This is a modified version of a talk I delivered in December 2012 at TEDxEuston,
They tell us race is an invention, that there is no genetic variation between two black people than there is between a black person and a white person. Then they tell us black people have a worse kind...
There are some things that are so unforgivable that they make other things easily forgivable.
The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is. And then we do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males. We
That her relationship with him was like being content in a house but always sitting by the window and looking out
Si hacemos algo una y otra vez, acaba siendo normal. Si vemos la misma cosa una y otra vez, acaba siendo normal.
She wanted to ask him why they were all strangers who shared the same last name.
She had always liked this image of herself as too much trouble, as different, and she sometimes thought of it as a carapace that kept her safe.
She felt a step removed from the things he believed, and the things he knew, and she was eager to play catch-up, fascinated by his sense of rightness.
She felt a sense that things were in order, the way they were meant to be, and that even if they tumbled down once in a while, in the end they would come back together again.
One day I said to them, Where is the God you worship? They said he was like Chukwu, that he was in the sky. I asked then, Who is the person that was killed, the person that hangs on the wood outside t...
Of course, of course, but my point is that the only authentic identity for the African is the tribe,’ Master said. ‘I am Nigerian because a white man created Nigeria and gave me that identity. I am bl...
Nwunye m, sometimes life begins when marriage ends. You and your university talk. Is this what you tell your students? Mama was smiling. Seriously, yes. But they marry earlier and earlier these days....
Ifemelu and Jane laughed when they discovered how similar their childhoods in Grenada and Nigeria had been, with Enid Blyton books and Anglophile teachers and fathers who worshipped the BBC World Serv...
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.
I know we could accept the things we can’t be for each other, and even turn it into the poetic tragedy of our lives. Or we could act. I want to act. I want this to happen. Kosi is a good
How can you love somebody and yet want to manage the amount of happiness that person is allowed?
Encourage her to speak her mind, to say what she really thinks, to speak truthfully. And then praise her when she does. Praise her especially when she takes a stand that is difficult or unpopular beca...
But race is not biology; race is sociology. Race is not genotype; race is phenotype. Race matters because of racism. And racism is absurd because it’s about how you look. Not about the blood you have....
A young Nigerian woman once told me that she had for years behaved ‘like a boy’ – she liked football and was bored by dresses – until her mother forced her to stop her ‘boyish’ interests. Now she is g...