TimesTalks: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

ladies and gentlemen the program is about to begin please take a moment to silence your mobile devices we would like to remind you that food and drink are not permitted in the theater also please note that photography and audio and video recording is prohibited thank you good evening everyone I'm Michele gray the director of programming for the New York Times live conversation series times talks which pairs New York Times journalists with the brightest and boldest creative minds from the fields of film theater music science art literature and fashion to find out who's coming next go to time stocks calm and subscribe to our newsletter I'm delighted to welcome you to tonight's event live here in New York and live on the New York Times Facebook page and times jokes comm we're thrilled to be welcoming literary sensation and feminist icon Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie here to celebrate her latest book dear Jalali or a feminist manifesto in 15 suggestions Aditi who is the recipient of the 2008 MacArthur Fellowship Award and author of the best-selling titles Americana and we should all be feminists writes a powerful new statement about feminism today you will hear much more about tonight's guest from our moderator radhika jones the new york times editorial director of books please join me in giving a very warm welcome to radhika jones and to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] good evening can you hear me okay I am honored to be sharing the stage with a writer I have admired from afar for many years so happy that you could be here um so I wanted to talk first about the new book which she wrote as a letter to a dear friend on the occasion of the birth of her daughter it's such an intimate gesture and such a private thing what made you decide to give it to the public um um first of all thank you thank you for that very kind welcome and thank you for being here and um it's lovely to share state with you because I read you and it's also I remember also thinking what seeing a picture of you thinking she's such a babe so so that was that I know but and you're right it was it started off as my friend telling me that she wanted to raise her daughter feminist and actually what she said was I want to raise her so she doesn't take the kind of nonsense that I took I want her life to be better than mine and I throw something in it that was both moving inside because I thought in many ways it's an act of love and also I think it's really the mark of being a parent that you you want better for your child and then to be asked to be part of this process was a little overwhelming and I wrote her the email but I also thought the best thing I can do for her because I care about her is to be honest and practical and it became also for me a map of my own feminist thinking because I realized after I wrote it that I had never actually sat down to write about the things I think we should do differently I've talked a lot about we really should raise girls and boys differently but I had never really sat down to write it down and it was a much shorter it was shorter than the book is because I made some changes why did I decide to really because I think I have a bit of a Messiah Complex and I think this and there's a part of me that that wants to help know just and this is not always a good thing I have the impulse to help and that can often mean you crossing boundaries and getting in people's spaces to tell them here's what you do making good when I and there been all of these debates in in Nigeria about women's rules and I and I would often meet young women particularly young African women who would say to me you know I identify as feminists but I don't really know what that means in practical terms in my life I don't know what the feminists answer to this is and and so part of a part of my making the choice to release it was hoping that it would be helpful to to some people that because in many ways my vision my feminist vision isn't about theory or about theorizing or about sort of arguing about things it's it's more practical pragmatic it's it's me constantly thinking about how can we actually make people's lives better and so I hope that if this book came out that the women particularly women who are mothers but women in general would maybe find it just useful in that kind of well this is what this is what the feminist thing is and I also hope that it might I hope that it might demystify feminism if that makes sense because I think and I felt that the young women who would ask me what's the feminist answer that he had become a burden to them that this idea of a feminist therefore and I just thought it shouldn't be I hope it's not for young women I hope it's that I mean either end it's about trying and it's and it's it's about justice but it's not about beating yourself up right yeah right you've you say in that book and also in in we should all be feminists you talk about the challenges of not just of learning maybe what the feminist response is but also unlearning yeah as you move through your life and begin to make different kinds of choices unlearning those gender assumptions um what are some of the things that you've unlearned as you as you've gone on this I realized recently that I'm still unlearning yeah I'd like to say that I've learned it all but I haven't and it's and that's why it's important to say to young women you know don't be hard on yourself I mean it's it's hard if you have been exposed to something consistently for a long time and living in a world that is not a feminist world you absorb things without necessarily even knowing that you absorb them somebody had said to me a few days ago about a doctor and I said What did he say I never had caught myself like an eternal the doctor was a woman and so that's good news I mean not only the good news it's normal because you know the world is full of women doctors but but again that condition in that then and they said oh we saw a doctor and I said what is that What did he say mm-hmm which again brings me to language because I am I thinking had I said it in Hebrew which doesn't have masculine and feminine pronouns I would have got in the past because it's the same pronoun for man anymore but I said it in English sir and if I was caught but yeah I think I think the major thing that I think I have just unlearned and I is that idea that my Equality is conditional that your full walk as a woman is something that in some spaces can be conditional so people in Nigeria will say to me you know as long as your husband allows you to do this that's fine a kind of thing or they would say to two daughters I mean even that idea that somehow your brother is your protector mm-hmm which in many ways is is ostensibly well-meaning but I just completely reject that because it there's a kind of power in your quality that it suggests you know my brother is my brother he's not my protector I mean he's it's because there's also kind of a sense of ownership that your brothers and your fathers and the male people in your life I encourage to have over you because of that idea of being protected I would learn protect yourself yeah and of course that you can't protect yourself right and and also that you can never be their protector I mean you so I've learned ideas of them of not mattering equally I I think they're all of these subtle cues you get that you don't matter as much and I just didn't get that memo I and in the meantime you've become a mother I have yes and so you're raising your own feminist daughter yes what about what has surprised you about motherhood the love just the the newness the completeness the the wholesomeness of this love it's just a different thing from anything I've ever experienced in my life and I've just been and you know you kind of read and you you know that you're going to love your child but then then the love happens and it's overwhelming and if she has a diaper rash and she's crying I just I feel it and it's it's so it's the love and and also a sense of in some ways I think the love comes with a sense of helplessness because I want to protect her from everything and I realize I can't and there's something about it that makes you think about you know the world being this fragile place and everything being fragile and it makes things a bit more pressure so it makes you want to be present it makes me look at I'm looking at how discovering things you know we'll go to the playground I she picks up a wood chipper she wants to put it in her mouth and even that I just find ridiculous Joey it's the way he wants to eat the wood chip you see I mean that is that but there's also just more that all of the things I realize now that many things that before for me were ideological concerns I mean not that I didn't care about them but they I felt slightly removed from them but now that becomes so urgent even just the idea of of living in a feminist wall the fair wall that just world has become suddenly so much more urgent to me because I'm thinking this is the wall she's going to live in and unlike my friend EJ Willy I want my daughter's life to be better than mine so I I there's a lot of very serious stuff in this book I don't know how you have read it there's a lot of gravitas there but but there was a little bit that made me laugh and I and I want to read it back to you and ask a little bit about the family you grew up and this is in that the first of the 15 suggestions which is to be a full person and you write our mothers worked full-time while we were growing up and we turned out well at least you did the jury is still out on me so we'll come back to the juries later but but tell us a little bit about your your upbringing what did your mother do my mother retired as the Registrar of the University of Nigeria and she was the first woman to be register which meant that she was the first woman to be head of the all of the entire non-administrative the entire non-academic section of the university and it was a big deal and she was you know very much a big madam and and she was very inspirational to many other women I think continues to be and growing up she you know my parents were relative but my parents were their time and place are very progressive people my father was born in 1932 and he is just really the loveliest gentlest kindest man and and quite progressive so growing up for example I didn't my mother didn't I have friends who have much sort of harsher stories of you know I was a girl so I wasn't allowed to go out to but you know had to steal home and all the domestic walk and my brothers played I mean it wasn't quite like that with me my mother made sure we all did domestic what my brothers me but I remember that I was the one who needed to learn to cook and we had we had um we had households and my mother would say to me go and stay in the kitchen because you need to learn how to cook and and then the justification would be because you have to cook in your husband's house and I remember even as a child thinking I don't think you I think I want to be in husband's house because it's been to me a place that was talked about only in terms of a certain kind of domestic servitude yeah what are you going to do in your husband's house you keep doing that you're not going to find a husband I don't think you brother we just go out and play badminton with my rubbers so but but it was also in many ways I mean a childhood that I feel very grateful for because because it was happy because my parents were loving people because my family's very close-knit and and also mostly because my parents allowed me to be a little strange and I mean that in the best of ways and I feel very grateful for it now because I didn't always conform I was a child who was I asked questions I sort of like the kind of give me room and I'm not sure how much of that is because they already had two stable daughters and whom they could take appropriate pride therefore therefore I think I was they could sacrifice me so but but they didn't I and I'm you know I just feel very I feel very grateful really the youngest the second youngest the fifth of six children and did you learn to cook I did I did I actually mean it's interesting talking about this because for a long time I wouldn't talk about and in some ways I still don't I'm talking about it now obviously but talking about cooking is something I avoid because it is such a loaded thing but I'm actually quite a good cook when I'm in a good mood but I I just would participate in the cooking as I mean because for me it's so connected to that idea of of domestic walk and caregiving being something that women should do as a part of something that makes them sort of gives them a kind of human Worth and I just have such a problem with that but I did and was part of your strangeness that you were a big reader um no because my my family was a reading family my brother okay actually probably read more than I did when we were growing up my father was a professor of statistics but he is a reader my mom not so much I mean she reads fashion magazines but I didn't get that in a bad way me she read administrative textbooks [Laughter] but no my my and my reading was encouraged so we were family of you know books were um ordinary mm-hmm what did you read I read everything I read when I think about it now I I recently went back to reread a book that I read I first read when I was 11 and it's inside the Third Reich by Albert Speers book and I was fascinated by that book at eleven and I suddenly thought I you know why so I've actually gone back and I've just started reading it again because I want to know why that book I mean I really I read that book very sort of intensely when I was 11 I read everything I read my very early reading was as is the case I think with most children in in Anglophone Africa very British so I was reading Enid Blyton and I knew everything about the famous five in the secret seven and and and then I then I went through the phase of reading Mills and Boon romances and I read almost all of them if not all then I went through the phase of crime and James had lychees who is a writer nobody outside of Anglophone Africa knows but everybody who grew up in Nigeria and Kenya and Ghana we read all the Jim's had richest thrillers and they were set in the US and apparently he was an English man who invented this America in his head and root crime novels about it and I and I later understood they did not do well in the US because they were not really about the US we I mean I G really just and they had titles like him um no audience for MS blandish um um would you like a hole in the head [Laughter] you fight you find him I'll fix him so just collection but these were I mean we read them and we weren't very intriguing and nobody we pass them around again is such pleasure really I and then also I read a lot of it's a lot of crime a lot of Sidney Sheldon and Robert Ludlum and all of those things and I recently went back to reread some of them and I couldn't get past two pages and it said to me something about I'm very interested in the ways that we change and how what we read changes and how we read I think changes and then and then I just did a reading and then I at some point I just completely fell in love with them as a wonderful series called the African writers series published by hanger man and I I mean I read everything there and that's when I started to develop a kind of pan-african consciousness because I just had told I mean I remember this book sets in in countries I don't even think I really actively knew existed like you do a book certain in Conakry Guinea and I'm like oh so there's that country and and things and people are there and it's all quite normal and so I love those and but then I also read I read the history of the Catholic Church at the age of I guess 10 and then and then I would argue with priests about you know I just when I think about it now I don't even know why but but it was also just wanting and so because I read quickly as well I just read everything I found and the only thing I couldn't read what my father's journals because statistics it was mostly numbers and didn't make much sense and you were raised Catholic I was yes do you what is your relationship to the face now that's a very lovely way of asking well I was raised Catholic too so I I asked myself is it question which is I have often think about Catholicism being not mainly just a religion but a kind of culture and that it I think of it as something that is under your skin it's there I mean you might not go you might not practice but you kind of remain Catholic in a certain sort of way and I think that before Pope Francis I mean because I was a person who asked questions i i i think not surprisingly had many problems with the church and the churches of official positions and many things my birth-control for example i mean i know many many people in Nigeria who are very personally affected by those women who do not want to have more children but who subscribe to this idea that if used birth control your sinning and so they end up having more children that they can raise properly and adjust um and add even just you know small yeah so I had I have many questions and many problems with the Church's position so at some point I stopped going to Mass because I just openly to men I came to the US and and that that was after going to Mass in New Haven where a priest spent all his time just delivering this harangue about how people had to vote for the candidate who opposed abortion and I thought this is what Catholicism in this country is it's just political screaming about abortion as well nothing else matters you know and my the tradition of Catholicism that I admire is the kind of more you know social walk tradition and I and I just didn't see that but but with the election of Pope Francis who I find a very inspirational figure and a very human figure it's kind of made the Catholic Church I don't know and I think two things it's the poop and it's also having a doll tonight and I want to give her the option of faith so the cat land because the Catholic Church is what I know immediately it's interesting that I am a major critic of the Catholic Church in many levels but if non Catholics are criticizing the church I just find that that him ever so slightly getting defensive and bristling and I find that I'm always holding myself back from jumping into full defense mode and saying well you don't really understand how we do things look good but so it's a complicated relationship waiting yeah so as you were doing all this reading as a child did it ever when did it occur to you that you might become a writer did it cross your mind um no because I was just writing so I hadn't done I think I think in some ways because I think because I grew up in a culture that didn't elevate writing so the things that were elevated were things like medicine and law so a child wanting to be a writer wasn't a thing that was necessarily at my head so I don't know that many people as I think happens here spent that time thinking I don't think I'm a real writer I'm like become a writer no because nobody really cares imaginary why you wanting to be a writer and I think I've been writing since I was old enough to spell and I think I just wrote and I think when I was 7 I thought I was a writer because I read stories I think that two things to me that the writing is the thing that writing gives me meaning it gives me meaning in a very personal way and it's something I've been doing and something I will keep doing I got very fortunate and was published whether people actually read what I wrote but if that hadn't happened I would still be writing so that for me to that the writing is kind of different from the publishing way I made the choice to be published I want it to be published but I think of it as a separate thing from my writing my writing is much more personal it's it's a thing that when it's going well it's the thing that makes me happiest so do you because you have been so acclaimed in your career with the orange Prize for half a Yellow Sun and with the MacArthur grant and and you know very wide and world wide readership do you when you think about this sort of the distinction between writing for pleasure and also being a published writer how do you measure success was there a moment where you thought oh I'm I'm good at this I can do this or is it how does that work for you how do I measure success that's a very good question mmm I like I quite like getting prizes especially when it comes with money it's quite lovely so that's always nice and I also you can never get too many never mind I'll take one more but when animal is because I think the thing about rising and it's interesting because there's a sense in which validation is is such an important part of the process I wish it wasn't but it is and prizes are validation it's sort of a way of somebody saying to you we kind of think you did okay with this but but I've also realized and I realized I think very early on that it's a very fleeting thing the prize happens and you're happy and you're beautiful but it very very quickly passes and you look it's not that you forget but it's it's not something you actively carry with you so I go into my study and I sit down to write I don't remember I really don't remember that I'm won prizes because in many ways the creative process is still the same for me there's still a sense of kind of hopeful exhilaration but there's also incredible fear and there's anxiety that it's not going to go well that you know if it hasn't changed I mean it's the same today as it was twenty years ago the process for me that even the physicality of it know that I kind of wander around often when it's not going well I just start wandering around and I'm you know not terribly stable but so I think for me success is if I write something that I'm happy with yeah I think I think that's how I would measure success because there have been things that I have liked quite a bit that have not necessarily been lied to as much as I would want them to be like but but I've been very you know it's make for me I've count it's counted at success and yeah there are times when things that have been published so sometimes I'll look I'll open a page of my novel and I'll read a bit of it or now I just think why the hell did somebody publish this and I get very nice thing over she says that out and then their other times I read something I think no bad I mean recently I was a ruler and and a short story that I wrote many years ago that actually had forgotten about that the school the school was very it was kind of not to dramatize the short story and I was sitting in the audience watching it and I was very moved by it right but then the part of me that has a very big glowing ego was also kind of like that's not bad at all but by the way by which I meant the story not the dramatization and then and then I started to worry what that you know I was like it's not even a normal but anyway no but that but just to say I think and sometimes I think this the top that cult that success I think particularly this culture is talked about as though it's it's something you reach and you stay there and it's it's it's a level thing and I don't think it is at all I think I think it's always that you know and if one is to talk about it honestly and and you're never I'm never I hope I never get complacent but also for me my walk is never quite finished which maybe is why when I look at some pages I think that should have gone you know that not sure that should look um well I think that's also why it's good to have an editor who sometimes tells you already don't just just give it to me hey so take us through a day of writing huh well a good or a bad one well which one is more dramatic bad good one I sit there and the thing for me about fiction writing is that it has the capacity to transport me I find it I find that I I lose a sense of time when the writing is going well I'm sitting there and I'm writing and I look up I think oh my god it's been three hours and I really didn't know and I also find that it I'm very singularly focused on if I don't want to shower shower is a waste of time because I need to be and my phone is off I mean that's out of the question when it's and then I'm just and then at the end of it when I've written but also in quite a slow writer and so you know I spent three hours and I have two paragraphs but I'm kind of happy with them but I find that at the end of a good writing day I'm just P right so I'm actually fairly pleasant to be around and and I find that I just don't like it's just such a good you know life is good I know the night sometimes I'll cook but when it's a bad day it's not good I mean I'm just just so grumpy it's just not pleasant at all you know it's all kinds of things happen it's it's not good and and then there's I'm learning to sort of manage the bad writing days because you can it's very easy for me to just spiral into thinking I'll never write a good sentence again and then that's where the fear and anxiety come in and so I've learned to what I do is I tell myself just let it go and go and read just you know leave it alone and go and read because sometimes I'll sit at my table it's not walking but I'm sitting there and and the anxiety builds up so I'm learning to and I also find that when I write in fiction I read a lot of poetry and I find that it just helps me so I'll just leave it alone and I'll go curl up and I'll read poetry and I let the words I don't read poetry as puzzle I don't read poetry to figure out i reproduce let the language wash over me and I do that a lot when my writing isn't going well and then I eat ice cream and chocolate that also often helps what I'm an editor so I'm always interested in people's relationships with their editors what are you are you the sort of writer who works in works and works and then says here it is or are you or do you have a more of a back and forth with the monitor I'm a bit I know I mean I need to be in control so I need to do what I'm doing in them and I feel that I'm almost done now let somebody else look at it yeah but I also have I mean I have it's so it's not just my editor it's also that I have about three first readers people who are my friends who who I love and trust but who also tell me the truth and I think that it's been essential for me to have them because and there's such different people and within such different ways and it makes me just see my world and makes me see things I wouldn't have seen before and and it's very useful for me and and you know they tell me the truth so a friend of one of them is a his Nigerian he is in his mid-50s is an engineer and his very easy sort of practical so he read a sentence that I think is very pretty and he'd be like this doesn't even make sense and it makes me go back I think you know what his right and so having that is very useful for me and these are people who you they're obviously giving you feedback in different ways yeah yeah and someone who's sort of in the business yes you has that particular mentality one of the things that I love about your novels is how comprehensive they are they're they contain love stories there are Wars there is destitution there is racism and misogyny and there's food and drink and hair care and you know children and this is more than many novelists take on in a whole lifetime of work you know there are so many novelists who kind of find his own and and that's where they live and it makes me wonder have what comes what what comes first for you when you're thinking about a new project particularly a novel is in is it an idea is it a is it plot is it character it's sometimes all of those things it's hard for me and I think it depends on I think I think it's been different for each of the novels that have written I know for example that Purple Hibiscus my first novel Oh at least my first novel that was published came from just this acute feeling of homesickness and nostalgia and I and I remember very clearly it was my first American winter it was snowing it was so cold I was so miserable and suddenly I just felt it it was like a mood there was a mood of just deep longing for home I wanted suka where I grew up I wanted sunshine I wanted even the smells of home and the novel came from there and in some ways the novel obviously isn't about my life but I think that image there's a keen sense of longing and and almost like a romanticized idea of home and it came from that cold winter they've been yeah I mean I think there's been times when it's been character and there are times when it's story I mean story matters to me I'm a I'm a writer who thinks plot is a good thing hey when I say that because I know that some literary writers who don't think so but I don't think yeah I never quite know my food plots for me it's so much better not to know because because the writing process for me is a discovery if I knew the entire story I don't think I want to write it so it's never quite plot but it's sometimes character sometimes it's a voice sometimes it's a it's almost like an intuition right now to know I can't talk about right now what I'm thinking I think I was about to running my mouth but he'll stop they're working on something no I'm a superstitious eboo we'll hope for the best I talk about it nothing disappear um I I was looking in preparation at back at Americana and and I remembered how in that novel there's so much hope around the election of Barack Obama and you published it in 2013 a year after his re-election and now here we are and and I and I just wonder do you think you know of course it was always an illusion that Obama would magically bring about a post-racial America and and and I think most people knew that that was an illusion but I think maybe we didn't expect quite the about-face um yeah and I and I wondered if you think you know having thought so much about these issues do you think what what if anything do you think has changed has there been progress even in the the kinds of issues that were willing to raise or and talk about or the ways that that we're willing to talk about race in America hmm I'm talking about progress when it comes to race in this country just always makes me uncertain because because obviously on the one hand do you know honestly I don't know I don't know I do think though that I think that Donald Trump is as much America as Barack Obama and I think it's important to acknowledge that because because otherwise it makes it difficult to even engage with the subject I think that they're people who wish that that Donald Trump wasn't as much America as as Eric Obama but he is he is and and in some ways I also think that Donald Trump happened because of Barack Obama that had Barack Obama not happen do not run probably wouldn't have happened I mean never mind the more obvious thing that this person made himself relevant by instituting a racist campaign called better ISM you know but even up even just regarding that I think there's something about this country that I think will take a long time to I never felt that Barack Obama's election meant that America will become post ratio because I I think that's that's just very wishful thinking you you can't correct 300 years of of them injustice by by having a token you know you just don't and in some ways I think that that Donald Trump is proof of that that yeah he's he's America this is what America got I mean I mean there are ways in which to to grasp for silver linings and say that maybe it's made people know not to be complacent about what a democracy is and it's made people realize that you have to get up and I mean apart from just get up and vote you have to be you have to be aware and I let because I think there's much to be said for the people for the Democrats who stayed home right there's much to be said and and yes we know that the person whose president won but you know how he won't mean but you know it just kind of makes you think yeah this is a strange system yeah we're not going to solve this one here no I you've you've said and some of your characters have echoed the sentiment that your consciousness of race really started when you landed in America that it wasn't something that was with you and in Nigeria that there were different distinctions made yeah but but not about race per se and so it was really issues around feminism about being a girl and being a woman those were the things that came to you sooner yeah those were the things that occupied your mind yeah um now you live in America part time and you have both of these things operative as as all women of color in America do how do you how do those of course you can't separate selves you know you can't put yourself into different boxes but but I'm interested in now that you're raising a daughter to how do those identities inform each other I don't even know I mean I I don't choose the days that I'm black and the days that I'm a woman right because I'm sometimes I wish I could so then you sort of know what you're dealing with hey why is this thing happened yeah exactly if I can separate them a black alright so that's the reason that's the woman bit I mean I like to tell the story about how when people send cars to pick me up for things and when I appear and usually it's a it's a white man who's the driver and and usually because instead of a fancy-pants car he I guess is not used to picking up people like me and usually when I appear I'm always watching the expression and and there's always surprised sometimes it's been line surprise all the times it's surprise that has a streak of something ugly underneath it and I find myself often thinking how much of that is race and how much of that is gender hey is he thinking what the hell is this girl child but I'm picking up is he thinking what is black alright I'm like which one is it so I mean recent gender uh they're always intertwined for me I mean that maybe the times when I don't know I'm much more aware or gender in Nigeria only because you know why actually I think only because race isn't there mm-hmm when I get off the plane illegals I completely forget about being black I don't even it just doesn't occur to me I get off the plane in Atlanta and I actually I get on the claiming Legos the plane to the flight to Atlanta and I just immediately aware how many black people in the cabin right I mean race is so present you know you you you and the thing about race that's so interesting is that it's you know it's not that it's that you go into a store and somebody's rude to you in this country in Nigeria I think that person is an idiot that person is having a bad day or I actually have come across in a way that hasn't been very nice maybe I'm having a home old out day myself right so these are three options I don't really ever think in Nigeria somebody's rude because I'm a woman because when it happens it's clear I know I know where it happens in the US somebody's rude to me I'm thinking they're having a bad day you know they're just really just idiots I'm hormonal all they're racists and it's having that extra thing that I just wish I didn't have to deal with because it's a thing you're thinking or why did she just see that and sometimes it's not but even having to think when is it and when it's not is exhausting it's mentally exhausting so getting of the pleading legal system get rid of that source of mental exhaustion and face other sources of memory I don't know raising my daughter um you know I was thinking I don't even want her to know that I don't want her to think of blackness as as particularly the way that America has constructed blackness I think blackness was so long been associated with negativity in this country that I don't want it to be um I don't want her to learn America's idea of blackness I don't want her to learn that at all and I'm going to try and shield her from it and I'm going to you know our our vision of blackness is going to be one that I grew up with which is blackness as ordinary and normal and blackness as you know when I came to the US I realized that that black achievement was seen as extraordinary right and and to this day I can't help but feel a slight a slight sense of irritation when people say so-and-so is the first black American to do so-and-so and I think actually it should give us pause we shouldn't be so celebratory we should stop and think it's really terrible that the institutionalized oppression made it impossible for black person to be this before now right and there's a kind of way that I find it hard to participate in because because for me that's proof of America's really terrible racist history that it's taken so long for black person to reach such a position and I came from Nigeria where black achievement is ordinary and so when I remember when I came in my first I like to tell the story of my very small moment when I realized what racism what being black meant in America it was my first sort of I was an undergrad my first day in America we'd written essays handed the mean the professor came back with the essays graded and he said this is the best essay I've read I want to know who wrote it and he called out my name and I raised my hand and he looked surprised and it was a very small moment but I remember thinking he's surprised because he didn't expect the person who wrote this essay to be black and so that moment for me was really so this is what and I with my doing a wonderful glowing casual Nigerian arrogance which which is something that we Nigerians are just it's like it's every morning we have a glass of casual Arab essay you should pass that on to I remember thinking I really genuinely just felt what the hell I mean does he not know I'm Nigerian does he not know does he not know there were all brilliants in my country what is he what but it then started a process for me because you know I makes you question the whole construction of race and blackness because it's absurd and it then also made me go and learn about American history because I didn't know very much and I think it's true for many immigrants who come yet we don't know and you call me and you absorb Terris stereotypes and people tell you Oh black Americans are lazy and if you don't know I mean if you if you see that the ghettos in this country ghettos are full of African Americans and somebody tells you oh that's because they're lazy if you don't know the history of just you know horrible institutionalized discrimination you won't understand right and so it took me reading and learning to suddenly think oh my lord right and so I think it's just going to take a long time for America to to make make it right you've been very willing to write about political subjects and issues you wrote in the last year you wrote a tribute to Michelle Obama which was beautiful you wrote a short story for the New York Times Book Review about Melania Trump the first line modeled on mrs. Dalloway yes you obviously are speaking out about feminism you received some criticism recently for some remarks about trans women and you've responded to that you're more than many American writers at least it strikes me you're willing to get into the fray and I and I wonder maybe it's the casual Nigerian arrogance in which case we should all be drinking it but you know do you ever do you feel as a writer that you have a plan have that place in the public sphere do you feel pressure to to do more of it to do less of it yeah that's a good question because do I feel pressure no because I don't really I mean if there's any it's it's I I don't but but I think we dealing you know in some ways what's kind of interesting is I never really set out so somebody once said to me you're an activist I think I gave me pause because I thought I don't think of myself as an activist I sometimes wonder how much of it is a person who just speaks her mind and because you know if I think if you speak your mind directly and if you if you're not very apologetic about the space you occupy then it immediately takes on meaning that you don't necessarily intend for me to take on I I don't think I think that my writing I've always been a child who's interested in in politics and in history and and I think again that idea of I I really do ache for a better wall I really do just find things that I want I wish would change and and it's also just a very it's always very corny thing but it's that I just I want people to be happier and I want you know I won't love to be in the wall I mean it's sort of like sort of like being in a beauty pageant and you're asked what do you want and you say well peace but it's true really do whatever let me genuinely want a world of justice for everybody and peace and all of that which I think necessarily means just constantly existed in this space of dissatisfaction and and therefore talking about it and I think it often comes with consequences but you know if you care about something you you you talk about them feminism I I never I just never plan to be um when Michelle said feminist icon I just thought so my lord there's something about it that I don't know that I necessarily want to be feminist I could you know I mean on the one hand they're very lovely things that happened so young women who come up to me and say because of you I feel stronger because of you you know it just it means the wall to me makes me very happy but on the other hand it can often be limiting because then people I mean in some ways related to what you said about the controversy people then expect certain things of you the second ways you're supposed to talk because you have been you have been made into this thing and and in some ways the thing for me that sad is that there's a there's the risk of your humanity being lost because you're no longer seen as a textured person you just become the icon and it's almost as though you know press the button and let us say what we want her to say and there's something about that makes me uncomfortable I speak about feminism because I care very deeply about it and because I hope that it means something to other people but I don't I want to be allowed to remain a human being a flawed human being we are gonna take a couple of questions from Facebook live I think they you're smiling missile so these are tough quest I'm smiling because I'm like I'm glad I don't have to answer these questions these are difficult questions what do you think about the image feminists tend to get about being aggressive of being haters the image feminists have been aggressive of being hate sons being a that feminists are aggressive that feminists are you know hate men I mean I think people who are that for you don't necessarily mean well in general because that's not true and I also think that aggressive me that the awards that we are very judgmental about when we apply them to women but not necessarily to men and and in some ways for me aggressive there are times in one's life that one needs to be aggressive and both women and men I think that's a good thing so I was I just don't think women should run away from I think women should own them and yeah I mean that I think I do think that feminist is a loaded word because of all of these negative stereotypes and and part of the reason that I think it's important to talk about it is to take that ownership of that word here's a tactical question what are your thoughts on how the women's rights movements can sustain momentum I don't know leave that one to the experts this is their tough questions right these are difficult questions do you see this is from Ally Barton do you see a difference in how feminism is practiced in Nigeria and America hmm yes I mean I think I think feminism I think feminism is is always contextual yes I think in general and at the risk of simplifying I think it gets slightly easier for women in Nigeria as they get older I think it gets slightly more difficult for women in the US as they get older because I think to be young and female in this country is to sometimes be shielded from the realities because things are not as overt but I think as you get older and and and become more invisible in more ways than one and that's where the most structural things I think kick in that's when I mean when you're 12 you don't really pay gap doesn't really affect you Hey but then when you're 55 it does and I think just that I mean I it's just the kind of invisibility of of older women in this country there's a there's a kind of them for me very disturbing worshipping of youth that I find just strange you know you this is lovely you know god bless the young but you know I I kind of feel like I want to land and I don't know that the young necessarily have much to teach me but there's such an everything is so you mean but they talk about advertiser the cultural production in this country I look at magazines and everything is about people I've never even heard of them and we're supposed to you know we're supposed to care about what they're doing with their lives and I think that's nice but I would like to know about women who were 255 I'd like to learn about the experiences I'd like to you know sort of mind their wisdom and I feel as though there's no mainstream space in this in this culture that that celebrates women women who are past a certain age and women of I think all races and classes it just doesn't happen in Nigeria because it's still a culture that largely respects age as a woman gets older there's just a bit more respect that comes that it's as though age starts to shape gender so people have often said that the worst thing to be Nigerian and female and then occupy any position apart it's just the worst thing to be but if you're in a friend of mine was saying to me she's young she's she's young very interesting intelligent she has this very good job I she said to me that once had driver who was an older man was very disrespectful toward Zion and then he said to her well madam it would be better if you had some stature by which he meant if you were bigger which in some ways connotes age it's sort of a hero if you were a big madam then I could kind of tolerate walking for you I mean I also think about how in this country um I think in some ways there's something refreshing about Nigeria's sexism because you know what you're dealing with right in this country it's layered it's so layered that it becomes mentally exhausting and also I think there's a lot more pressure on women here to prove sexism I mean look at what's happening with Hillary Clinton and it's interesting to me how still many extensive ly intelligent people are completely dismissive of the fan that misogyny played even the smallest rule in how she was covered and it's kind of okay to be solicited Ray J's will tell you very clearly a woman cannot be a governor so it's not where you know what you're dealing with right so that if you if you're right or wrong you kind of know how to deal with it and in this country they so women in this country expect it to be sexy right sexy is good sexual is not right you can't be a sexual being in this country I mean this whole idea of slut-shaming which is an expression I just like but even even the whole conversations about rape and consent we I feel as though we're still not talking about the fundamental thing underneath it which is that still sexuality is not allowed women my female sexuality is still the thing was so uncomfortable about in Nigeria they're very open do not be sexy do not be sexual so we're like right there's nothing to be confused over and I feel as though I don't think any is better was but but there is something to be said for something being with refreshingly obvious [Laughter] I think we're ready to take some questions from the audience now oh I actually can't see any of you oh there you are so we have microphones coming around and speak into the mic so that they can hear you on the Internet I miss Aditya I just want to just tell you that for me I think one of the most powerful things I read for you from you the other day was and I'm just gonna paraphrase this knowledge of cooking is not installed in the vagina and then I remember I was in my room we did it and I started sharing because like you I grew up in uh in West Africa I grew up in Ghana I had four brothers they were all I was the only one who had to learn how to cook I was cooking since I was eight years old and when I decide when I decided to get married I said I need to find a man who can cook and that was a tall order I think I did I did eventually find the man who could cook but in my 30s and 40s we had to go through this fast way when his family came to visit I had to go and cook so finally a few years ago I said you know what I'm not pretending anymore I'm not doing this so when I saw that dumb coat I actually screenshot it and I sent it to everybody I know and so I just want to thank you for that thank you and as you can I can I also just say that if you're just hearing you speak is inspiring to me when you said I just decided to stop pretending and I want to thank you for that yes yes it strengthens me to hear that thank you so much for your words um I wanted to ask you had mentioned that your that your family left you space to kind of be weird to be different to kind of a be yourself in that way could you tell us a little bit more about what that looked like as a kid no you don't want to know no I think I know just more in the in the sense of being a child who asked more questions than children are generally expected to ask in the culture in which I grew up and there's a sense in which questioning elders is often seen as disrespect my parents didn't see it as disrespect so my my question and I'm not just questioning my disagreeing I mean I was a child who sort of smugly thought I could tell adults that they didn't know something why the hell'd that happen I don't know so I would sort of argue with even my teachers but also it was actually cuz they were wrong sometimes no but my parents so it was kind of that that room to ask questions and they would the humid me they would they would respond to my questions they would them if I said I disagreed with something I got the sense that I was allowed to disagree and and I find that a very important or to say that then I was allowed me because sometimes they'll say to me no you're wrong sit down right so I did have discipline in a sort of also old-fashioned way right but but anybody was just a sense of being allowed to be full president and so having a certain confidence I mean it meant that your parents thought that you were worthy of that this saw me that's that's what it wasn't really increasingly what I think about is that to be loved is to be seen and to be known thank you so much um as a song yeah well thank you so much for being here I'm just like incredibly honored one of the great privileges of my life is I've actually gotten to meet a few of the MacArthur Genius award winners and not necessarily people who everybody knows I've gotten a chance to to know them when I think about that word genius I mean and seeing their lives and seeing some of what you talked about in terms of I even being able to grow up so expressive I'm in awe with that and not because of just sort of the prize at the end but the history and the growth and the maturation that comes with being able to bring forth genius when you hear the word genius nothing honestly I'm just you know this is this it doesn't do anything for me and and I do have to say it's something to be said for I can't even say that word with a straight face but it's such a strange I don't think the Machine knows I mean I don't need to be a genius I think there's something again there's something finished about the idea of a genius I don't think I'm finished I think that him I'm growing and I'm learning and you know I mean I very much loved the money that came with it right but I could have done I mean that little genius thing come on I mean that times even when people say it about me and I'm being introduced I don't know what the hell to do with my face actually I smile should I look at where Jimmy oh hi it's just strange I really Jenny doesn't do anything for me the recognition I felt very very honored it meant great that that meant brave I mean even apart from the money just being in being being part of this group of just really remarkable people who've done very interesting work in the world was wonderful and it's that sense of validation that happens but not the genius part hi Oh someone else no okay um oh okay I wanted to know you know a lot of times when I talk to men in my life about feminism and I get so excited about it I know that they believe in equal rights for women and they want to celebrate women but they're hesitant about that word you know feminists there has attempt to be feminist and then I try to convince them not to feel that tension and then I get upset because I think why do I need to prove myself you know do you think we need men in our feminism do you know that's saying a woman needs a man like the fish needs advice and I mean every boy do we know but to be on board with our agency you know do we need them I mean I think it's a and by the way I feel that that as well in many situations in my own life I mean when I in the book I write about how sex is it makes me particularly angry because in my own personal space unlike racism I don't have to prove and not asked expected to make a case for it the people I know and love know that anti black racism is a real thing in the world the people I know I love don't always seem to extend that understanding when it comes to sexism and some often as well maybe it was a misogyny with Hillary Clinton maybe it was just that you know she wore those pantsuits or something I mean I'm you know it's it's I to which I then say yeah but that is misogyny but do we need men for for female agency no do we need men for feminism and to create a feminist world yes we do need men men have to come on board we do we share the world with men I mean the idea of feminism as this exclusive thing that and I wouldn't want to ever so slightly challenge the idea of celebrating women I'm always worried when we create the idea of women as special women are not special that we're not we're just normal were he ordinary were human like men and it worries me when we start the discourse of women are special because because I think it's dangerous because it can lead to oppression I mean that that idea of stay home you can't drive you can't walk because you're special like just stay home don't do anything don't don't exercise your full humanity because you're special and and even the other idea that women are somehow inherently more gentle and more caring like nope they're not they're not but I think if we're honest about they're not women and there shouldn't be I think is even more important to say that we should allow women a full range we should have in the way that the full range of humanity that you know there as many kind men as they're unkind men in the wall that is the same with women and so when people say let's have women rule the wall and we won't have Wars and like go to a girls boarding school what's a girls boarding school right I mean that idea that so but but man I mean and I would ask them these people you talk about why why are they resistance to label themselves feminists because there's a part of me that feels that if you really do care about gender justice you shouldn't be hung up on stereotypes about award you know I mean it we need a ward around which to rally and and the dictionary meaning of feminism I think works very well and and you know so yeah I mean I think that that I that resistance has layers that are worth unpacking good luck so but I stop please don't so there's a question so my question on this side sorry hi hi thank you very much this has been really fascinating and I've I feel so honored being here I'm such a big fan um so my question is totally hear you on the anti black racism I'm raising a teenage daughter myself in America I'm from Africa and you know for me interestingly the biggest concern I have for her being here and when we go back home from South Africa is not so much the black racism it's the colorism you know she increasingly that something that she worries about a lot and is really affected by and I don't know if everyone in the audience knows sort of what I mean when I say colorism but pretty much amongst blacks the sort of the lighter skinned you are straight are your hair that seems to be even more problematic for my daughter who knows anti black racism but actually for her and her self-esteem the things affecting her the most here and back home our colorism just wanted to hear your your thoughts about that any observations that you have about that and then a little half question what are you reading to your daughter as you raise it to be a feminist I'd love to hear that I'm actually fascinated by that and I'm and you know having a child has also meant for me collecting wisdom from other women and I think it's very very important thing to do and so now I'm going to file that away because I think there's a sense in which being older of a certain of you know I think of myself as older colorism and unnamed sort of slightly wiser colorism is something that is seems to me self-evidently foolish but clearly it's something that affects deeply young girls as you you know we need to there's a newspaper editor who was talking to me and she said well what do we do what do we do about this problem of of having a very because I was talking about having a very limited notion of what was aspirational and female beauty and I said you know that just may be too few too many pages of thin white women and she said it was so difficult would you again I said actually it's not I mean if you have the part you're an editor what you do is if you have any determine you decide to have two pages of thin white women two pages of white women who are not thin two pages of black women and please can they not all sort of have that sort of ambiguous Luper we're not sure I they black are they can they be black right well I can they actually be blind and you know I don't think it's that difficult and then you know can you have Asian women and could we understand the Asian doesn't mean one thing can you know can we have East Asian and can we have some I mean it's actually not that hard and I think that women I think people and you know I said to her I also think that commercially it will work because people want to see the world reflected as it is it's the way that we talked about you know people talk about films and they say Oh black films you know nobody wants to have people watch them right they do well so I think I think there's a lot to be said for the images that our girls see because it doesn't obviously come from inside it doesn't come from her right it comes from the outside and I think it's hard because I don't think that you as a parent can entirely control it and so it means then that we really sort of have to start picketing the the fashion magazines and whatever the hell those I mean I don't even know what your own children well I don't know what I don't know what they read and where they get the ideas of yeah and I think also they lacked the natural hair community my sisters in the natural hair movement can we please agree that it's time to stop pretending as though if your curls are not loose you're somehow not doing something right can we agree that you know 4c hair is as good as some of some of our dear white sisters are like what the hell are they talking about can we agree that 4c hair because I think that also matters because it's not that's an internal thing right in the natural hair sort of community there are many many black women are going that show which i think is just it just makes me happy to see women wearing there and all kinds of permutations but what I increasingly see is that idea that what we call um you know the defined curl means that we're trying to approach them into some kind of biracial head type and I find that very troubling so so you go out of your way you do this thing so your hair has that but I'm like no but my curl pattern that's not my co-presenter my cooperton is what happens when my hair is washed and nicely moisturize it's very tight and kinky that's my curl pattern but but so even that I think needs to and I feel as though we do and I feel that one of the things in this country that's very interesting is that the fear of being seen and there's a reluctance to to be uncomfortable the reluctance to speak a certain truth in a way because you know if you say for example how about we also acknowledge that 4c hair is important people think oh my god your auntie 3c hair but you're not that means idea that we can't hold multiple things at the same time is very troubling I think that's part of the problem because now what you know if you talk about look why don't we have a few dark-skinned women people like oh my god you're actually like skilled women no but you're not it's about it's about a range so yeah you should start a movement and pick head people who need to be picketed good look hi time for one more right here um what you said you said this a little bit earlier and it really spoke to me because I find myself struggling with this to be able to come out of it you said when you want world peace you're constantly dissatisfied with the world and that's what I feel a lot of lately I'm 23 so I feel like I'm kind of coming into my actual adult understanding of politics and international affairs and things like that and I find myself not able to turn that off - turn off the dissatisfaction and I feel like it's kind of straining other aspects of my life I would like to be able to go to a bar with my friends without getting into an argument with a guy about white privilege how do you manage that another wine cooler um obviously writing I would assume is your outlet for that but you have other ways do you feel do you find yourself struggling with that as well you know not as much because I think when you get older you start soon there's there's a lot to be said for getting older you know really there is I mean you see and and I think me when I was younger I really couldn't stand you and other people said to me you're so young you'll understand it I used to want to smack them but now that I'm going to be 40 this year and there's something about and I think I think particularly for women I think we really come into our own when we get a bit older where we're a lot more comfortable in who we are because when you're younger there's just so much that you but what I do want to say to you is you have to enjoy your life right and and I understand what you mean about dissatisfaction I'm getting into those arguments but also remember it can often come there's a kind of sanctimony a kind of self-righteousness that can be blinding great and I think it's I think it's important and I say this only because it's always I was like you at 23 right I'll smuggle something on yes I give lectures to people I thought I knew it all we actually don't know it all and you know and even the person you're having the argument with with about white privilege I think it's also important to to see the humanity in that white person right and to realize that privilege blinds us I mean I don't think so so even the people who are I mean I think it's important in these conversations that we're having not to be so quick to assume ill intent and and more to assume to sort of head towards ignorance more than sort of malice or ill intent and and you know yes there's the anger about the wall being so terrible but everybody's dealing with some kind of honestly right so um and the other thing I would suggest and I wish somebody had told me is to go read as much as I can about the things that make me very angry do you know I mean just to the things that I do now in my sort of almost 40 year old moments of Rage about injustice in the world is you know I deliver rants that is also good but I read I want to understand and and I increasingly see that the world is full of contradiction and it's never in the world is not ideologically pure it isn't and there's a sense in which it takes a certain kind of them I don't know it takes a certain kind it's both a wisdom and humility to make peace with it right to say that I don't know that we're we're ever going to create a wall that is perfect but I do believe in incremental progress right so I feel as though so have the argument at the bar it's not a bad thing you know raise your voice scream have a rant and then you might actually even become friends with them and sort of say to them can you see why in a very calm way I'm not saying that you're evil but can you see why having the skin that you have in the society in which you have gives you a leg up in ways that somebody who doesn't have that doesn't I mean and it doesn't mean that you're a devil it just means that this society needs to find ways to destroy the structures that make it happen right but good luck you have lovely hair and please enjoy your life I think that's our final note [Applause] you

Channel: New York Times Events

Views: 58,497

Rating: 4.8773007 out of 5

Keywords: Chimamanda, Ngozi, Adichie, Radhika Jones, feminism, Nigeria, author, Dear Ijeawele, Americanah, We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, books, literature, MacArthur Fellow, MacArthur Award

Id: W3WvBH0OPiI

Length: 74min 4sec (4444 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 14 2017