As though the writers lived in a world in which the present was unconnected to the past, and they had never considered this to be the normal course of history: the influx into Britain of black and bro...
Young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled, Americans have sent a message to the world that we have...
You know it was love at first sight for both of us, he said.For both of us? Is it by force? Why are you speaking for me?I'm just stating a fact. Stop struggling....Yes, it's a fact, she said.What?I lo...
You gave him what he wanted, Curt said. The planes of his face were hardening. It was an odd thing for Curt to say, the sort of thing Aunty Uju, who thought of sex as something a woman gave a man at a...
Yes. He’s back at his desk. Blaine paused. I think he expects this sort of thing to happen. That’s the actual tragedy, Ifemelu said, and realized she was using Blaine’s own words; sometimes she heard...
Why didn't she just ask 'Was it the white girl or the black girl?' Because this is America. You're supposed to pretend that you don't notice certain things.
When I lost my whole family, every single one, it was as if I had been born all over again, Inatimi told Richard in his quiet way. I was a new person because I no longer had family to remind me of wha...
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 likable is very important and...
What does it mean to know? Really? Is it knowing-her refusal to think concretely about other women? Her refusal to ever consider the possibility?
We teach girls shame. Close your legs. Cover yourself. We make them feel as though being born female they’re already guilty of something. And so, girls grow up to be women who cannot say they have des...
We did that often, asking each other questions whose answers we already knew. Perhaps it was so that we would not ask the other questions, the ones whose answers we did not want to know.
We define masculinity in very narrow way. Masculinity is hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask th...
We all have our moments of initiation into the Society of Former Negroes. Mine was in a class in undergrad when I was asked to give the black perspective, only I had no idea what that was. So I just m...
Was it the one with long hair? the cashier asked. Well, both of them had long hair. The one with dark hair? Both of them had dark hair. Ginika smiled and looked at the cashier and the cashier smiled a...
Understanding America for the Non-American Black: Thoughts on the Special White FriendOne great gift for the Zipped-Up Negro is The White Friend Who Gets It. Sadly, this is not as common as one would...
Ujunwa thought she might like her, but only the way she liked alcohol—in small amounts.
Ugwu had saved them, the same way he saved old sugar cartons, bottle corks, even yam peels. It came with never having had much, she knew, the inability to let go of things, even things that were usele...
Tienen una energía desbordante, de veras, pero me temo que muy poca higiene». Le explicó que los hausas del norte eran gente muy digna, los igbos eran ariscos y amantes del dinero, y los yorubas eran...
There were people thrice her size on the Trenton platform and she looked admiringly at one of them, a woman in a very short skirt. She thought nothing of slender legs shown off in miniskirts--it was s...
There are simply no doctors and nurses left on that continent. It’s an absolute tragedy! African doctors should stay in Africa. Why shouldn’t they want to practice where there is regular electricity a...