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....
If you are a woman, you are not supposed to express anger, because it is threatening.
If we do something over and over, it becomes normal. If we see the same thing over and over, it becomes normal. If only boys are made class monitor, then at some point we will all think, even if uncon...
IFEMELU HAD GROWN UP in the shadow of her mother’s hair. It was black-black, so thick it drank two containers of relaxer at the salon, so full it took hours under the hooded dryer, and, when finally r...
I will advise you to wait until you are at least in the university, wait until you own yourself a little more. Do you understand?Yes, Ifemelu said. She did not know what own yourself a little more mea...
I was once talking about gender and a man said to me, 'Why does it have to be you as a woman? Why not you as a human being?' This type of question is a way of silencing a person's specific experiences...
I thought then of catechism classes, about chanting the answer to a question, an answer that was because he has said it and his word is true. I could not remember the question.
I think love is the most important thing in life. Whatever kind, however you define it, but I think of it generally as being greatly valued by another human being and greatly valuing another human bei...
I realized that if I ever have children, I don't want them to have American childhoods. I don't want them to say 'Hi' to adults I want them to say 'Good morning' and 'Good afternoon'. I don't want the...
I often wear clothes that men don’t like or don’t understand. I wear thembecause I like them and because I feel good in them. The male gaze, as a shaper of mylife’s choices, is largely incidental.
I know this remarkable Nigerian woman, Angela, a single mother who was raising her child in the United States; her child did not take to reading so she decided to pay her five cents per page. An expen...
I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femininity. And I want to be respected in all my femaleness. Because I deserve to be. I
I had examined him that day, too, looking away when his eyes met mine, for signs of difference, of godlessness. I didn't see any, but I was sure they were there somewhere. They had to be.
I don’t think love as a reason. I think love comes first and then the reasons follow.
I am angry. We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change. In addition to anger, I am also hopeful, because I believe deeply in the ability of human beings to rema...
Háblale sobre la diferencia. Convierte la diferencia en habitual. Haz normal la diferencia. Enséñale a que valore la diferencia. Y no es para que sea justa o buena, sino simplemente para que sea human...
How was it possible to miss something you no longer wanted? Blaine needed what she was unable to give and she needed what he was unable to give, and she grieved this, the loss of what could have been.
Hombres y mujeres somos distintos. Hormonas distintas, órganos sexuales distintos y capacidades biológicas distintas: las mujeres pueden tener bebés y los hombres no. Los hombres tienen más testostero...
His was the coiled, urgent restlessness of a person who believed that fate had mistakenly allotted him a place below his true destiny.
His letters dwell on me. I carry them around because they are long and detailed, because they remind me of my worthiness, because they tug at my feelings. Some months ago, he wrote that he did not wan...