West Hartford READS! An Evening with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (October 2019)

we did not receive funding from the town West Harper's budget and our mission is to privately raise and offer financial support to enhance the library's resources and services for the benefits of all members of our community because of the generosity of our funders the Library Foundation has been able to host national and world renowned authors for over 30 years including Wally lamb Richard Russo Anna Quindlen Billy Collins and of course our special guest tonight if you're so inclined you will find in your program how you can donate to the West Hartford Public Library Foundation so that we can continue to bring exciting programs like tonight's to West Hartford I'd also like to thank our program sponsor freed Marc Roth for their generous support of tonight's event freed Marc Croft is a family law firm who helps their clients discover any many cases rewrite their own stories so that they can live an inspired full life the firm's owners Megan freed and christened Marc Roth friends imide and Megan is here with us tonight Thank You Megan along with their entire team work tirelessly to pave new paths for each client everyone they work with has an opportunity to move forward with intention into a new way of living rooted in his or her own goals we could also not hold tonight's event if it weren't for the help of our wonderful town staff we thank the West Hartford Public Schools and Duffy Schools West Hartford facilities West Hartford Public Works and of course our dear friends with the West Hartford Police Department so to introduce tonight's guest speaker it is now - my distinguished pleasure to introduce our library director and also someone who also happens to be one of my all-time favorite middle school English teachers West Harvard's very own Martha church thank you [Applause] [Music] so that just tells you how old I am thank you all for joining us tonight for what is our annual celebration of a well-known author we do this every year and your participation in this event is what makes it so very very special so I want to really thank you all for being here Chuck took a lot of my thank yous but I have a few more to add we had members of the State Library community who helped helped run discussions for us over the course of the summer and those are kate by road who's here tonight sunny Scarpa tina panic Brigid Quinn Keary Michelle Penn and Cindy Hyken I also want to thank West Hartford it's plant and facility staff and especially the principal and staff of Duffy school for helping us find the largest available venue for tonight which is this building right here and I want to thank our very talented jazz pianist Taino Pacheco who came to us all the way from New Jersey [Music] since last spring I guess I should hold this since last spring we have been focused on an author whose work has been translated into over 30 languages and has appeared in various publications including The New Yorker Granta the O'Henry prize stories the Financial Times and zoetrope Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the author of three novels Purple Hibiscus which won the Commonwealth writers prize and the Hurston Wright Legacy Award half of a Yellow Sun which won the Orange Prize and was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and a New York Times notable book and Americana which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named one of the New York Times top ten best books of 2013 missa DJ is also the author of the story collection the thing around your neck her 2009 TED talk the danger of a single story is now one of the most viewed TED talks of all time her 2012 talk we should all be feminists has started a worldwide conversation about feminism and was published as a book in 2014 her most recent book dear la or a feminist manifesto in 15 suggestions was published in 2017 a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship miz' DJ divides her time between the United States and Nigeria tonight Missa DJ will be joined in conversation by poet creative writer and associate professor of English at the University of Hartford dr. Joyce a shun Tang tang following that there will be a few minutes for questions from the audience and we'd like to have you form a line and come to this microphone if you're somebody that has a question and then we will be doing the book signing over on this side of the room again the line should form over there and now it is my pleasure to officially welcome our mayor Cheri Kanter who will be reading a proclamation and whelping welcoming tonight's guests officially to the town of West Hartford Cheri Thank You Martha it is such a pleasure and an honor to be here and I'm so proud of all the library does Martha and her staff made this happen but obviously it's been a really real community effort so I want to again thank all the people that made this possible I appreciate you please give your hands to further west open library and the Friends of West Hartford library where as the town of West Hartford is home to readers of all ages representing a wide variety of backgrounds and interests and whereas for 30 years the West Hartford Public Library has been inviting community members to celebrate the joys of storytelling grantor agreed I'm sorry great writing and reading by hosting an annual author event and whereas these special events now known collectively as West Hartford reads have been made possible by support from the community through contributions to the West Hartford Library Foundation and whereas for the past several months local literature lovers have been reading and discussing the novel's essays and short stories of prize-winning author Chimamanda negocio DJ and whereas miss a DJ who has through the gift of storytelling enabled countless readers to travel beyond the boundaries of our own lives and to walk in the footsteps of others thus expanding our minds and enlarging our hearts now there are four be proclaimed that be on behalf of the town council and the residents of West Hartford and I'm sure all of you guests here I'm mayor sherry G Kanter do hereby recognize and welcome Chimamanda negocio DG back to Connecticut as our 2019 West Hartford reads author [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you can hear me now see I always think my teacher voice is good enough well I was saying how excited I am I never get enough of being a fan myself so welcome thank you and we're just going to start right away and the good ol Kamerion African that I am I'm going to do what we Cameroonians like to do we claim relatives that are successful so my first question to you is looking at your profile Connecticut shows up quite prominently you graduated from Eastern you went to Yale you have family here I could recognize them over there so what is your relationship to Connecticut is this another home quite no I thought it would be good to start on a note of honesty but well first I really want to say thank you all for coming out it's just really lovely - it's just lovely when people come so thank you and it's really nice to be back in Connecticut thank you to everyone involved with has West Hartford read it's just I really appreciate the the invitation the hospitality the kindness and Connecticut is not I wouldn't quite say home as much as I think Joyce wants me to say to him but but I will say that Connecticut has been very important in really in shaping Who I am today I graduated from Eastern Connecticut State and then I came back years later to go to Yale but really I think it was my early years here that contributed to forming me Connecticut was my first introduction to the joys and perils of winter and I think that it's also Connecticut I think is responsible for my first novel because I was so homesick and so cold but I started writing Purple Hibiscus so and and and yes I have family here so you know it's a state that's close to my heart because of that because people I love live here my sister is there not only she the most beautiful woman in the world I think she's the best family physician ever I think her patient schedule is full but if you're looking she's right around UConn and my my brother-in-law also lives here and and somebody I absolutely adore my nephew talks lives here as well and he hates me to say this but he has inspired quite a few characters in my fiction so this is all to say that I owe Connecticut a lot in my in my rights and Carrie in fact now that she says that I would share a little story it's amazing how life plays out I used to teach at UConn and I lived in stores and guess who was my primary care physician and at that time she had just published pop pop ooh hibiscus I think I went in one day and I was telling her that I teach literature I was an assistant professor in residence at the time and I'm sure she must have told me that oh my younger sister writes literature and when I found out who that younger sister was I started ranting and talking and she was like wow you guys really hold I in high esteem that's my younger sister and every time I came to office it was the same same thing and guess what my children we're under the care of her husband who was a pediatrician but guess what what I'll confess yet too high is that it took a lot of discipline not to beg to want to see her younger sister and she can testify that for five years I never asked to join the dinner or come to visit you know I'm like I know she aspects that this African would do that and I'm like this African knows better [Music] so I love it and I haven't seen her since I left you confer University of Hatford it's been ten years good to see her today so now that we talked about home and you don't claim Connecticut as home but you it definitely has a place of importance could you where is home and what does home home it's interesting because I think that as as I get older I find myself recalibrating the meaning of home home I think of myself as a person who now has two homes Nigeria is home and and the US has become home because I spent you know I spent half my time here and I spent half my time in Nigeria but you know increasingly I also think that home has become a state of mind I think for me home is really anywhere that I don't question myself on my belonging and sometimes it's Nigeria sometimes it's not in that sense but but in in a more I guess sort of just more plain-spoken way it's Nigeria in the u.s. I have a Nigerian passport still yes by choice Mahalo I do I do I think I think it's also partly because when I write mostly about Nigeria and my sensibility is still Nigerian so it doesn't matter what my home becomes in the future my sensibility and my my sense of self was formed in Nigeria and and I think because of that there's a part of me that wants to go through the humiliations of having a Nigerian has sports because that way I can prove my Nigerian authenticity and you don't want me to get started on what it means to travel and that's your passport what's almost going to ask that but why would you want to do that you don't want to go quickly you know the American passport says you must allow this person to go without delay yeah except for when you're in the Middle East no I don't want that the only time I was happy not to have the Nigerian passport was on I went to Qatar and I saw that people who had American passports were in the longer line so I felt I was like yes finally well we were to move right along I watched a video sometime ago and somebody was trying to ask you a question on race quoting one of your minds and what you said was interesting to me he said I come up with fairly good lines and then I don't know what to do with them yeah and when you said that in explaining further you maybe you said some good lines which I want to ask you about now and this is what you said race is the major organizing principle of American history an American life and the one Americans are mostly uncomfortable about I thought that's a quotable quote now I want you to speak to it I mean like if you said I said that I'm going to have to believe you because I I don't really have the evidence that I said that it sounds really good self limits anyway what did I mean if I did say that what I meant was but but really no I I think so I think that race is race is America's original sin race is America's really founding atrocity and and I think it remains the thing that Americans are most uncomfortable talking about when I came to the US I like to say that I was not black on I became black in America you know I grew up in Nigeria I left Nigeria when I was 19 and I came to the US and took on this new identity of black because in Nigeria skin colour is just not an identity marker you know ethnicity and religion are so I in Nigeria we have many many problems but what racism is not one of them there's tribalism there's religious issues this class but but the idea that you belong to a race called black and not just that but that it meant something was a discovery for me when I came to the US and initially it was something I resisted so I went through a period of saying don't call me black I'm Nigerian because I had very quickly internalized all the negative stereotypes about blackness in America and I didn't want to associate with it and obviously now looking back I realized that all of that came from you know a misguided ignorance yeah and stupidity I think we all we all deserve our moments of stupidity in our lives and so that I think that was mine when I was sort of you know shying away from blackness obviously now I no longer do I very much identify as black but I think that it's still something in this country that is very contested people aren't comfortable about it and there's there's kind of a dishonesty around it and so people talk it's interesting to me to watch how racist spoken about in code in this country and I think my novel Americanized it is about that when people say things like Oh somebody came in for an interview but he wasn't a good cultural fit actually they're talking about race you know when people talk about when politicians talk about law and order it's really cold it's about race and it's something that I think it's taken me living here all of these years to understand and then looking at American history that there's so much about this country that you can only understand when you look at it through the lens of race you I remember driving through Philadelphia which was the first city I lived in when I came here and thinking why are certain parts of the city just full of black people and why are those the really bad parts of the city only now that I know the history of this country - I realize that it's not an accident it's the result of it's a result of state actions that restricted where African Americans could live and even things like the electoral college that I think some of us might not be enthusiastic about these days also has it's its roots in in race and racism for me I think one of the you know one of the things that and again I part of the reason I wrote American I was because it's something I've been thinking about a lot that for progress to be made we need to have honesty in those conversations and the kind of honesty that means that we have to be willing to be uncomfortable and if there's anything I've learned about America is that people do not like to be uncomfortable it's it's and it's not such a bad thing to be comfortable with being uncomfortable you know you talk about this I'm almost tempted to ask that if you were suppose if you decided to produce another man well maybe this time is to rejoice on how to raise her voice in this environment mm-hmm I don't know so you have sons how old are they thank God well I think if you've done your job being a being a parent I think I think it must be really tough to raise a blood boy in this country I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like because I really do think that this is a country that imposes on on black boys a very unfair burden of of stereotypes where it just seems to me that blood boys are not allowed to just be boys I remember a story once that I was told by a young black man who said that he it was late and he was out in the parking lot and there were two young women who seemed to have trouble with their car and he was with his mother and his mother said we'll go help them and he's like no I'm not going to help them I'm a black man I just I can't write because you know I don't know what they do to think if I used to walk towards them to help them and there was something about that that maybe is so sad because I thought my god this is what you live with that in some ways your ability to show kindness is is that there's an obstacle to that and that obstacle is simply that you happen to be born a black male in the world I think if I had to and so because I don't have a son I am always before I have a four-year-old daughter and before I had my daughter I was very quick to give advice about raising children I mean before you finished asking me as I this is what you should do now that I'm living with the reality of a 4-year rules I'm not giving any advice and all I can say is for all the parents out there well done I don't know how the hell you all survived but really I think just the reality of it is that it's easy to be prescriptive and say this is what you should do but it's the reality of things is always harder I think I mean I wrote about raising a child is a girl if I I think if I'd written about a boy obviously that many things I don't know but one thing I think I would say is that we need to give boys the language to be vulnerable the language of emotion I think it's one thing we don't let boys have in the world and I think I think it's very bad for boys because those boys grow up to be men who then unable to communicate unable to express emotion and we judge them for that but we're not we don't ask how that happened now that I have a four-year-old daughter when I take her out to play I'm always watching other parents well I do this because I'm a fiction writer so I don't mind my business watching people this is what you have to do to collect material for fiction so in my eavesdropping and watching people and not minding my business I'm struck by how even now in the progressive area of Maryland where we live parents still deal with their children differently based on whether it's a boy or a girl the boy falls down and the mother isn't running to pick him up and give him hugs and kisses she's saying to him you know be tough be strong the girl falls down she's just enveloped in hugs and kisses and but at the same time the boy gets a lot more room to be a boy so he breaks things and the parent sort of shrug because he's a boy and there's a wonderful line from a novel I read some time by Meg Wolitzer and one of the characters is that she had assumed that boys could not be saved and so there was no point in trying and for me that I think I think we many of us in the world unconsciously internalized that idea that there is no point you know boys will be wild and crazy so why bother you know which i think is also sad because what I would do is give that poor kid the hugs and kisses that the girl gets but also give the girl the room that the boy gets to be and I think maybe also what I would what I would say is do not ever ever press boys for doing any kind of domestic walk Joyce's laughing because I think she's guilty of this you know boys make their beds and their mothers go oh that's so good why he should bloody well make his bed oh good lord don't get me started on that you know that the father changes the diapers were so happy and I'm thinking yeah it's your child you know no but really and I think it's something and women internalize it because again we've been socialized to think that because we are women we are the caregivers and somehow when a man then does what he should do we give him excessive praise so when that little boy is growing up he makes his bed his mother is so proud he's going to get in a relationship and he's going to expect praise from his girlfriend or his wife who if she has any sense will look at him like what you know you just said that he don't you don't want to be prescriptive but you can help yourself that I can't I guess I can okay what's my next question because sometimes reading your fiction and reading your nonfiction it looks like I'm suffering from my having a split personality here because this person here in the fiction it's not conclusive you know you live room for the reader to to fill in the blanks you know you're ambivalent here when it comes to your nonfiction your balls you direct we should all be feminists you know you have suggestions in 5015 suggestions you know so and I'm thinking what's going on here you want places like this I'm gonna tell you the Hoz she's guilty as charged I am I am and it takes a very careful reader I think your abs I think you've read me really well and and I think a writer there's no greater compliment but to be read carefully really for a writer so thank you okay I think I need to defend myself but you know what and I'm going to say that I really don't make any apologies for being prescriptive when it comes to gender I feel so strongly about about how important it is that men and women be treated as equal human beings in the world that if it means my being prescriptive to try and just make a tiny change I will be but fiction I think I'm in a sense I do feel like two different people the person who writes fiction is not the person who writes nonfiction when I'm writing fiction and fiction is my first love fiction is fiction is the love of my life it's the thing that gives me meaning it's what makes me really happy when it's going well and when I'm writing fiction and it's it's kind it's like a it's like a beautiful madness I feel transported I I I feel as though spirit the spirits are speaking to me so characters come alive and it's just really magical you go Pentecostal yes I do I do go Pentecostal except that I don't quite speak in tongues accepting my character but but actually I think that would be a good way to put it I do it's it's it's kind of being yes in pencil stuff but when I'm writing nonfiction it's so different when I'm writing fiction I'm telling a story I'm in this universe I'm in a it's an imaginative world when it's and I I don't know who I'm writing for so what I'm writing fiction and not thinking about my audience I'm thinking about just being in this magical world of being transported to another place when I'm writing nonfiction I'm very clear about what I'm doing I know who I imagine my audiences I know what I'm trying to achieve and because I think there's a part of me that is part Messiah and part Stern headmistress I'm sort of you know I I think it takes he doesn't take me very much to then start saying here's what you need to do to fix the world so I think that's why a lot of my nonfiction is it's also that I'm in a very different emotional place when I'm writing nonfiction quite different from fiction it really it's it's just like being two different people now that we are talking about fiction I'll tell you something that happened in 2012 at the African literature Association conference in in Dallas this was a conference that had to do with human rights in African literature and I was in a panel that dealt with women's rights and I remember my paper wasn't Papo hibiscus and some other works by African women and we had all this silver paper there on Lola so many short Chileans the secret lives of passing these works and at the end of course those are usually discuss the father dies at the end oops this is pretty this woman I want to stand up because of the way she said it she was not very happy and she said I want to talk to you African women who write novels stop killing their minute stop killing their minute it's becoming too much unless I know what you are trying to say to improve our lives but you should stop giving them any if you were in that audience our area even apart from an eye-roll well first of all I I mean I I think it's it just sounds to me like melodrama that has no substance because really what do you think about it how many books so she's saying African women writers are killing the man in how many books has this happened I mean not just on a serious note and I also worry that this is the kind of thing that makes me uncomfortable about composition when we're talking about feminism how how quick people are to try and deflect you know so I imagine that she probably would get rousing applause from other Africans both men and women right I'm sure that's what happened let me see what happened the men were happy they kept some of us were bad women we were not happy with the comment and I was glad that no they're going to follow why did she kill him why he especially in that manner so do we upset me or Lola both oh no but but did anybody talk about and you know I I think that if we cannot read literature as prescribed in how we should live our lives right but even if we were to do that do we start at the end of the story we don't we start at the beginning of the story and I'm always worried about stories that start at the end or halfway so oh don't kill him and how did you kill him but let's go back what did he do right what happened it's the same way that even the law in countries all over the world recognize that all killing is equal right that's why you have different degrees of murder that's why you have manslaughter so that kind of comment for me and it's not a little literary judgment it's just it's a melodramatic thing that you just do to get very cheap applause I know I don't find it to have any merit and I think there are other things to talk about there's an epidemic of male violence against women in the world we're not talking about books and novels I want to talk about that I want to talk about what we're doing about that and actually if if this woman at the African literature conference is talking about that I also want her to talk about the Nigerian man in this country who are murdering their wives and they're murdering their wives because they upset that their wives make more money than they do let's talk about that that's what I want to talk about definitely I wouldn't think that you're familiar with this sort of pushback from the inside from people that you think would understand yeah from people who see their mothers but up to their graves you know they could say finally one fights back so do you do with this kind of pushback from the inside it's the most it's the most demoralizing and also it's always confusing and I've been thinking about it a lot lately and and I can't intellectualize it I can tell you it's because women who are actually fabulist you know that it's a very difficult thing to have to confront the true extent of your own lack of power but that it's a difficult thing so instead you push it away and say well nothing's wrong everything's fine but emotional it's just hard for me to it's hard for me to to grasp I expect pushback from second-quarter so when that comes you know you should then you go with it but when it comes from people you think I mean if you don't think it won't this actually is good for us it's it's very strange but again I think it makes the case for why we need feminism we maybe we in general are socialized to participate in their own oppression and often they don't know it it's part of a it's part of our different cultures and this thing cuts across cultures how we raise women to take pride in things that are bad for them it's so so if the egg we become complicit in our own oppression it's the reason for example that so I'm talk about your culture in Nigeria where the ability to cook for example it's the same way that isn't that your own thing it's a woman who can no cook is a bad person like it's a moral judgment on you but why are you taught to cook so that you can cater to a man but at the same time you then turn around other women will judge other women for not doing that and when you step back and think who's benefiting from the larger system it's not you woman it's not but you're you're you're sort of there your hands not you I'm sure that many of you have read nah get out wood it's really so apt that women become handmaidens in their own oppression and there's a sadness there from it so when I talk to young women I tell them that feminism is about on learning so many of the things that we've learned as part of our socialization I'm still not learning anything that's what feminism is for me [Applause] [Music] [Applause] switching subjects or switching novels we're going to have a yellow half of a Yellow Sun which your father set in a different times that it holds a special place and I'm thinking you spend so much time to write that book did it fulfill your own expectations yeah as the good ol African a teacher would say discuss oh my goodness reminded me of myself at my school exams the teach out dragon very long being haka boogy don't understand and then at the end discuss so you then write something long and equally incomprehensible so I shall now t be any comprehensive response to no I the reason I kind of laughed is in some ways it's sort of it's a kind of question well do you think you your book is as good as I thought it would be and and I think I'm supposed to perform false modesty NC well but actually I'm so damn proud I think it's the thing that I'm proudest of having done but it also took so much for me emotionally mentally I so have available sunset during the night you got the Arawak the 1960s and my parents lived through the war I wasn't born at the time but it's it's a war that I grew up knowing that its shadow that I grew up in the shadow of the war and my both my grandfather's died in the war and I even as a child I remember just being haunted and wanting to understand this thing that took my grandfather's and I felt as though this novel was a novel that at the risk of sounding you know necessarily dramatic that my ancestors wanted me to write and so I read everything I could find that it's so much research and it took me years to write I had moments of just intense self-doubt I would often stop to cry because then there were pictures from a woman I next actually here in the US give me some pictures that she had taken in Biafra because she was part of the I think it was characterized one of the NGOs that went to the ephra and shared his pictures of children just utterly utterly ravaged by kwashiorkor and very close to death very thin the hair red the bellies like appearance that what is like toothpicks and you know I have seen this pictures in books and in the archives and libraries but this woman gave me the pictures that she actually took and of something about those particular moreso look at those pictures and just cry and then I would think this could very well be my my relative my grandfather died in a refugee camp i maternal grandfather and so that that whole process was just really difficult I mean I remember when I finally finished the novel I remember thinking for so long that we think I can't read because then my life can consid me him but then when I finish the novel I sank into the worst depression that I'd ever had because I suddenly didn't know what to do with myself it just it it was such a strange strange time and but then you know I was happy that the book that people that it meant something to people because I knew that for many 19 years it would be not just literature who knows a history course we don't really learn about me attend school in the way that I think every country hides parts of its past that it's ashamed of Nigeria Highness Biafra and so I knew that many people in my generation didn't even know anything anything about the affair island that this book would would be for them history and when when it kind of started to reach people it made me happy made me really happy but I don't think I can do I don't think I can undertake another project like we are for again after that but how did you say that you went into a space because I I'm thinking it's so much history and you read so much I want you to hold like four years for that book and then after that you went to school to study history you didn't have enough so what was that all about did that because it might it is or did you notice it gap what I think I think it's that I noticed a gun I've always been interested in history I've always because I think it's impossible for us to know where we're going if we don't know where we've been and so I've always been a person who looks back because I want to understand how we go and I think when you grew up in the night Jean and I'm sure it's true for Cameroon I think it's true for really the continent of Africa we don't really engage with our history especially the history that we had before colonialism and I think when I started reading about Biafra I started to think you know reading about my fifties 1960s a bit of 1940s but suddenly I thought I'm very curious about what a woodland was like in 1850 and I don't know you know I don't have i cannot conceptualize the life of my great-great-grandfather and for me there's something about it that was sad so that's why I decided to learn study African history and I believe you when you said that world you know when you were preparing for this novel and you were kiss after that you went with a total abandon Americana you like I'm out of this you know the world here I come yes and and I see this a a quote here from Laura Pearson Chicago Tribune June 23rd 2013 and this is what she says us falling ambitious and consciously written Americana covers race identity relationships community politics privilege language care ethnocentrism migration intimacy as Richmond lucky books and Barack Obama it covers three continents spans decades leaps gracefully from chapter to chapter two different cities and other lives a teacher wins them shortly into a thoughtfully structure epic the result is a timeless love story steeped in our times and I'm thinking this rich diversity activist tree holds true for all your fictional works so I'm looking at this I'm like so why does she usually begin with the character with location with politics with Barack Obama why does she became yes yes with Barack Obama that's a good place to study Bama you can just you know you write a sort of a deeply mournful energy about missing a reasonable president okay my brother worries that I speak my mind alright alright I won't do any of any political runs not today I care too much about West Hartford but you know I don't be profusely hearing that so far for those who are not American is an address is right that after half of a Yellow Sun which was pretty emotional and very personal and just and just hard in many ways I wanted American was different American I was fun I while I cried often while writing - Williams and I laughed often we're right in America and I guess that it's worried that I was nothing too much of my own jokes because I feel like there's something wrong with that you know if you are used by yourself it's too much then it's just not doesn't feel very push it but I don't know mechanize about love it's it's all of those things I wanted to write a book about an African immigrant which I wanted to write an African immigrant story that is familiar to me and by that I mean when I came to the US I very quickly realized that the African immigrant story that people were generally familiar with was sort of the story of the African immigrant who's running away from terrible poverty war AIDS you know that kind of thing just catastrophe and and I think that story is very important it's the story of many many Africans but it's not my story and I remember being struck by how often I was expected to be familiar with it when I wasn't and so I wanted to write the kind of story that is mine and as familiar to me the story of people who leave their countries in Africa not because the villages have been burned down or because they can't afford to eat but because they have dreams are they want more and and I think this has been the story really of human beings throughout our time on earth that we that the history of humanity the history the history of migration and often it's not just about wanting better land more arable land or it's also just about drillings and hopes and thinking that there is more over there and so I wanted to write that and that's what Americana is but I also wanted to write about what it means to be a black person in America who's not an African American and what it means to discover race and ultimately to embrace that identity while also challenging the the negative stereotypes around that identity so that's what happens to the main character like her mother when she comes to the US and she starts writing a blog and that blog was something I had so much fun with that's actually the thing that made me laugh and then I would stop and be like wait is this healthy and then also it's a love story because I love love because I'm deep inside is the hopeless hopeless love romantic I think you know I think we all need to feel that we all need love so it's a love story as well and I grew up reading a lot of romance books yes many of them terrible and I think there was a part of me that always around with the premise of those folks I don't know how many people here know the Mills and Boon picture so I feel as though every young African ready Mills and Boon and I think even then there was something about that that just didn't feel quite right to me because the woman never had any agency and she always pretended so she liked him but she had to be you know he would then pull up to him and then she would melt but I would think worries her own agent searing so it was always sort of she was an object she was the subject she didn't do things were done to her about her and I think there was a part of me that wanted to rewrite that and so in Americana it's a love story it's you know I think it's sort of ridiculously Canadian love but at the same time yeah she's not stupid right this is the thing I mean it's nothing where the woman is a full human being she's flawed and she wants she's not just wanted I doesn't have to be persuaded that you know it's not me actually I remember one particular Mills and Boon but I know I mean really because so she likes him and I think Larry likes her but you know the thing that happens with Mills and Boon is until if it's if it's the novel that's about a hundred and ten pages until page 105 they hate each other that's where I would think oh come on I mean usually and I was maybe 15 and I wasn't even I am more mature than you were why can't you have a composition of the hell is going on so it's a hot story Americana but I think it's a love story that wants to challenge the narrative of of a love story as something in which a woman doesn't have agency I could see that and I did a bit of mere samples but I think my generation which i think is a little bit ahead of yours we write the same thing better and Claire wants to be a rep there's a basket of flowers you know we meant to suffer and suffer and suffer so thank you for writing the anti mills and boons as a story but as we're talking there I was thinking of the way you you build your characters you make them the complex even when they are flawed there's some desirability you know we we can give a bad character you know enough soul but correct and I'm thinking you say when you write your fiction it's total abandon you let the fiction drive you but I'm looking at it and saying I have you know she's making this delivery you talked about I have to say Joyce is the ideal reader when she's saying to you know that's not what you said you're doing it's not what you do so I'm suspicious you know what I think you're I and I hear you I think your suspicion is well-received I but you know obviously I don't think I don't think I can answer that honestly because a lot of the questions about my process and my thinking are things I I make them up as I go along I you know I I do defense like this man have to defend two answers to questions because the truth is that when I'm sitting there in front of my laptop I'm not really thinking about why I'm making the choices I'm making there's a lot that's intuitive and and I think afterwards maybe I can look back and think I don't know what I what I will say though is that I think as a writer a worldview comes across in your fiction and I think that my world is born in which I think it's really difficult to find a person who is entirely bad it's not that they don't exist I just think that not many of them exist and I think that human beings are complicated and flawed and and I'm very resistant to simple answers I decided you know I'm very resistant to the idea of someone is just bad someone is just really good so it's that it's how human beings are textured that interests me and I think that comes across in my fiction and also in general I believe that people can do better I think I think I have a generally optimistic view of humanity mostly mostly you know present political situations have stretched even things that we can do and be better and and maybe that comes across in my fiction as well I guess as you talked about your own value system it's also coming in I'm thinking of your TED talk with in your single story and where you talk about feeding the houseboy and how you only saw him as being poor until you visited the family and I'm thinking it looks a see after that she learned her lesson every might not character in Europe fiction is important so can do it so it's like nobody you don't have minor cultures maybe my know in terms of the role of play a number of times I showed up I - yeah I like my left of your right you know actually that makes me very happy to hear that I have you thought about it but if that is true I like to hear that because it means that again my wall females come into my fiction I really believe that everyone has a story and I like people I mean I think that the writers who start off with ideas and writers who start off by observing the world and under the love attacks agree so I'm interested in people in people stories and sort of you know a person who at the airport I'm watching people I'm imagining what what's your story i I get very tearful when I see complete strangers hugging goodbye but it's not my business I don't know who the hell they am but I zero and then I then I'm imagining what the story is when you know when are they going to see each other again or what just kills is when it's children right when the little kid is waving goodbye unless I call my lord so I think it's that idea of that you know everyone has a story and I also have started thinking about sort of what if we have the series where we finally somehow note everybody is sort of back story and I mean here's what I mean while I like people you know I also have moments of yourself through pain where I cannot stand human beings and this is the thing about being complex right so that tells when I may be treated by a person and then I sometimes I say to myself what if I need the backstory Isis is very rude for example and I get really annoyed but I think what if that person got really bad news someone they know has cancer what if I got that bad news this morning and that is really dealing with it and so then the end up being lasted to you how will that change how I feel about that you know I tried to do this as a way of handling my own irritation it doesn't always walk but anything but again I think maybe that's also what comes across it in my fiction that I I just think everybody has a student everybody has a story I think so Joe I in fact just so you know that Tech Talk has been on my syllabus for 10 years every semester one of the things that it seems you've realized and you're using it effectively I think it's that you have a mega phone and you can your voice can reach places and so we take out a rewrite of a tutorial on homosexuality and somebody would say why is she getting into that and then recently I was pleasantly surprised you wrote about the crisis in my own country and you don't know how we shared and we shared on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and all that and I'm thinking how does she decide what she gets involved if somebody tell me how how does she said this one is what my time I'm going to write about it nobody tells me what to do I've never ever just never been invested to get still Lord to do and you can ask my big sister remember and this is for good and yield does it's not always a good thing but and then you're right I think becoming this right my fiction give me a platform it's my novels that give me a cloud flame and even the tech talk happened because I would a snow hole and somebody go organize the TED talk was a fan of the novel and wanted me to come speak and I remember being terrified because they said they never asked writers and and then I had no idea of what the hell else we talked about but more recently it's really just what moves me it's so writing about Cameroon my mother was born in Canada oh wow yes and and you know what's happening and when the funn region has just always a fury at me in the way that there's so much happening across the continent of Africa that is just infuriating and then of course we have a dear friend who I recruited out of the peace I'm just watching him calling family on whatsapp and then when there was the blackout I don't know I was so moved by it and I thought if there's one thing I can do it's just to raise awareness and so I choose to do it with homosexuality Nigeria I just think it's immoral I think it's an immoral thing that homosexuality is a crime I just think it's immoral and the idea that the citizens of Nigeria who have done nothing wrong simply by existing in the world they can be arrested imprisoned harassed so I hope that because what I was trying to do was to try and get people to think a bit differently Nigeria this is not the only country where you know across Africa the Middle East parts of Asia you know where it's a crime but to start to think about people as human beings because I do religion is part of the reason that were blinded so people will say things like you know the Bible says that it's a sin then or they should die to which I say well the Bible says many other things our sins and many of them do come me do you think you should die but it would more importantly to think about it in terms of citizenship right I understand that this is your religion and I respected any come put it aside because right now were talking about citizenship do you think a citizen should be harassed assaulted thrown in prison for doing nothing wrong and you know I got a lot of pushback because of that I remember this woman saying to me that she had a boss who had pictures of inspiring women on the office wall and that after I read that he's talking about homosexuality being you know that we should you make it a crime she said how boss came into the office and said she my picturetown she supports gays and why she told me this I said I really take that as a compliment generally and this is something I would say to any young woman out there that some people's dislike of you and disapproval of you that you should take as a compliment maybe since you talked about Cameron I actually come from that part of Cameroon where the crisis is going through right now and I'll share my own beer first story this is when I grew Biafra was this piece of shin even in Cameroon we are called Libya friend we have the Air France is supposed to be a bad thing it's supposed to make us inferior we are those people and I grew up wondering what that beautiful meant so you're the novel you wrote was not just you may be asked that question because it meant something to me and I would tell you that I am but I can remember now maybe 2009 Chinua Achebe organized a colloquium Brown and I had that what juku was going to be there this is the guy who let me offer and I'm like does he know that because of that I'm stigmatized in Cameroon so I am going to go to brown and I did and I had this encounter with her to boy he was a myth in my he was in my dreams in my nightmares this bearded man he was supposed to be some bad figure so even going to see him I could be listed as bad a great witness cessationist what I did and I went to him who is not very mellow not the river that had known him to me it was now an older man and I went to him and I said my name is Harrison from camera and I just wanted you to know that whatever you did in Nigeria did not end in made you I'm a second-class citizen in my country and I'm called a fraud because of all you did over there and he looked at me it's amazing what time does and he treated me like Michael five-year-old I'm I did not mind because I get somebody to understand and he thought of my shoulder and I can't remember what he said but I felt closure but you know it's really interesting how how our destinies as Africans are interconnected so your mid come on also tell you that that is we get that all the time in Vienna that's in French you know so I think it's time for us to hear to get questions this is a couple from the audience I'm hoping that I must have touched on some of your questions so then will not have too many here hello that's like when I was reading half of a Yellow Sun I was so struck by titania and Alana as because they knew that time and I go to church with a whole bunch of boat people and they're pretty conservative you know and I was looking at these women and I was thinking like the sexual revolution was just getting off the ground in you know North America Europe but here these weapons that love herbs and live with them and nobody is telling them to get married and the priest does not like say you're a bad woman - Alana I mean I was just very struck by that I didn't know I wanted to know if that was sort of a fantasy on her part or he'll understand these are women of privilege and they can do whatever they want so it's curious about those characters and then finally I just wanted to say in that book the rope pots of people who I was kept reading about the my friend that googled and I found and I got a book from Yale library so I could see the pictures of those pots and they are amazing and gorgeous and just putting them in that book was a gift a gift from Africa to the world because those pots are in Nigeria I will probably never make a trip there but because of you I looked them up and I saw the beauty of your ancestral culture and thank you thank you and speaking of the parents of colonialism you can in fact see those spots the British Museum in London and it's been at the Met as well then you cook so much fun for them how it's been in Africa but it's very juicy Oh question yes it's because the privilege but I think I think that even in the novel we can see that they're different and I think the way that they Mia's mother reacts to all lanolin clearly shows us that online lies different right there it's really privileged and so living a kind of life that just isn't the norm and even the way that all Anna's family in Colonel haven't affected what the most high but you can see that artifical thinks of them as kind of a separate species almost but one that is almost aspirational where to pick a sister how you know go back and live the life that you're living in in the university but at the same time and you know I would it by the way I wouldn't use the US as the accident for being progressive in my sense of anything just well because at the time in the many countries in Europe that are far ahead in America speaking of sexualities extremely conservative extremely conservative but my my father told me stories of his life in the nineteen sixties or some things just surprised me because I had in my head this idea that they lived a really close conservative life but that's not the case and I'm reading memoirs of Nigerians of that period educated maintenance obviously privileged Nigerians upper middle class Nigerians there was a kind of as sort of a limited way but it's this kind of freedom of making choices that they had that surprised me so I tried to capture that and have on the other side actually almost making that happen JimBob book is based on the real story but I'm just wondering if you have any face for inspiring me off besides of course write about Barack Obama first first of all thank you for your question thank you for your boldness and standing there when I was 11 I don't know that I could have done what you've done so it's really cool I would say it's or two things read and write and I know it sounds simple but it's really not I read many young people who want to write but they're not reading you have to read a lot I hope you could write like you're not a big reader and and it's important to read widely read different kinds of things and we think so you know what you don't like in addition to doing what you like and I try to do four books a week I would say try on two five right you're just 11 so that but when you write don't think about your parents don't think about anybody you love just think about the story that you're telling because if you think about your parents you might not want to write certain things on a scene so just focus on what you're writing and then hide it in a drawing room what's your name good luck flourishing and well-being and interdisciplinary perspectives and which was your book is like the main literature piece because we also read like anthropology articles and philosophy but just your book at the literature piece which one oh sorry Americana yeah okay and in our discussions about how your book would really defleshing like we talked about how like the different relationships that you've had and actually you've traveled always maybe seeking freedom or maybe seeking truth but it was kind of ambiguous I mean when I first started it wasn't sure how the books and early to flourishing because he's so complex and there's so much going on so I guess my question is what is where she need to a14 could I know you like it answer it I don't know I don't know I think it meets many things but but in terms of them Joyce was nodding enthusiastically when you said so ambiguous but I think that's what literature should be but it shouldn't be about easy answers I know it's kind of what as flourishing means to me I don't know many things done both being that peace with oneself I'm sleeping well at night and I mean that both literally and figuratively looking in the mirror and making what you see and I don't mean it efficiently I mean life in yourself inside one of my favorite lines from Michelle Obama is I like me and I think it's revolutionary for women to say that because we're not socialized to say that so that for me is flourishing having this moment so liking yourself honey doesn't happen all the time you know the moments what you don't like yourself eating healthy food getting over my laziness and exercising it's a chocolate all those are flourishing greedy boots that movie whatever the fiction nonfiction poetry whatever there may be here's what I think though I think that when members of groups that have been not necessarily excluded but they haven't been represented suddenly I represented it can't seem as though everywhere you turn there there but actually I can think of maybe for Nigerian writers who are published in the US and sort of red wine day but not that morning and one in every five Africans is Nigeria so that's quite a number of us in the world so just fascist Italy speaking it's not that surprising but IIIi think I should say in all honesty from one African to another is there in as much as you talk about the perils of currently Nigerian passport I would tell you that Nigeria does put us positively on the map a lot [Music] wonderful to hear that because the truth is not just in it richer in medicine in everything and I want to think that for it's also because of the educated I think they have universities early even the the fact that HIV was running the Heineman a series so they have a tradition there there is a tradition it's not coming out of a budget that's true but also I mean in the same way that I think there's a lot one can explain about everything by just looking at the history so Nigeria and really see West Africa an allophone West Africa because francophone West Africa is messed up in a different way because the French just did many terrible things so the English did terrible things as well bombs we survived the history of Nigeria in particular is one in which because we didn't have settlements because British colonialism ended and eating rabbit and because traditionally and that the colonial Nigeria was not a time when Nigerians were not they were not much they were not mine Walker so in the way that in southern Africa a lot of Africans walked in the mine so they will wage their nose but in in places like Nigeria people were more intrapreneurial and the British in length done so there's there is what people who come to would call a kind of self-confidence other people would call arrogance we Nigerians are happy to take either definition but I think it feeds into a certain kind of cultural production you know there's a lot I dress very vibrant place it's a very troubled place but it's also very five rankings with people people push back who you know we wake up in the morning and we have a glass of self-confident Americans for breakfast so they will just push back at the wall and I think that's why in literature and art and fashion in music in medicine Nigerians just you know we we're taking over the whole that's what so this is not a two-part question but we wrote it together so it's going read in two parts up in your TED talk on the dangers of a single story you talked about the very limited narratives available on non-western cultures such as those Asian and African countries and how those can create misconceptions about those societies - yeah so as Susan said the dominie white school what can we do to expand this narrative in our school communities and classrooms and ensure that students of color are represented both equally and accurately in the literature you work in a predominantly white smooth you know there's something about it that's sad for me that this woody will be your responsibility I mean that you're asking this question says something about something that the administration and the teachers are not doing so I obviously I can maybe suggestions I think it's important first of all I don't think it should be your responsibility but since it seems to be what you need to do is do the homework fine you need to find the materials then you need to present the materials to them so your teachers are the people who are responsible but I also think that just more in a larger philosophical way to make the argument that it's not really just about being mines in other words people shouldn't read we should read about people who look like us because there's a particular pleasure in that but we should also read about it we do not know Quebecers because if it prepares us to live in the world you know it's not about being nice or being mystically correct it's really just a pragmatic reasonable thing I remember talking to a woman wants in in a bookstore and I said I was looking for children's books but had people there are characters that were not animals and were not white people because all the books we had in like in my daughter's library at the time were mostly you know animals all white people and this woman who was very nice but she said to me oh I see why you would want that and she was white and I remember thinking about sushi you you know you should also want I like Asian I see this is what I think in framing the case for why that should be it shouldn't be and I understand you know you feel that you haven't been represented but also it's good for people who don't look like you to read stories in which people make you exist it's important the world is diverse we're not prepared to live in the walls if we don't know the stories of people who are not like us can I tell another story about okay so now this other sturdy this man who picked me up from the airport actually hearing in the Northeast and I won't see where but it wasn't a college where I was getting honorary degree in a state closer to Connecticut in a very prestigious small liberal arts college anyway it's fun to hear from the airport the he was sort of the limo driver he picks me up is he's very nice it's a little of a familiar but this happens to me when all the white men pick me up because I think they're taken aback by the presence of Big Dawg because they don't expect me to be the solution black young English became person so he says to me what do you do and I said I'm a writer and he said so what do you write I said you know I write novels he said okay I don't read books and I said I said okay and he said but even if I did read books I wouldn't really know about books like yours I said why did I say that and he said well I just wouldn't and I knew what he meant so I said you don't think I write about things that will interest you and he goes yeah and of course he meant black things a woman in Israel and he made me really think because I would never if you reversed it wouldn't walk I couldn't look at him a white man and say oh I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't know about your books because I wouldn't look at him and assume what he wrote just by looking at him and also you know I read white men all the time my favorite some of my favorite write has a white man it doesn't occur to me to look at the white man who's the writer and I'd be like I don't think I like your books so I so I think in again it just framing this this name for diverse stories philosophically it's to say we need to place everybody stirring on the Shelf of the universal we can't say that only one kind of story is universal while the others have to struggle and you know young people have to come up and ask me how do we get out you know it's just not right so you should go back and tell the people who run your school that they're not doing something right I know seasons here right now all right English teacher [Applause] also regular classes really English actually kind of ironic we read this for an English class like americano but this is more of a general question also last I have disclosed I'm also a Nigerian oh my god so when I saw you coming I was so so excited you should know that all going to be circulating in my family's what's that's formed by 9 o'clock later the library is a very good place also and I'll see that during your summer programs so shout out to West Hartford Public Library good evening my name is Lorna and it's quite a pleasure to be here before you I have to say that I was not aware of the questions asked before me I'm absorbing all of them as I think all of us aren't so proud of right now people and the adults are asking the questions they are I am a mother of two daughters a third grader and a sixth grader I'm here with my sixth grader I want don't embarrass her but she is here she's an avid reader and a writer as well my question is recognizing your candor your character and your confidence which I also respect what words of advice do you have for young people but in particular young females of color when they are trying to build within themselves the same abilities in characters that you have recognizing that every environment that you wouldn t may not embrace them as this is to the better part of under secretary fix the world's problems just like I don't even know what they answer to third news I think well I think it's hard for women to be you know again going back to what I talked about earlier in the ways in which we become conflicted in our own oppression how for women we want to be confident but you're constantly thinking that need to think America and so I better hold that a little I better not and like it's hard for women all women I think in this country it's particularly hard for black women because black women already comprehend with assumptions of the angry black female reasonable that female that kind of thing what I would say to young girls is it's not that they shouldn't be aware of this they should be but but try not to make it the thing that propels you because I think that sometimes it's possible to hold yourself back too much because you're thinking they're thinking this about me and and also to know you can't please everybody you know I have come to really embrace that and it's there's something about it that's very freeing so for young women what I would say is I believe very much in there's a project that's also quite old-fashioned I believe in sort of old-fashioned ideas of being respectful being gracious being kind but standing your ground you know I'm not letting yourself be pushed around and I think if you sort of approach life like that that if people are nice to you be nice to them but do not ever be nice to somebody who means you harm just having that kind of attitude about life and not apologizing you don't get in that door occupy that space somebody might be annoying but that's their business you know it's it's it's knowing that you matter I think we live in a society that constantly tells women that they don't matter as much and we internalize it and I think for young women it's important to tell themselves every morning I matter and with you because I think what you carry in your head when you go out into the world shapes the way you you you engage with the world and you know yes there many people who have negative ideas about love women but also we have to remember that there many people couldn't know that black women are gorgeous and fantastic and dreamy we have to remember that as well it's not all negative sometimes I think you know when we talk about things like that we forget there's also the plus side right that because black women are doing things on the world and I generally like to see that if you're a young black woman it helps from time to time to just pull up a picture of Michelle Obama I'm just so curious exclamation thank you very much boys so I was introduced to you a couple of months ago actually so I'm a new car I'm a convert and thanks to my friend over there actually and so it was during one of your TED talks and one thing that really resonates with me that you said and I'm sure it's been quoted a million times is that culture doesn't make people people make culture and as an Egyptian so it still probably our Columbia represented here but as an Egyptian every time I go back I'm confronted with these really uncomfortable conversations and almost like every conversation I have that that's that involves a woman which is going to be 50% right has is embedded with some type of sexism and I think that as a male it comes to me to at least try to try to you know try to change people's minds or try to you know encourage people to look at women in a different way so but I don't want to come off preachy and condescending and rude so based on your experience what has been the most effective way of doing that and what is recommendation for or any advice for men that come from the Middle East or Russia or other countries or women are recommendations for men who come from Middle East Africa men every when the down world you guys were to step off when people stop with the demonstrations against greed for example it's it's 97 percent women and I'm thinking we were the men right rape wouldn't happen if men did it exist why are men not coming out to say we do not want this to happen anyway I mean what am i found and I and I hear you about not sounding preachy because it's very easy to lose people when you're having that conversation especially because what you're doing is that you're going against this massive tide what I find works is examples I find that scoring works I find that so in making the case that people make culture what I try to do now is to go back in the past and blew up examples and say and especially things that you know they don't know so you're just you know in sort of smack them with it in the face really well do you know that in Egypt in 1872 when men were blah blah blah because they're all of these interesting things from history and like to say to them well do you know that it was culture in 1822 that women blah blah blah and then suddenly they're like well so what you say to them is well that was culture seventy-five years ago it means that we're remaking and making culture so why can't we remake it and I also use the argument that what's the point of culture cultures for a group of people to thrive so if they're if we have cultural practices that are making it difficult for several people to pray that it can't be good for all of us but I also what I also find walks Pacific when I dream man in making the case with feminism is to tell them that you know feminism also says that you don't always have to pay for everything thank you so much for being here I have a question that we should have response to what you said earlier about feminism and what it is for you and you said that it's an unlearning and I agree with that completely because I experienced that in my own life you know some of the best moments of my life are when I unlearn the roles and those responsibilities that you know grew up with but I wonder if I should say yet I wonder if you know what you might think about or what is your notion of feminism that is not quite as internal so the idea that at some point we have to be both internal and thinking about building community thinking about like you know we have this this way called me to and you know how really how far have we gotten from it and so I'm just wondering if you in your novelist creative creative brilliance had a thought about what for you is an internal and external kind of feminists I think that's a wonderful question and I think about it being and I think it's always I think they're connected in other words it's my own learning process which is ongoing that makes it possible for me to connect I think two other women answers to the experiences of other women and and it's also why I think there are experiences as as women are shaped by race for example by class so that difference is there but I also really feel that there is an underlying and unity in in the way that we're socialized across cultures so I talk to women from different parts of the wall and instinctively we get you don't tempt them telling them a story about my childhood and suddenly they're telling their stories of this similar right man it doesn't matter the woman is from Denmark or from Korea to places that I recently spoke to remember but the meeting won't meant for example for me is a source of hope but I think it's very early days but I think we also have to remember that all any kind of justice movement takes time and is imperfect right and we've lived in how long have we been on the earth that's how long women have been second-class citizen it's going to take a long time we took a very long time so this one makes very baby's tears that we're taking but it gives me hope because if there's anything revolutionary in it it's that finally women's stories have been believed and it's sad but that's actually almost revolutionary because we're so long women didn't talk about this things and can you imagine how many women still I'm not talking about it because there's still so much negativity directed at women who talk so I feel connected to the lead to movement I mean I said I felt compelled last year to talk about my own experience because I felt like you cannot walk around the wall saying we should all be feminists and not participate in visit of burgeoning movement race I talked about what had happened to me when I was younger in Nigeria hoping that it would make other young men young women feel that they can talk about it without XI because there's so much shame around something that somebody did to you that's not your whole but you end up feeling shame it's such a strange thing so I feel connected but I also feel connected to other mummy that thinks that solely if South Korea the movement of women that I think very interesting that I've sort of like bobble because young women are standing up and saying or not because there's this thing that's quite an epidemic in South Korea where they have little camera hasn't publicly sees way and toilets where the record women and them to put them on you on point sites so so for me this I was so inspired by this just grassroots uprising of young women across South Korea saying we've had enough that I can very connect Texas and even in Nigeria the malian women are talking about something that we call sex for grades where University women are talking about the harassment by professors people who you know you'll fail your exam if you don't sleep with me kind of thing and it's it's an epidemic and they're talking about it and so for me I'm interested with the grassroots movements that sort of spring or might not be terribly organized but still speak to I think the kind of optimism oh that women is that will get somewhere some point so I'm a student at home he learned a lot about what our ancestors did as we are predominantly white school and it's just it really hits us or it hits me in particular like learning about what my ancestors did and graph like that the privilege that I have so I was just wondering like Who am I to black feminists like how am i singing and how is that different you know I think it's important when we talk about them and even hearing me say what my ancestors did so you're not responsible for what your sisters did what you what you are responsible for is the privilege that it gave you and I think that two very different things so what are you - I'm a black feminist but the media a woman and it's and I bet you that the things we have in common I bet you that your socialization has taught you about shrinking yourself and caring if anybody and all of those things that my own socialization also taught me I believe that it's important to find ways in which we connect while acknowledging the ways in which were different and if it's really important to acknowledge difference but to know that despite difference because otherwise we can't have conversations that we can't move forward it work constantly but there is I think there's a branch of academic feminism in this country today that makes it almost impossible for young people to be honest about what they're thinking and feeling and struggling with because you're worried about saying the wrong thing because you're worried that somebody will turn on you because you didn't use the most woke expression and and I think it's I really think it's a disaster because it's also I think something that's lacking in that movement is compassion and I'm a person who approaches these things as a storyteller so thinking the story here what is the story here so when you ask me how are you seen what's the story here what's your story what what why why is that the question you know I read that I mean I don't mean to be I really do mean that in a genuine way welcome to the world there's a lot you can do I'm tell you something very kana there's a bit about the white friend who gets it you can be the white friend who gets it so you go to white spaces and the Start screen start to dismantle racism so you get that uncle of yours of Thanksgiving who's the bloody racist and you tell him to stop being an because this is a reason I said earlier that men also have to be part of the code sometimes badness it's in men are sometimes white people listen to white people so which is why white people need to be part of the dismantling racism so you there's a lot you can do with your privilege as a white woman who gets it you're going there and you just take an axe and you smash not just patriarchy but racism that's what you do vertically challenged us man I just want to thank you so much for being here we all learned so much I was blessed to have my son you've named Erik I know two years ago for Hanukkah actually and that's how I fell in love with you and with your stories but we have a storyteller who lived in West Hartford was born on his Hartford his name's Noah Webster he actually was the Yale graduate as well and he was born in 1758 but in the Revolutionary War and I went to Yale and the living hate for a long time dive in New Haven actually but this is a little history of the West Division of Harvard and West Hartford when he was here so I want to give that to you and then I'm also directing people to the yellow table over here for I'm going to others in the very typically African way it's the smaller to African women on the stage and I don't do my thing we love column response and you are going to say a which means yes you are agreeing when I put my hand up let me hear that and we are going to ask you to continue writing because your writing does something to us indicates us his teaches us a lot we also want you to continue the nonfiction because we love the prescription many people can ask directly you are a child in some respect but you are also wise you are elder in some respects so continue the nonfiction we also want you to continue using your platform as a megaphone because you reach out to those who are oppressed I've benefited from it as a Cameroonian you know those are the things I would not dare say but you can say my people are dying many are out imagine as refugees and what I want that megaphone to even be louder homosexuals that what so here that was even more even in my country Cameron is still a crime so we want a friend to continue let editorials continue and other ways that you can bring this ideas these problems for the words again and we love your green shoes so lucky doesn't take a passion away from me so what have to continue and of course we want you back in Connecticut you

Channel: West Hartford Community Interactive

Views: 13,683

Rating: 4.9245281 out of 5

Keywords: 10-10-19, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, chimamanda adichie, chimamanda, west hartford reads, chimamanda adichie the danger of a single story

Id: 7Nh4zYjG0IQ

Length: 102min 23sec (6143 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 08 2019