Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie || Faces of Africa 2018 at Johns Hopkins

good morning ladies and gentlemen students faculty our distinguished guests on behalf of the African Public Health Network I like to welcome you all to faces of Africa 2018 [Applause] faces of Africa is an event hosted by the African Public Health Network we've been around for about 27 years now and our focus as being as still remains seven as a platform where we can discuss and bring to the fore public health issues affecting the African continent this year's event of faces of Africa is quite unique for us because it was a bit difficult coming up with a theme and his subjects to discuss but we settled on talking about the African health story and I'm sure some of you probably be asking the question why the African health story wise they need for retelling of the African health story well I like to think I may be wrong that it's common knowledge that health interventions in Africa have a lot of times been developed some homegrown but quite a bit of them substantial amounts have been developed outside the continent and these interventions in form of policies and all have produced very marginal results particularly in this sub siren region and today with us we have someone who is renowned for using storytelling as a tool to communicate social issues to people all around the world and also on the Afghan continent and we hope that in our conversation with our and our conversation also amongst ourselves in this room we'll be able to answer certain questions like how can we use storytelling as it saw to reframe our interventions and policies in Africa how can we use to retelling from people within the continent of Africa to restructure or to create new policies that perhaps that can give us the healthy Africa which we all desire so today we're gonna share perspective and also ideas but before I close my opening remarks I would like to lend the quotes from one of our most revered of course although now needs story tell us who is the person of Chinua Achebe in his book which was published a while ago the education of it protect that child he made a very interesting reference and was who it was in discussing and talking about a particular jurist a prominent jurist in Germany by the name of Wolfgang Ziggler now Zilla was a prominent lawyer and jurist in Germany and he had a plan of retirement from his work in Germany on going to Namibia and in Iberia doing some good work with our legal system but after reading the book things fall apart yeah a change of mine and I quote but I was in at this prominent German Jew is carry such a blind spot about Africa all his life didn't ever really papers why did he need an African novel to open his eyes my own theory is that needed to hear Africa speak for itself after a lifetime of hearing Africa spoken about by others ladies and gentlemen good morning [Applause] and now it is my honor to introduce our author miss Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie a Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie a is the leading African writer of her generation she grew up on the campus of the University of Nigeria in suka where her father was a professor and her mother was the first female registrar she entered the university to study medicine and pharmacy but left the u.s. at the age of 7 at the age of 19 to continue her education along a different path miss Aisha graduated summa [ __ ] laude from Eastern Connecticut State University with a degree in communication and political science and subsequently received a master's degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University followed by a Master of Arts degree in African history from Yale University among her many accolades she was awarded a hotter fellowship at Princeton University for the 2005-2006 academic year and later a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University for the 2011-2012 academic year in 2008 miss Aisha earned a coveted MacArthur Genius award Miss Adichie's work is read around the world and has been translated into over 30 languages her first novel Purple Hibiscus won the Commonwealth Prize and her second novel half of a Yellow Sun won the Orange Prize which is the world's top prize for female writers her 2012 her 2013 novel Americana has received numerous accolades including the US National Book Critics Circle Award it was named one of the New York Times top 10 best books of 2013 miss Aditya has been invited to speak around the world and most notably her 2009 TED talk the danger of a single story is now one of the top 10 most viewed TED talks in the history of the series with over 14 million views her 2012 TED talk we should all be feminists has a has started a worldwide conversation about feminism and was published as a book in 2014 her most recent book dear eg Ola or feminist manifesto and 15 suggestions was published in March 2017 miss Adichie is committed to assisting young aspiring writers as one of her commitments she leads an annual Writers Workshop in Nigeria for which applications come from around the world it is now my privilege and pleasure to introduce Miss Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie [Applause] [Applause] and just to introduce myself [Applause] my name is Vinay Bhardwaj I'm an mph student here at Johns Hopkins I'm from Zimbabwe and very delighted to be asked by the APH n to moderate this discussion which hopefully will be more about our colleagues here than about the few remarks I have to make so thank you thank you so much for accepting our invitation thank you so much for coming and thank you also to these stellar efforts of the APA Chan committee please miss Aditi ate all of us who've read your books are familiar with parts of Baltimore much more than we were just by visiting these area I think parts of Charles Village where I live are illuminated by some of the writing you've you've produced and I wonder what it's like for you returning back here how has it changed could you share some of your sort of pleasant experiences here maybe some of your favorite writing spots I know some of us are still finalizing capstone papers when our capstone paper capstone papers is just like almost like a mini thesis okay not so mini for some of you well first of all thank you I'm happy to be here and I'm here mostly because of certain Nigerians who put great pressure on me to come because I have great respect for that incredible Nigerian ability to just not stop you know and also because I want to learn and I'm curious about public health and because I think public health is so important and so coming back I mean I I live not too far away when I'm in the u.s. so I have two homes I live in Nigeria and I live here and when I'm here my home is about 35 minutes from here but Baltimore when I was here when I was at Hopkins doing my my my MMA which actually it was on ma then it was a one-year program I didn't know I mean I sort of knew that just the area around Homewood and most of the time I was locked up in my tiny studio apartment right saying there's actually a period when there was this that when the sort of a saccade infestation and you know I wasn't and I didn't know I didn't know for about three days because I hadn't gone anywhere I was in my everyone just walking furiously being a little crazy I would take breaks and jump rope in and I had a very tiny studio and then I would order Chinese chicken and broccoli and then I would have just clean toast and then I'm good but writing and I did I don't think I looked I looked out the window so three days later when I walked out the building I just thought what an example of my life in Baltimore I remember thinking you know something major might have happened and I wouldn't have known because I was so immersed in this in this writing but I don't know how there's a cafe called one walled the thing is there's no meat so I don't know if Nigerians will like it it's vegetarian but I would sometimes go there with and I guess there was a sort of gateway into asking the wider question of your sense of the u.s. currently many of us arrived in June last year and felt as if we'd arrived in the middle of a family fight a fight that's still going on and one in which even the kids are saying enough is enough to their immense credit your your New Yorker piece was a kind of rousing call to action shortly after Trump was elected and I wonder how you feel now about the kind of political moment we're seeing where we have several grassroots movements many of which are unapologetically feminist in character sort of rising up somewhat in response to the kind of deep fallibilities of the present president you I really love your politeness and so well put but you know I could use language that is not so polite but I won't I have a visa application pending I probably shouldn't be too smug either because I have a green card and I can be sent back at the airport but but you know more seriously I I feel a sense of both urgency and and just a great sadness and a kind of surprise as well I think for me growing up in Nigeria America was kind of the expiration of center it was no longer England which it had been England in my parents generation but for us it was America and I remember people would have conversations complaining about about politicians in Nigeria which is something that we do all the time and invariably you would hear somebody say oh go to America that can never happen in America so the idea of nepotism and corruption just the sense that your government was lying to you in a kind of barefaced way we just felt oh it can't happen in America but but what's happened for me in this past year is to see that in fact it can it can happen anywhere and that this idea that democracy is some sort of I think that in some parts of the world is strong and can never be challenged it's not true it's not true at all there's so much that's happened that made me realize it is so fragile this thing called democracy is so fragile and that in fact what I believed to be the kind of the idea of the institutions as sort of ball walk to to stupidity is in fact not true because we have we have somebody who is the president of this country who's unstable I mean and and if people are not admitting it publicly it's because they have reasons not so it's not because they don't think so and and I just kind of feel a great sadness I think it's going to take a long time for the u.s. to earn back it's it's kind of moral authority and I say this knowing of course America isn't perfect it has many problems it's you know it's been complicit in many terrible things around the world but there is still there's kind of an American mythology of America being sort of the moral conscience and that's gone that's really gone and living in both places I it just feels very odd I mean that times I I want to stop reading the news because its absurdity upon absurdity and then I get angry about the way the media covers it because I think no you cannot use the tools you learned at Columbia Journalism school to cover this person it doesn't work right you can't pick I mean if somebody opens his mouth and yeah but it is it's very difficult but also even that it has consequences for all of us right so that that somebody who doesn't understand policy who really is it's a kind of stubborn ignorance so it's all about the person's ego and so you can you can decide overnight you know it's a cancel that the program you don't know for example that it means that there is a woman in sub-saharan Africa who will no longer have access to affordable reproductive care you know and and for me that's just it's heartbreaking turning our gaze homeward as as you sort of alluded to things in Africa are a mixture of this kind of growth story which a certain dimension of media loves to go on about it's also a continent that we all know is deeply challenged and for a lot of us who will be graduating in a few weeks time well from Africa there's always this tension that emerges which I suspect you felt and you've written about and I guess advice is perhaps a kind of catch-all term but I wonder what what you would say to people who are navigating that complex terrain of emotional professional academic you difficulty when you say that attention do you mean to stare it's a good to stay or to go I don't know it's it's I find that I sometimes feel but a kind of I feel protective of people particularly people in instead of help who are Africans because I think that faced a lot of pressure and that they're often expected to be kind of the sacrificial lambs the people will say oh there's one doctor - I don't know two million people in so-and-so in Africa why are you outside Africa and and there's a part of me that feels that it shouldn't be the responsibility of the individuals who choose to make their living as health workers we should be talking about what needs to be done in in our countries to make it a place where people can live all of my friends I studied medicine for one year the University of Nigeria which really meant nothing so it was sort of you know they just it was at a biology yeah but it was enough for me to know that it was not right for me I think it was the dissection of frogs I just did it I just thought this this is no it's nothing to happen and I left and many of my friends who who then ended up becoming doctors were in my class in first year many of them are here in the US and and and the ones in Nigeria are all very keen to leave and there's something about it that it's so I don't know I don't know that I can give advice obviously I think we need more people back in Africa people who who know what they're doing I see I have family then and when I'm when I'm back in Nigeria I don't have a friend of mine was saying to me do you have a medivac and you have medevacked your medevac and I was like oh what's that and they're like no if you get sick then you can be you can you know you can get on a plane and they can take you out and I realized I actually don't have so when I'm in Lagos I'm at the mercy of this lovely clinic I go to really goes but then I said I think it maybe I should get medevac like this now I have a two-year-old daughter oh my god but even that made me start to think about what it means you know there's something about it that on the one hand of course I understand my friend asking me to get me you know it's a it's a kind of practical thing but then on the other I want Nigeria to be a country where we don't need to talk about that you know that that the so many people who've died who shouldn't have died my father my parents are they live in Nigeria they come here every summer but the my father is 86 years old is diabetic he has high blood pressure he and he wants to be in ancestral hometown which means that the doctor he concede doesn't really have many of the resources and so I'm constantly anxious constantly and when my dad sees the doctor we I called the doctor my sister calls the doctor you know I'm sure we're very annoying to the doctor but we're like you know can you tell us what test you do tell me you know and and even that I think comes from a place of of knowing that the health care system which has some really dedicated intelligent people but there's a fundamental problem with I think that foundation of it I think there's a sort of complex humanity to your approach to the to this question because for a lot of us there is this tension all the time and it and there is as you characterize it a sense of you're deserting the the mothership and perhaps to talk about African public health and fehmi's remarks at the beginning definitely alluded to this but there is the single story phenomenon to African health where either this the the desperately need e recipient of charity or where the sort of experimental testing ground for some startup fad whether it's air dropping medicines through drones and so on which may be good but there's no sense in which there's something more imaginative and I and I think for all of us we know intimately well that there are our forebears in policymaking in I come from Zimbabwe Bernard zero was one of the top economists and I think trained at Harvard he came to Zimbabwe and implemented structural adjustment with her with a fever and a rigor that was probably an unprecedented on the continent broke our public system and I and I think he didn't leave Harvard or wherever he studied thinking he's going to go back and destroy the public system in Zimbabwe when he goes back he probably did go with good intentions and how do we marry these good intentions with the quantitative tools and all the the skills we're developing here and resist falling into caricature which seems the inevitable consequence in some cases yeah I don't know that you can resist it I think the whole point is that you will become correct no all right to be more hopeful optimistic and I agree with you about the question of intent I don't think that many of the I think that there are good intentions behind many of these these projects for me that the problem often is that it's it's awfully not rooted in the reality of where these people are doing the work so give you an example when I'm when I attend sort of conferences at American universities and when they start to talk about data from Africa and I can talk about Nigeria because I know Nigeria well I'm often asking how did you collect this data because they know Nigeria and I know I'm like how so even if that is already I think from the message but then there are other things like people who I just I think that simple things would be helpful like listening right going into these places and actually listening and realizing that you don't have to use the same tools that you use in the u.s. in Africa it doesn't have to be the same to achieve the same results and an example would be a friend of mine who's a who's a doctor in in England and he's Nigerian grouped together and he was telling me how they had he had gone with the team back to Nigeria and his English friends were all horrified because they thought Nigerian doctors were not doing enough about patient privacy and letting the patient make the decision and I just remember thinking but you have to think about things in that context there's some people who are not equipped with the knowledge to make that kind of decision right and so we have to assume that the doctor means the best for the patient and can sort of guide the patient that this is it's not the years I remember coming here and being a bit frustrated by doctors who just would say to me well what do you think and I'm thinking well you went to medical school like what do you think there's a part of me that understands obviously the needs to have the patient you know to carry the pitch in the long but it can seem and obviously I'm in a position to make decisions because I'm educated I can't you know but they're people who aren't and I think to assume that the same tools Warren uses in the US would apply to Africa is I don't think that's very helpful but then on the other hand there is the kind of approach of the Africans as hapless and you know you need to spoon-feed them what they need Africans know what they need and I'm a great believer in local knowledge and I'm a great believer in listening to people and that there's something about being in a very sort of places like this Hopkins yeah Harvard and that kind of thing that makes people think that they know all the answers and I think it's very useful to start off thinking that one doesn't know all the answers especially in places like ours in Africa the African continent is in its complexity in its diversity in its wonder in its magic it's important to keep that in mind I think for people who are doing very very useful work the reason I rolled my eyes when you talked about certain startup things like you know being like whatever I find myself my first skepticism is my first sort of approach to many of these things because well I think I think it skepticism is the approach we're now trying very however ething depends in this course in this in this degree my next question is about gender equality as I speak I belong to a class that is 60% female more women than men are graduating in the u.s. from medical school even here at Hopkins I believe it was 5050 last year in the final year of medical school and but then of course if you look at public health and medicine in the u.s. the data shows that women and 27 women physicians 27% less than their male counterparts male registered nurses and $5,000 more than their female peers and if we look at global health just two years three years ago in 2015 less than a quarter of delegations to the World Health Organization's were led by women and there are real consequences to this Laurie Garrett who is a Pulitzer winning observer of global health issues says that there's a direct relationship between the number of women involved in crafting some of global health policies and the attention paid to maternal mortality for example and of course one solution for all of us would be to read your book but I I wonder if you might share some words of encouragement of inspiration to the women in this room who are going to be leaders in public health the trend is inevitable and also maybe to the men who are likely to report to some of the women in this audience all right dear men get over yourself no I did but I'm actually I didn't know that that it's it's pretty much 50/50 graduating but then of course what I'm curious about is it's a 50/50 graduates in if we follow them and track them and in 15 years who's heading the most prestigious programs who's you know I mean I just I think women can it's not it's it's not for me a thing of surprise that women are leaders because I've always known that women can lead just as well as men can and if anything I think what I would say to my my sisters in the audience is don't don't forget that you matter equally and I say this because women can be as intelligent as as accomplished but their cultural norms and cultural ideas that that get in the way the so the I think it's women leaders who often spend a lot of time thinking about how to handle things in a way that still leaves them likable in a way that men it just doesn't occur to men to think about that because men aren't raised and it's not it's not even I think every human being likes to be liked we all want to be like but it's women who are raised to think they need to be liked it's women who are raised to think that you know I can't speak out too loudly because they're going to say I'm a [ __ ] I can't I have to be careful because I don't want to come across as aggressive or too pushy man just do my because nobody stole them from the time there were six months old to be nice to be and so what I would say to women is you know what you don't have to play that game because many people like you as you are so and those people for whom you are performing don't really like you so if you need to tell them this is true it's true though and so if you need to tell somebody off is not doing their walk tell them off it's actually good for them and and for my brothers I would say apart from get over yourselves which I really mean I would say and I say this with great affection but the other thing I would say is if you're in a position of power hire women and and remember that when and I say this not because I'm saying that you need to do a walk of charity but I'm saying hire women who are qualified but remember that just like the men you hire that women just need to be good enough you don't need to hire men who are good enough and then look for women who are exceptionally exceptionally exceptionally good the woman does need to be as good as the man part of the problem of what what happens when so it's 50/50 when they graduate they're all sort of done equally well as the go higher up you start to see that women fall back there are number of reasons are complex reasons I think I think I think women choosing to be mothers gets in the way I think it's terrible that we live in a world that doesn't think it's important to support the people whose bodies do the work to make sure that our species will continue to thrive [Applause] for me it's a mean I feel very strong I get very angry about it because people say things like well but you know woman chooses to get pregnant so she needs to understand her job will be waiting for her and I feel like beautiful women choose not to do we do we want to go extinct the body who does the walk so we need we need to structure society I think for example that if I were to run sort of corporations and whatever there would be childcare they're completely free high quality childcare the childcare workers would be paid very well and you know women would have time off the jobs won't be waiting for them because the bloody world keeping the species alive fathers would be forced not they would be forced to take time off as well so that they know how to bloody well change the diapers and I really don't think that these things are important and I think that they then kind of feed into it should be better for the cooperation that you people are happier right they're going to give more at work so economically you will thrive actually but it just seems to me a very short-sighted ridiculously narrow capitalist view of sort of profit profit profit therefore people are not human all right I'll still thought No so yeah lastly and I and I really would like to hear from colleagues in the room but I know all of us are familiar with your enormous success the citation that sort of mentioned the milestone achievements your rebuke of Beyonce's brand of feminism and so on it was not a review I think is really cool in fact hats you sort of talk to this journalist this Dutch woman who I had liked until then people know my point was so here's an example if I said as I've said here today I think which is I just really wish women didn't constantly think about being likable it's not a rebuke to women right it's it's a comment about sort of this larger societal and cultural force so what I had said was about Beyonce that it's such a shame that we constantly that it's about men right it's about you know put a ring on it Mac you know it's it's it's it's it's a kind of female worldview that's male centered in a way that a male wolf isn't necessarily females then turn right and so that's what I had said and these people decided to make it about she says how feminism is superior to Beyonce's which I hadn't write and I don't even think of feminism as something that has hierarchies where somebody's feminism is somehow you know pure right it's ridiculous mine isn't as male focused but I also suspect that mine isn't as mainstream quite frankly right because the reality of women's lives is that you know from the time that you really small you're told it's the male focus of your socialization you're told to be careful around men because they will rip your kill you right you're told be careful what you wear it's about men you're told learn to cook and clean and it's not for yourself it's so that you keep a man you're told you're told don't say everything you think you have to be very careful and you have to be diplomatic and you have to again it's about men I mean there's so all of that I think actually that families it probably represents the reality of women's lives more than mine which is very much a feminism of you know what eff it which is I know I'm a cop I think you know I think love is a wonderful thing I love love but I just really deeply feel very strongly about that idea that women should should shape their lives not based on their needs but somehow on the idea of maleness you know so it was not a rebuke it's what I'm saying I like Beyonce she's very cool and she's an and also I think that she's very sincere in wanting to have a conversation about gender and feminism right people I don't think that it's a valid criticism to say that because she's commercial or because she therefore somehow it's not worth engaging with I guess apart from the sort of public persona that that you sort of present and you're a cultural icon for many of and for a role model for a lot of us I often find a pressure on role models is the kind of pressure not to mention their mistakes not to mention things they could have done differently and I we're all at a stage of our lives where we have the opportunity both to make mistakes and to rectify them and as we as we think through our next steps I would I would be very grateful if you would be if you'd indulge us by sharing some things that you think deviate from the kind of iconic image we have oh you mean tell you the terrible things about me just things you do now will kind say we don't have enough time okay I just need you to know that you do not know but here's the thing I mean I don't even think of myself as a role model and I also think that my you know I feel very grateful to be red I feel very grateful to to matter in a certain kind of way but I also know that my public my public position and persona isn't one that is here isn't like a Mandela the people for whom my take on feminism is cause for great hostility and it's not always pleasant I cannot begin to tell you some of the emails I get but but at the same time because my my because literature is my religion I'm a person who starts off with the idea that all all of us are floored which is also why I believe in the possibility of change and the possibility of getting better and I think my talk didn't you have a single story was kind of about that because it's important for me to make myself complicit and I think it's also why there's certain there's a certain strain of discourse in the American left that makes me uncomfortable and I say that because I consider the American left my mind my tribe it's sort of my natural home I think for example that in general the ideas that I thought of as progressive and on the left are just better ideas that that's what I believe right and so so the left would kind of be my natural home but the certain things about it that can leave me uncomfortable one of which is the idea that that we it's kind of a moral superiority a kind of you know you feel and you're a terrible person on your it makes me very uncomfortable because I think it closes conversations I think that across this country that many people who cannot say what they think because they're so worried I mean I so I'll give you a very tiny example of that dinner maybe two years ago with a bunch of very well-meaning lis girls you know the people who recycle and who don't buy clothes that need that sort of thing and I remember I told the story about had spoken at the Royal Festival Hall in London and this woman white woman English woman who backstage was so nervous about introducing me and so she kept trying to pronounce my name properly backstage and she's walking up and now saying she and I said to her you know don't stress but she kept doing and then she got on stage and she sort of read this lovely introduction and then she said please welcome chimichanga yes this happening but I remember and she turned red and then usually what happens at my events is a usually the sort of the first two rules that what my manager calls the Afro girls so I usually have these fears black Goodman with natural hair they're like like she's odd so watch it right so my girls in front would like what they're like so this woman turned red and then when she came out I don't so sorry for her but telling the story later I remember this dinner of liberals and and this man said to me I can't believe you're laughing about that I can't believe you're and I remember thinking but why shouldn't I laugh about it right so so I think that propria trance of the morally righteous liberal to that would be a kind of anger oh and maybe find a way to make it about I don't know cultural appropriation of the of the scible time something yeah but I think that in a lot of these discourses there's a humanity that we're losing and that that really it makes me uncomfortable you know and it makes me increasingly less willing even to engage because I just feel like it's going to end up you know nobody and in the end we don't change anything I want to change minds I want to and for me which is also my my taken feminism I want to engage with everyone I mean won't we be not everyone mean the kind of people who say that they're men's rights movements or subtle no there's no point they're people in the middle they're people in the middle and it's important to engage and also important to make a distinction between between sort of what is malicious and what is just ignorance or just curiosity really you know so this is sort of a roundabout way of saying that the times that I've failed have been very many the times that I have wanted to do better have also been very many the times when I realized I haven't done as well as I could have have also been many if anything I find that I'm whatever I feel like you're my therapist now I've been working on trying to stop holding on to resentment get to be a little better at it and and with that you really colleagues please you know join me in giving to Amanda a hand but also please think of your questions now and and how you'd like to get going Joe I know you'll be managing the poll everywhere and Joe and Larissa have have taken charge of that and I think they'll be roving mics as well so yeah so the way we're going to try and do it is two questions from the audience and one question from poll everywhere because there's a word webcast audience as well so we want to try and include them and maybe shy people who don't want to ask questions in person good afternoon I'm Amanda I have the same problem because my name is Wei Jia and I'm from Singapore and from the mph program thank you so much by a wonderful wonderful sharing one of my questions is how has being a mother helped you or prevent you from being where you want to be thank you I have it two and a half year old daughter who is the light of my life I adore her I'm also terrified of her it's true that child is fear so she scares me and and my husband said to me the other day you finally met your match but but I think I'm actually I've been thinking about it a lot because I feel as though I wasn't prepared and I'm told that nobody is ever really prepared for motherhood but I wonder I've also wondered if maybe the things I read and heard before having her didn't quite prepare me for what really was that for the first time in my life and sides he came to stay I mean anxieties become such a part of me in a way that it never was before I I was anxious after she was born I was anxious about just the basic sort of biological things like breastfeeding she wasn't latching on where I was I'd read all these books about if you don't breastfeed for six months your child would not be happy in life which I think we need to stop we need to stop doing that to women honestly so she wasn't latching on I went into panic I was like I must breastfeed her for six months I don't care what and so I it was really a very anxious time for me and actually it's funny I've never talked about this publicly but at night as well so there's the anxiety of just sort of physical things where I just worry is she breathing well which is 3min she's two-and-a-half but I still do that but also it's a sort of a more metaphysical anxiety where I want to protect her from everything and she's just started preschool and I'm just um there's a part of me that I'm horrified at what I think I really retrograde gender-based things going on still you know where where I was told oh that class is mostly boys so they're really loud so we just let them play more I just thought this is how we start it's terrible but but in terms of my creativity it got in the way of my creativity and and I also think it's important to talk about that because you know and and I wouldn't change it for anything but there were months after I had her we're just well my brain wasn't working and I couldn't I couldn't I could not enter my creative space I couldn't and that's when I found that in my life I'm happiest when I'm writing that's I'm that I really think that's what I was born to do and so because I couldn't enter into that creative space I had a very difficult time the first sort of really seven months and then it didn't help that she had a protein allergy from the breast milk and so they put me on a special diet and so at some point I was just eating clean bread and clean boiled yam and then I put on I don't know 700 pounds but I was like I still have to breastfeed her exclusively for six months I was mad but I think this is just such a larger conversation about the pressures I think that women are faced with and even that whole idea of breastfeeding which i think is wonderful on all but I think it's important to tell women if you're having difficulty give her formula she won't die you know because and I don't know how much of the time that I wasted being so anxious I could have just spent bonding more with her you know maybe put in coconut oil in her hey thank you so much I'm a writer myself and a mother to a 14-month or who's become some sort of icon here so I really appreciate give yourself time don't you know because you'll be frustrated if you you probably think you need to get back you we have to be honest it takes time but but I'm going to tell you that about two years it gets a lot better yeah thank you hi I'm Amanda nice to meet you it's good to see you thank you my name is Amelia and I'm a first year doctoral student here in the health theatre society Department and my research really revolves around being a visible minority and the health effects of being a visible minority in America and so please forgive me I have not read your work Americana yet going on my Amazon playing tonight and I wanted to ask you all so I just want to say thank you for the breastfeeding talk I think that's so brave of you to say in public health and I have a three-year-old daughter oh I got you up to formula two so I get it I get it I get it but I wanted to ask you I guess I wanted to maybe push the conversation a little bit further on feminism and I wanted to ask you if you could provide talking points or thinking points Food for Thought for not only the women in this audience but everyone else including the men on using on approaching feminism through an intersectional perspective so I think you know we heard statistics about you know the the the wage gap between men and women here you know in different occupations but I think you know we also know from the research that the wage gap isn't just between men and women but if you add the aspect of race and racialized feminism you see that wage gap go even further you know so I wanted to maybe push that conversation and ask you from a public health perspective since we're all going to eventually be public health practitioners or Public Health researchers what do you think we could keep in mind to be sort of self reflective and just reflexive overall about our position ality and kind of understanding the nuances of feminism from other intersectional approaches like race or disability and other types of marginalized statuses I think the simple thing to keep in mind is wake up every morning and say to yourself not all women are straight and white that would be very helpful I love it without like 10 words I mean you know it always struck me as very interesting in instead of political discourse in America where they would say women voted for so and so blacks voted for so and soon and I think wait hold on where what about me right where was I counted in was I counted in as women or was black but of course the assumption to that is that women actually meant white women and I think you know I think it's important to talk about race and class and I mean all the other things because I think all those things kind of affect the way that gender works you know yeah I but I wish I had sort of like a tool to to share out sadly I don't thank you thank you so there's a question on that yes hi Chimamanda my name is Larissa so I'm going to be asking a question which was asked anonymously and the question is your work particularly Americana addresses the gap between the African immigrant and african-american experiences a conversation which has risen to the mainstream lately with the discussion surrounding Black Panther what similarities or differences do you see in the health issues of Africans versus African Americans I don't know I feel like I'm not equipped to talk about health issues unless I can draw from that first year in asuka 20 years I will just expand on that question a little bit more and just see what what were your thoughts and your feelings are about Black Panther to ask you what the conversations around black cuz I I don't know so are these conversations about how what are they about african-american versus African my understanding my what my takeaway was was the movie did a good job at talking about some of the different perspectives which Africans have about African Americans which African Americans have about Africans which white people have about Africans about the continent I don't know if you've seen it I guess I would be with start alright so back to the question look I've been very busy evolving in hybrid I've been in right in hibernation I haven't but I'm very excited about Black Panther this is true I'm happy that Black Panther exists I'm happy about what it represents right and and it's important for us too because representation matters by popular culture matters and my nephew was in tears watching that thing and my nephew is top 24 year old cool kid and he was in tears and that utterly broke me and so I'm going to see it maybe this weekend actually I was gonna be silly but just but but really to go back to America an African American versus African one of the things that I wanted to write about obviously is is blackness and and the the wide range of blackness if that makes sense I didn't think of myself as black until I came to the US and so discovering blackness becoming black in America was one of the things I wanted to write about and what it meant and how I started off pushing it away rejecting it saying to people in undergrad they would say comics black students you know I'd be like no I'm not black I'm Nigerian and I realize now looking back that that it's even that I did that is an indictment of racism in America why was I rejecting blackness I mean if blackness is completely value free why was I rejecting it but I was rejecting it because I knew that in this country it's not value free that it's automatically something to which all kinds of negative stereotypes are attached and and I had the professor at Drexel who was surprised that I wrote this essay and when he saw me here's my and I realized again he didn't expect me to be black especially as I was using my initial not my name so so I wanted to write about and and of course now I've become very happy Lea black right and it took a process I mean and I think also that blackness in some ways is also a political identity that one takes by choice now you can look black in the world but there's a kind of knowing that York take accepting that your black love in that your black which I have come to do and it's it's a very American thing because when I when I get on the plane and I and I get Ophelia goes I don't remember race it doesn't occur to me think about how many black people in this room I don't even have to think about it when I'm here I'd know already because I'd look just one look and I know how many black faces are here and I can bet you every black person in this country does that because you kind of want to know who have your back if something happens no but I wanted to write about how important it is for for us as people who are black but not african-american to engage with the history of african-americans and to understand how there's a lot that we're able to do today that is really a direct consequence of sacrifices that were made by african-americans and I sometimes think that we that's not something that's as sort of engaged within immigrant communities of color that it's very easy to to sit back and enjoy the privileges we have and kind of look down on people who because of the policies in this country have been held back hello thank you thank you so much for coming you have written some of my very favorite sentences of all time here I feel like reading a book is like taking a walk on the beach and finding these incredible seashells and I just want to like change the sentences and take them home this so thinking about your idea of the one story to some extent this school is founded on the idea that Africa is a continent in need of saving and that's like the story that people use to justify a lot of the research over lots of years and I think it still exists I think there's still like this idea that it's our responsibility from the West to go out and like get take the West and save the rest of the world and and often that is like those stories as we know in the past we're used like also to take a lot of like resources and to out of Africa and also there that history comes with like lots of health inequities whether is some need for people with training and health to work in parts of the world so I feel this tension between the story that we know being wrong and colonial and allowing for a lot of very problematic very violent history but also that there is like still health needs and I wonder how you add nuance and how you bring others how do we bring other stories to the table oh I don't know I think it's yeah it's a very important thing and I don't know the answer what I will say is yes that story is colonial and need to change in but it's not a reason to so then do nothing and I think that there is still a role for the West in in health care in the continent of Africa in other words I suppose my point is that there there is a way to do it well there is a way to do it in a way that that is a colonial and isn't and doesn't become a kind of masturbation so it doesn't become about the about the doer about the goodness of the doer but the pleasure of the doer really which which is really what I would say problems with so I'm really not a person who would say oh you know don't go to Africa or your colonial person because actually increasingly I'm thinking about these things in terms of rising historical wrongs and so and also I starting to think about that also in terms of refugees so that this whole sort of conversation about refugee is particularly in Europe for me is I you know I keep thinking well but 150 years ago you went to Africa you didn't have visas nobody asked you to come you know you sort of go in there you you plunder you you do whatever you want it's not that surprising that 100 years later they kind of want to come to your place and so I think maybe that should frame the conversation as a moral basis and so in that way I kind of think about health walk that it might actually be a good way to think about it which is to say that there is a certain kind of responsibility I think that the West has and I'm not saying this in the way I mean I can just so imagine somebody from the right saying well what you're saying is Africans are not responsible for that that's not what I'm saying right but I am saying that colonialism which was a brutal and terrible dictatorship resulted in countries that we're never going to work I mean Nigeria is a country that was not set up to walk we read just basic Nigerian history and colonial policy there is no way that country would have emerged from the dictatorship that was colonialism and somehow flowered into this wonderful democracy it just would not have happened what I do think though is that the extent of the failure is our responsibility I think that our leaders could have stolen a bit less money and then maybe maybe the rules would be slightly better but do I think our institutions would be flourishing no I don't and and so I kind of think that that might be a sort of adjuster even even as a theoretical framework to think about how to do walk in Africa and also listening to people I just really believe in local knowledge in just asking people what they think they need you know because people know I mean I it amazes me sometimes in reading accounts of foreigners who go to Africa how little they know right because they go in with all of these ideas in their heads and in the end I just don't know very much and I just really believed in local knowledge I think that people know how best to organize their reality hi I'm Jim Amanda I'm a big fan I came to see you in Ellicott City when you gave a talk at the library there my wife and I oh really all your material thank you but so in art one did one of the things that always comes to to the for whatever we listen to your talks or read something that you wrote is it almost seems like when I hear you talk about feminism and the differences between the way women are raised and men are raised I feel like it sometimes misses a racial component and so Alice walk so I mean for instance right you talked about how men are not women are raised to like say oh make sure this person likes you make sure this is nice gonna be too loud don't be too this or that and that men are not raised that way well maybe that's true for white men but for black men you're very much raised with the aspect of being sure that your presentation is acceptable to the majority class but anyway but something that but my point is I hear you and I take your point yeah but yeah close about my point is it's so Alice Walker right so she was she was unsatisfied with the way it was presented in late seventies early 80s so she came up with the idea of Womanism that incorporated some of the black identity and celebrated some of the feminine natures that are embodied in a woman but she still kept the idea that men and women should be treated equal and a lot of the things that you that you could do a spouse to but I'm just wondering if you've ever identified with Womanism have you considered it did you likely do you not like it or like I've never heard you talk about it publicly no I haven't because it's not it's um first of all it's Walker also said that really for her woman is name is feminism for black women yes so but there is also a part of me that they're people who have embraced Womanism and have made it out to be something that that makes me uncomfortable which is there is a kind of it makes a fetish of fertility and motherhood and and a kind of women as nurturer those things make me uncomfortable because I don't think I think anybody can be a nurturer um I don't and so there's a there's a kind of I also don't think that women are special and I say this because they're also elements of Womanism I think that and I don't think this is what Alice Walker intended but I've spoken to women who kind of feel that it's this you know what you're you're a queen that sort of thing actually you're not you're just a regular human being right and I see this because I think that to buy into those ideas can be dangerous because if you're special and if you're then then it makes sense to hold you at a higher to have a higher moral standard for you which i think is very bad for women so I think that's the reason that I'll use a very common example if a man cheats we're more willing to forgive if a woman cheats were not because somehow we say you're a woman you're better you should be better but actually no and so the so for me I've never I liked feminism I like the word because for me it's the dictionary meaning but obviously I'm not going to be I'm not going to pretend that I don't know that the history of Western feminism has been racist that really was it says that those racism as part of the early American feminist movement which understandably then left many women of color feeling alienated I think that the American feminist movement is trying to address that I don't know and not because I don't really feel a part of the American feminist movement I think that Western feminism build the feminism that is most documented is therefore often seen as the only feminism when people talk about first wave and second with I don't feel a connection to it I don't even I'm not even sure I entirely know what it means I mean actually I kind of do but I don't really feel a connection to it because it's not my own story right mine is a feminism that started because I was a child watching my world and I didn't understand why only men could break the color knot and when I asked I was told oh because they're men and I was like it doesn't make sense I didn't understand why the boy in my class had to be the the the class monitor because he was a boy even though my teacher had said the best student would be the monitor and I had gotten 10 over 10 the boy got 9 over 10 right so I mean so my feminism is also one that increasingly is looking at pre-colonial Africa as as inspiration because I think that there was a lot that change with with gender when colonialism and Christianity came so this is all to say that to answer your question no I haven't thought about Womanism because of the certain ideas that have had women talk about who embraced Mormonism I do think that for many black women humanism is simply their way of saying that feminism the way that America has practiced it excluded them and I think that they have a point but but just ideas of motherhood being venerated it doesn't it just doesn't work for me I am a very happy mother I think motherhood is glorious but I don't think that we should conflict I don't think that it should be the core of what it means to talk about being a woman because there's some women who choose not to be mothers right and the many societies in which that is a thing of shame and we should we should stop you know we should we shouldn't do that and so so I probably haven't answered your question but but again no I'm a feminist not womanist I like the dictionary meaning and also also I should say that I do think while there all of these sort of different ways in which gender affects women I also think that there is such a thing as that category women and I see this because in one of the classes was at the class I took at Hopkins or maybe at Yale I remember just being confused cuz we sat in class talking about is there such thing as women and I remember thinking look I understand the world's supposed to be very intellectual here but please because I think that there are certain things that a white woman in Iceland certain things that I will that she will get and I will get about her reality that you my blood brother will not get and so that's what I mean when I say that there are still certain things that but I believe that there's such a thing as women which is why I choose feminism I choose feminism because I also believe in a kind of cross racial for us whatever collective hello Chimamanda my name is Joe and I'll be reading out a question from the audience so how do you think we can go about reclaiming the face of Africa how can we give the voice back to the continent to speak for itself reclaiming a voice for Africa yes how can we give the voice back to up to the continent way to speak for itself this is a kind of question I just how do we give a voice back to Africa for Africa to speak for itself yeah this is a glass of voice Africa shall drink it I mean sorry it's a bit too I don't know that there's there's an obstruction to the question that's difficult actually responds when and have a serious face but should I move on to another question I learn by reading African stories that are told by Africans this one says any tips for a younger for young Africans who have lived in the US for a long time but still feel ties to their homeland but also not who would also feel out of place culturally speaking how do you really just especially if thinking of going back to make a difference in society I think the first step wouldn't be to think about going back full stop don't make it about to make a difference in society because then I think it'll shape the way you go back and you're going to go back with some sort of smug idea that you know all the answers I would say go back I mean Africa has room for all kinds of people so you go to Lagos the the places where the returnees hang out and my cousin my cousin jokes about when she sees somebody she's like I can tell the person is a returnee look at what they're worth right so there's space for everyone I really think and I think that there is I think there's work that can be done by people who have an understanding of both worlds and that that if you have lived in the US and you understand the US but also you have it you have these cultural ties to the continent that you're in a position to a challenge certain things you're in a position to you speak the language that certain people understand and those certain people may be in a position so I don't know give you funding for your project whatever this is the reality so I do think that that they should go back if they want to I I think that there's room for for everyone I also think that it's possible to be two things and we don't have to sort of say well if you haven't spent your whole life in Africa and well then you're not African they're different I think I think to be Nigerian American to be Nigerian the things that intersect and their ways to work together I'll take a final question here and then one from the audience physically says for those of us who are in exile from back home unable to return because of the political environment what suggestion do you have to continue being engaged and helping the communities we have left behind wait whose exile the person wishes to remain anonymous we know what country this person is from let's see the person puts that no it's not you know I mean I'm just thinking about what what I just feel that there is a kind of romance to the idea of exile and there's a part of me that just wants to I want to I want to deconstruct that idea of exile what does it mean really and which which country is it that I mean you know Mugabe is no longer there and even I wasn't in exile so I think if you don't want to go back just say that you don't want to go back get on Facebook and have fights with people on the continent for not knowing how to fix everything because if you were there you would do it differently and everything will be fine hi thank you so much for coming this has been really enlightening so you talked about how women are socialized to shape their lives around maleness and that really spoke to me and I wanted to ask you like for a solution basically like how do we then mitigate the consequences of that socialization now as adult women what can we do as women to rise above the male gaze and detach ourselves and our self-worth from it like the the one thing that I've found to be like really helpful for myself is like basically looking around the room and all the really badass powerful intelligent brilliant women that are here and like trying to draw inspiration from that but like I need something more so so do i my dear I wish I knew and I spend way too much time thinking about this and just observing and reading and watching and being angry but you said I think you put it so well about detaching our sense of self war and I think of feminism as as a personal journey and and possibly a lifelong personal journey of unlearning for adult women and for men and so it's it's a process made it's a process I don't think that there is something for which I was reading the study recently about how baby girls and baby boys are treated differently from the time that they're born and and actually this morning I was looking at we've got many presidents when my daughter was born from family and friends and one of them was a lovely picture case in which the wards were written a baby girl so sweets and a baby girl so sweet and soft feels your life mix makes it complete and I and it's lovely and I actually did put a picture of my baby in there but I was looking at it and certainly thought had it been a boy what would it be the same I don't think we would say a baby boy so sweet and soft and it made me think my god even this I mean so that the thing it's so if there's just a difference and I think it's being aware being alert it's really about on learning and just a kind of conscious talking to yourself really I mean you have to be your own therapist all the time and I think for men it also has to involve a kind of constant self question in there are some men who the minute a woman wants to talk about her experience reflexively they're looking for ways to shut it down they're looking for ways to say well is it really because you're a woman isn't that really because you've ABCDE right and I think for men it would require a lot of why am i shutting this down why am i reflexively saying is it really because you're a woman and in my my sort of my experience has been that the world first of all I should say that I really didn't get the memo that I thought I'm inferior to boys oh man I I didn't which in itself is a problem because there's something about occupying your space in the world as a woman and making it known that you really think that you're everybody's equal that makes people very angry both men and women this is the thing because you know as women were also raised where is with misogyny where isn't our world is misogynistic it's like the air we breathe in this world is misogynistic so we all sort of women are misogynistic and it's always constantly for me when when I meet a woman and I just sense that I I'm not sure I like her I find myself questioning myself how much of this is about have been a woman right and and I want to make sure that it's really that I dislike her for reasons that have valid not because no this is true and I think it's important for all of us to do that because I think that women that there's a kind of automatic dislike that women get and half the time it's because they're women I used to get so angry people who kept saying I just don't like Hillary Clinton I just don't like her and I used to think why is the civil the discourse that we're having right I mean I could understand disagreeing on policy and whatever but but I knew that for many of them it wasn't that because had she been a man with exactly the same policies that the response would have been different so really for me it's about that we constantly have to unlearn and you know sort of you you have to do your therapy look yourself in the mirror and be like you know what that guy's an [ __ ] I don't need him to like me [Applause] weasel powerful line five more minutes worth of questions yeah five more minutes worth questions sorry I've been waiting a very long time hi Chimamanda my name is a daisy I'm very excited that you're here I have two questions the first one is kind of serious the second one is kind of fun I really appreciated what you said about kind of being the importance of being protective of good ideas but also being open to listening to people who may differ from us and I wonder I know you talk about a lot of universities and I wonder if you could maybe say a few words because right now at a lot of colleges there's a lot of conversation about diversity and inclusion but expanding that conversation in terms of you know being open to different religions or different geographic areas how do you think institutions like Johns Hopkins can really make a commitment to diversity and inclusion but also open a space up for you know different ideas but also protect people that may be harmed by these some other ideas that we know it I feel like you're really trying to say something but you're not saying it can you just say but if there is a religion tell me tell me just use see your friend if it's your story something interesting here we're not getting it but you know I I know what you mean but I think sometimes the perception is that I you know I guess liberal colleges there's kind of an aversion to religion for example but people then also I also hold the belief that you know certain religious ideas can be helpful to us so how do we I mean their separation of church and state separation of school and state but how do we maintain I think commitment to diversity and inclusion but also you know protect people that may be harmed by you know ideas but yeah thank you yeah and then can I ask my second question or should I ask it after yeah I'll start really quickly if it's yeah the second question is just what major music do you like I like Pino and for me it's an example of how you can that you can choose to a certain extent the work of people who don't necessarily share your ideology which is to say that Fino is not feminist but I love you knows music I love it because there's a kind of rootedness in emo Ibanez there's a kind of unapologetic sort of a it's tribute to high life EBU high life that I love so I love you know I like flavor I like amar with me who else do I like yeah I mean in general like Nigerian music but I can't do rap I just I mean any kind of you know some notes I'm not cool like that sad I like high life I also like Celeste you know quite like the old people I love the listener who I find him so wise it's just just just drops of shared wisdom my kid John I love as well on yucca we know I adore all right but you know what I think I think I you know I hear you about religion there's some the thing about the left in general is that and I also think that left has a point I don't feel like I'm sorry like when you think about you sorta see so I see that the left position is is one in which religion is seen only through the lenses of its of all the ways in which it has helped people back it's it and it has in many ways but I also hear you which is that I think that religion can be a force for good I think in many ways it has been a force for not good but it can be a force for good and maybe maybe liberal circles are not as open to to religion being part of the conversation I mean just thinking about it now I can see and particularly Christianity which is very interesting but you know so how to change that right a fierce letter tell them I am a Pentecostal Nigerian and I will firebomb you with the Holy Spirit tell them you bring custody boy you to shoot them Pepe and then they will just follow but you know I mean it may be bringing up these points and decide I wonder if maybe that people here who haven't really thought about it right I for example I was raised Catholic I'm I consider myself a person who just is that Gnostic now but but I'm a child and raising her Catholic because I want her to have the choice and you know my experience has been that they're people for whom religion is the reason they do well the reason that they I personally don't think I need God to give me cookies before I'm good right that's my own thing I think that goodness is its own reward but I realize that they're people for whom the promise of reward from God is the reason that they do things that are ethical and it's important for us to engage with that especially and even in public health right and it's impossible I think to engage honestly with the continent of Africa without engaging with Christianity I'm sorry it is impossible because swaths of Saharan Africa I just in this Pentecostal frenzy you can dislike it all you want if you don't want to engage with it you're not going to reach people I mean I find myself lately thinking about I want to go through a study of the Bible and I want to start to try and craft a Christian feminism because I see that many women to whom I speak about feminism are deeply unhappy in their marriages I just really but to tell you the Bible says I should submit so I find that I want to because I think you can use the Bible to to prove anything anything so what I want to do and please if the women here who want to join me in this project please seriously let's do a study of the Bible let's find ways to tell them that that peak that bit about submitting let's find a way to counter it with other parts so that women start to take take action but I sorry thank you so much thank you [Applause] so my question actually ties into a little what you just said so how do you kind of intersect this talking about your daughter especially like babies I don't have any kids but it'll happen one day how do you intersect your cultural beliefs growing up in Nigeria with the beliefs you gained on your own and from the Diaspora in terms of like raising your daughter like how do you keep the Nigerian roots but at the same time being like but that mmm and then like on top of that like how do you go back to your mom being like no I'm raising her this way because of this that and the third and how do you just intercept what you just do but I should I should but I should but I should I should push back a bit about because there is I was raised to know in a household that was relatively progressive right so actually the only thing that my mother and I have disagreed on is my daughter's hair it's two and a half up I haven't combed her hair I finger detangle because I don't believe that she should be put through pain at two-and-a-half because I because of my vanity because that's really what it is if I has perfect it's to make my vanity happy it has nothing to do with her she doesn't care so that's the only place where my mother will be like are you going to do anything to her hand I'm like no she's happy as she is but apart from that you know that my daughter speaks EMU III I'm determined that she be bilingual so we speak only more to her at home she's just at a preschool she speaking EMU - hi American teachers and willing but it's important to me I think it's I think that when you have a sense of identity it's so important for Sookie it's a gift to give a child but there are other things like not thinking about gender in raising her which I think my parents are okay with so she doesn't have dolls I will never say to her this is what little girls do you know I'm looking at her as a person I'm going to follow her lead and whatever she's interested in but I'm trying very hard to make her be outdoorsy so so I wanted to run around she's really taken to with that child meaning she's exhausting but but but the things that I didn't get I mean I like to joke about how by the time she's ten years old I want her to be able to change my car tires so I won't have to pay somebody to do it but because I can't do it now why can't I do it because when I was being raised I had brothers who were told things like that what things boys did and then there were things girls did and now was an adult who doesn't have any practical skills I feel bereft right and I'm like it would be nice if I could sort of fix things I can't I'm hopeless it's really terrible and so and I think a lot of it I mean a lot of it I have to say is also just my not having whatever the part of the brain that does that but I think a part of it is also that I wasn't socially conditioned to think that I should and could and so I'm raising her and it's not really a clash with so so I suppose my point is that let's be careful about what we define there's a very conservative Nigerian way of looking at the world and then there's a way that's still Nigerian but not as conservative and that's the route that I'm taking she's yeah so when when you have those kids let them be the African selves and yeah but also the most important thing teach them that there's a difference between respect and fear I think a lot of our cultures tell us that to fear and adults is to respect and at all that's not true thank you so much [Applause] three apologize boom he taking any more questions I'm sure we do a lot had a very beautiful and interesting and funny afternoon I really I used to watch a TED talks about seeing I press in under wish which is making all laugh and [ __ ] I'm going to remember this for a long time now Friday the 13th satsang as a new meaning for me are we given the bottle thanks we would like to thank everyone here present miss a teachers faculty and staff and my fellow students it's my privilege to be given a lot of things at this important phases of Africa I think I'm ready dad I'm the vice president of the African Public Health Network and on behalf of the APA chain and the entire of the nation committee I would like to sincerely thank our special guests reminder for final design [Applause] for taking time out of our busy schedules on our invitation are very persistent invitation my highlight and favorite part of this event is how to my fellow women we are to be yourselves and support fellow women so that as the seeds can continue to exist and also as you continue along the career paths and never to break the chain of developing a single story why an individual and to the men get it right ourselves me said luckily so can I just say thank you to one particular man this is witty brilliant [Applause] apparently cheeping like the AAP hmm with coordinating this event who were trying to get onto my participants who it was like unanimous to have united to it because he has a very interesting background I think you read about my medical engineering then it became it was a journalist at one point so we chose if it's this building here which other mister detail were truly inspired by achievements our proud shall be as one of the faces of Africa I would also like to thank the Student Assembly for co-sponsoring this event and also as part of the faces of Africa 2018 line up the FHN and the public health Film Society will be screening 93 days at 4 p.m. in shutting off if you're interested in knowing about the Ebola 2014 story in Nigeria and why there was no Ebola pandemic you would like to see you and Sheldon on at 4 p.m. also if you have a path to the reception please kindly proceed to the world of wonder at the end of the program if your if your opportunity to have a pass yet miss are details gladly agreed to sign 10 autographs so for you have to be at the reception so thank you all for coming and we hope to see you downstairs [Applause] you you

Channel: JHSPH Student Life

Views: 122,619

Keywords: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Johns Hopkins, JHU, Author, Art, Feminism, Interview, Motherhood, Parenthood, Novel, Writer, Health, Africa, Global Health, Public Health, Baltimore, Storytelling, Literature, Lit

Id: -Wvlfk_qAgM

Length: 87min 15sec (5235 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 13 2018