When Sister Ibinabo was talking to Christie, with that poisonous spite she claimed was religious guidance, Ifemelu had looked at her and suddenly seen something of her own mother. Her mother was a kin...
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.
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 likeable is very importa...
What she must feel for him was an awed fear. Whether or not Mama had told her to go to his room, she had not said no to Odenigbo because she had not even considered that she could say no. Odenigbo mad...
What if, in raising children, we focus on ability instead of gender? What if we focus on interest instead of gender? I
What if both boys and girls were raised not to link masculinity and money? What if their attitude was not the boy has to pay, but rather, whoever has more should pay. Of course, because of their histo...
We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We
We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, ‘You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful, otherwise you will t...
We teach girls to be likeable, to be nice, to be false. And we do not teach boys the same. This is dangerous. Many sexual predators have capitalized on this. Many girls remain silent when abused becau...
We teach females, that in relationships, ‘compromise’ is what women do. We raise girls to see each other as competitors, not for jobs, or for accomplishments — which I think can be a good thing — but...
We spend too much time telling girls that they cannot be angry or aggressive or tough, which is bad enough, but then we turn around and either praise or excuse men for the same reasons.
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 need to get over that myth. There was nothing Judeo-Christian about American history. Nobody liked Catholics and Jews. It’s Anglo-Protestant values, not Judeo-Christian values. Even Maryland very q...
We condition girls to aspire to marriage and we do not condition boys to aspire to marriage, and so there is already a terrible imbalance at the start. The girls will grow up to be women preoccupied w...
We are living in a time of great white evil. They are dehumanizing blacks in South Africa and Rhodesia, they fermented what happened in the Congo, they won’t let American blacks vote, they won’t let t...
Understanding America for the Non-American Black: American Tribalism In America, tribalism is alive and well. There are four kinds—class, ideology, region, and race. First, class. Pretty easy. Rich fo...
Try listening, maybe. Hear what is being said. And remember that it’s not about you.
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.
Too much schooling ruins a woman; everyone knows that. It gives a woman a big head and she will start to insult her husband. What kind of wife will that be?
Today, women in general are more likely to do housework than men—cooking and cleaning. But why is that? Is it because women are born with a cooking gene or because over years they have been socialized...