I was at a restaurant with a large group of people and the waitress kept touching me. It was really fucking annoying because I don't want to be touched like that unless we are in a sexual relationship. Every time she passed by, she would rub my shoulders or run her hand down my arm and I kept getting mo..
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personal-space
hugging
respect
intimacy
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Roxane Gay |
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08943c8
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He has told me, "I am only telling you what no one else will," but of course, he is telling me what the world is always telling me, everywhere I go."
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Roxane Gay |
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67ff6ef
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It's scary, though, trying to be yourself and hoping yourself is enough. It's scary believing that you, as you are, could ever be enough.
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Roxane Gay |
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9b5dbde
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The ways we are taught to be a girl start when you are very young. When you are being taught, you don't know about the points. When you are being taught to be a girl, the lessons are simply accepted-the price you pay for your curves, your holes. It's only later, when you are older, after you've been taught, that you find out about the score sheet.
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misogyny
rape-culture
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Roxane Gay |
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3fa6a1c
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floccinaucinihilipilification--the action or habit of estimating something as worthless.
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Roxane Gay |
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6b32f67
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Sometimes, people who, I think, mean well like to tell me I am not fat. They will say things like, "Don't say that about yourself," because they understand "fat" as something shameful, something insulting, while I understand "fat" as a reality of my body. When I use the word, I am not insulting myself. I am describing myself."
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Roxane Gay |
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004b5b2
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Black women are rarely allowed their femininity.
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Roxane Gay |
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6dedf3f
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Feminism, as of late, has suffered from a certain guilt by association because we conflate feminism with women who advocate feminism as part of their personal brand. When these figureheads say what we want to hear, we put them up on the Feminist Pedestal, and when they do something we don't like, we knock them right off and then say there's something wrong with feminism because our feminist leaders have failed us. We forget the difference b..
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feminists
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Roxane Gay |
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d0211e0
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Doctors generally adhere to the Hippocratic oath, where they swear to abide by an ethical code, where they swear to act, always, in their patients' best interests. Unless the patient is overweight. I hate going to the doctor because they seem wholly unwilling to follow the Hippocratic oath when it comes to treating obese patients. The words "first do no harm" do not apply to unruly bodies. There" --
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Roxane Gay |
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56eb446
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so much testimony is demanded of women, and still, there are those who doubt our stories.
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Roxane Gay |
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d8207d5
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I no longer need the body fortress I built. I need to tear down some of the walls, and I need to tear down those walls for me and me alone, no matter what good may come of that demolition. I think of it as undestroying myself.
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Roxane Gay |
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cbad5ae
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Angry women care. Angry women speak and yell and sob their truths.
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feminism
rape-culture
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Roxane Gay |
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0263db0
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We need to get to a place where we discuss privilege by way of observation and acknowledgment rather than accusation. We need to be able to argue beyond the threat of privilege. We need to stop playing Privilege or Oppression Olympics because we'll never get anywhere until we find more effective ways
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Roxane Gay |
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3635920
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Disagreement, however, is not anger.
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difference-of-opinion
disagreement
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Roxane Gay |
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f3ac1cd
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I have two wardrobes. One, the clothes I wear everyday, is made up mostly of dark denim jeans, black T-shirts, and, for special occasions, dress shirts. These clothes shroud my cowardice. These are the clothes I feel safe in. This is the armor I wear to face the world, and I assure you, armor is needed. I tell myself this armor is all I need. When I wear my typical uniform, it feels like safety, like I can hide in plain sight. I become less..
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body-image
clothes
uniform
fashion
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Roxane Gay |
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88ea9c9
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It is strange, and perhaps sad, that medical doctors came up with this terminology when they are charged with first doing no harm.
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women
feminismism
obese
obesity
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Roxane Gay |
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bf504e8
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I step away as I notice a group of young, angry men walking toward us. I doubt that there is any particular reason for their anger. It is the anger that most men feel these days; they are angry about their impotence and their desires and their reality. It is an anger we all feel. But it is an anger only men can freely express.
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men
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Roxane Gay |
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9c34f9f
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My heart received even less consideration than my body, so I tried to lock it away but never quite succeeded.
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Roxane Gay |
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a580a1d
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In my teens and early twenties, I often went clothes shopping with my mother and I could always see her dismay at where I am forced to shop. I could see that she wished her daughter had a different body. I could see her humiliation and frustration. ... I harbored no small amount of frustration, or anger, for her words, for her disappointment in me, for my inability to be a good daughter, for one more thing I couldn't have - the simple pleas..
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mothers-and-daughters
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Roxane Gay |
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fac752f
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Like many writers, I lived inside of books as a child.
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reading
childhood
writers
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Roxane Gay |
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9d92b14
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The past is written on my body.
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Roxane Gay |
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0d9994c
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The ways in which I am my mother's daughter are infinite.
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Roxane Gay |
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dcf423c
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Every time I watch a yogurt commercial I think, my god, I want to be that happy. I really do.
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Roxane Gay |