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And so I wanted to just give people a new way of thinking about privilege.” 4:23 Raped at 12 Ideas 4:23 Roxane Gay reads from her 2012 piece entitled, 'From Peculiar Benefits' "This is an essay I wrote in 2012, as I was trying to think about privilege and the reality that especially in the developed world context, everyone has privilege to one extent or another.
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Forgiveness - I do think that there's a place for it but I do not think that everything is forgivable, and I do not think that we have to forgive to live full lives. So why do we worship at the altar of forgiveness? I think about that quite a lot.
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We saw it with Donald Trump where people were saying, even recently, 'let's forgive him for the past four years because he has COVID' that he could have not gotten. I think that any time a terrible person demonstrates weakness or humanity or even a modicum of contrition, people are like, 'Oh, let's forgive them.' We saw this with Dylann Roof in South Carolina after he walked into a church, prayed and then murdered a great many Black people. I think that we fetishize forgiveness as a culture. What did you write? You wrote something about forgiveness recently, you're not a big fan of the word or you're a bit sick of it. I wish I had the energy to pity these people because they are pitiable, but for now, I'll just make fun of them. They feel emboldened not only in the United States, we're seeing it in Europe, certainly in Canada - they can finally come out of the racist closet that they've been skulking in for the past while. (Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press)īut I also think it's important to note that they feel empowered. Wanda Robson holds the new $10 bank note featuring her sister of Viola Desmond, Nova Scotia's human rights icon. And so they're acting out in truly unacceptable ways and they're pushing back and they're demonstrating their racism. Well, I think what's happening is that there are a lot of racist white people who feel threatened and who don't know what to do with that feeling. So it feels like times are changing, but times are also speeding up in terms of racism being really blatant. She's buried in Halifax and with offensive racist words. She challenged racial segregation at a cinema. I don't know how much you know about Nova Scotia, but we have a large historic Black community here … There was a woman called Viola Desmond, who is a big hero in Canada. They are not saying that everything is okay because everything is indeed not okay. I don't know what's going to happen, but I do know that the protests were significant and are significant and are still actually happening in a lot of cities. And of course, it's really actually quite pathetic that it took that. (Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images)īetween George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, I think that was finally, for some people enough.
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11, 2020 - the day of a trial hearing of the four police officers charged with the murder of George Floyd. Protesters from Black Lives Matter gather outside the U.S. I mean, these are not new things but I think that they are starting to get so egregious that everyone is realizing, 'Oh, my goodness, there really is a problem.' I think for the first time, we're seeing a truly broad coalition of people not only in the United States but abroad who are saying: "Enough is enough." The instances of white supremacy and police brutality that we have seen this year, last year, the year before. You've written about your country saying it will break your heart at every possible turn, but you've also said and written that somehow this moment feels different in terms of, I assume, the protests and Black Lives Matter. Here are some excerpts from their conversation, as well as some additional audio readings by Roxane Gay not included in the program. The topic ranged from surviving gang rape, emboldened racism and what she calls the 'fetishizing of forgiveness.' And there are many other corners to the best-selling Haitian-American's literary talents, including writing World of Wakanda for Marvel Comics, the non-fiction collection of essays, Bad Feminist, the novel, An Untamed State and her moving memoir, Hunger, which explores the brutal realities of rape and obesity.Īnd while she is fond of dark explorations, her work ranges from sharply witty to deeply sensual.Īs part of Halifax's AfterWords Literary Festival, IDEAS producer Mary Lynk spoke online in a public conversation with Ms. Roxane Gay likes to joke that even her opinions have opinions - which comes in handy for her often searing opinion column in The New York Times. Warning | Content includes rape and profanity. *Originally published on November 17, 2020.