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f21ffc8
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We live in a culture where athletes are revered, and overlooking terrible, criminal behavior is the price we are seemingly willing to pay for our reverence. Amen.
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Roxane Gay |
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92781cf
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5B. If you and your friend(s) are in the same field and you can collaborate or help each other, do this without shame. It's not your fault your friends are awesome. Men invented nepotism and practically live by it. It's okay for women to do it too.
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Roxane Gay |
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57b2aba
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When you look past the image, a celebrity is merely a person you know nothing about.
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Roxane Gay |
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0a9a636
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Feminism has helped me believe my voice matters, even in this world where there are so many voices demanding to be heard.
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Roxane Gay |
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ac35f6e
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I hate when people say something is not their job or that something isn't possible. We all say these things, sure, but some people actually believe they don't have to work beyond what is written in their job description or that they don't have to try to reach those who seemingly cannot be reached.
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Roxane Gay |
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b6e9cc9
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To read narrowly and shallowly is to read from a place of ignorance,
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Roxane Gay |
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940a8eb
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What I remind myself, regularly, is this: the acknowledgment of my privilege is not a denial of the ways I have been and am marginalized, the ways I have suffered. You
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Roxane Gay |
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f707758
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I know this world. I live in it too. There's no shelter or safety or escape from the cruel stares and comments, the too-small seats, the too-small everything for your too-big body.
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fat-phobia
fat-shaming
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Roxane Gay |
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d408a7c
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My body is treated like a public space. 62 Air travel is another kind of hell.
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Roxane Gay |
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24ba98f
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it's pretty easy to frame an argument convincingly by being selective in the data presented.
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Roxane Gay |
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cf6f0c0
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A man has never told me he likes me. Like is more interesting than love.
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relationships
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Roxane Gay |
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e0ecd2c
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Look at white men when they are accused of having privilege. They tend to be immediately defensive (and, at times, understandably so). They say, "It's not my fault I am a white man," or "I'm [insert other condition that discounts their privilege]," instead of simply accepting that, in this regard, yes, they benefit from certain privileges others do not. To have privilege in one or more areas does not mean you are wholly privileged. Surrende..
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Roxane Gay |
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5436bcf
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I am weary of all our sad stories--not hearing them, but that we have these stories to tell, that there are so many. 72 In
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Roxane Gay |
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ace31fd
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I am not promiscuous with my warmth, but when I share it, my warmth can be as hot as the sun. 74 Part of the reason relationships and friendships can be so difficult for me
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Roxane Gay |
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6004718
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When you're overweight, your body becomes a matter of public record in many respects. Your body is constantly and prominently on display. People project assumed narratives onto your body and are not at all interested in the truth of your body, whatever that truth might be. Fat,
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Roxane Gay |
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37da821
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When it's hot, I sweat profusely, mostly from my head, and then I feel self-conscious and find myself constantly wiping the sweat from my face. Rivulets of sweat spring forth between my breasts and pool at the base of my spine. My shirt gets damp and sweat stains begin seeping through the fabric. I feel like people are staring at me sweating and judging me for having an unruly body that perspires so wantonly, that dares to reveal the costs ..
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Roxane Gay |
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d92331c
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These are the ugliest, weakest, barest parts of me. This is my truth.
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Roxane Gay |
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e6a612a
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I love food, but it is so difficult to enjoy food. It is so difficult to believe I am allowed to enjoy food. Mostly, food is a constant reminder of my body, my lack of willpower, my biggest flaws.
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Roxane Gay |
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ad6c827
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That was the first time I realized that weight loss, thinness really, was social currency.
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Roxane Gay |
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160b805
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And it's a shame that the measure is what is not so bad [in relationships and partners] instead of what is thriving and good [...] I have had good relationships, but it's hard to trust that because what I consider good doesn't always feel very good at all.
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Roxane Gay |
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6ec489f
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We should be able to say, "This is my truth," and have that truth stand without a hundred clamoring voices shouting, giving the impression that multiple truths cannot coexist."
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Roxane Gay |
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6a81750
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I taste the idea of grocery shopping without strangers taking food they disapprove of out of my cart or offering me unsolicited nutrition advice.
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Roxane Gay |
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bfb055e
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If your man or woman is a scrub, just own it so you and your friends can talk about more interesting things. My go-to explanation is "I am dating an asshole because I'm lazy."
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Roxane Gay |
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3e80eda
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I don't know how things got so out of control, or I do. This is my refrain. Losing control of my body was a matter of accretion. I began eating to change my body. I was willful in this. Some boys had destroyed me, and I barely survived it. I knew I wouldn't be able to endure another such violation, and so I ate because I thought that if my body became repulsive, I could keep men away. Even at that young age, I understood that to be fat was ..
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Roxane Gay |
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acc3aa9
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I shouted, "This is not right," knowing my words were useless. There's no room for such distinctions in a country where too many people have to claw for what they need and still have nothing to hold. My" --
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Roxane Gay |
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5eabb3c
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Until that moment, Michael had not understood the vastness of the world and how small a place he held in it,
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Roxane Gay |
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e5e4b25
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What is truly terrifying is the exact knowledge of what will come and being unable to save yourself from it. Grabbing
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Roxane Gay |
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bb1dba2
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I wanted to tell him I saw the exact same things he did, that this country was a lot for anyone to take, but it was easier to pretend I didn't. Back
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Roxane Gay |
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00bb395
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How could I forget? We had a blast but we were surrounded by misery. That is hard to take. I'm just being honest." "Michael,"
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Roxane Gay |
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c85d692
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I don't understand women like you," he said, winding down. "You could have made things easier for yourself. Would it be so hard to play nice with me?" "I don't understand men like you. You could have made things easier for me." "You"
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Roxane Gay |
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3c14a51
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The brochure made everything look bucolic and inviting, so I knew, instantly, not to trust such propaganda. My
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Roxane Gay |
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aac4cc3
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You people are all the same. You live in your grand homes looking down on us in the gutter. You think you control everything and can have anything." "There"
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Roxane Gay |
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98e569c
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I ran through these streets and thought, "This is a Haiti I have never seen or known." It was a Haiti no one should have to know. I"
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Roxane Gay |
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fee52d4
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People like you always choose to absolve yourselves. You are complicit even if you do not actively contribute to the problem because you do nothing to solve it." I"
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Roxane Gay |
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626f99e
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I stared at the woman who betrayed me. I shouted, "How could you? We are both daughters of Dessalines." She stood perfectly still. She did not blink. She did not look away with her dry eyes. By"
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Roxane Gay |
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fb7544a
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The mother kills one child to feed twelve, and one child to feed eleven, and one child to feed ten until she is left with but one child, whom she also slaughters because she too hungers. Finally, she returns to the middle of a cornfield where she slaughtered her other children, where the bones of their thirteen bodies lay. She slits her own throat because she cannot bear the burden of having done what needed to be done. After telling me thi..
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Roxane Gay |
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4247156
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I made my choice. There is nothing you cannot do when you are no one.
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Roxane Gay |
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09f3701
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And now, she knew her husband had lied to her. So many years, following him to so many places, and he had repaid her with such staggering deceit.
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Roxane Gay |
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d410f3b
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One thing he had learned in this life--there were always barbarians at both sides of the gate. He
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Roxane Gay |
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607e73b
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Sometimes, when you least expect it, you become the girl in the woods. You lose your name because another one is forced on you. You think you are alone until you find books about girls like you. 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 place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forg..
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Roxane Gay |
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91fe692
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In many ways, likability is a very elaborate lie, a performance, a code of conduct dictating the proper way to be.
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Roxane Gay |
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6890edd
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Even now, you have packs of men following you, willing to make you their strange god.
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Roxane Gay |
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f0eba74
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They wanted to break me. It was not personal. I was not broken. This
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Roxane Gay |
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28d17cb
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The ladies in her classes loved to speak to Caridad in broken Spanish, to show her they were comfortable with her ethnicity despite the paleness of their skin and the wealth of their husbands.
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wealth
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Roxane Gay |