The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture. I once live-tweeted the September issue." In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. Peculiar Benefits - The 1/3 Peculiar Benefits By Roxane Gay May 16th, 2012 When I was young, my parents took our family to Haiti during the summers. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink, all shades of pink. Bad feminist : take one Bad feminist : take two.Ī collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. The politics of respectability When Twitter does what journalism cannot The alienable rights of women Holding out for a hero A tale of two profiles The racism we all carry Tragedy, call, compassion, response - Back to me. The solace of preparing fried foods and other quaint remembrances from 1960s Mississippi : thoughts on "The help" Surviving "Django" Beyond the struggle narrative The morality of Tyler Perry The last day of a young black man When less is more - Politics, gender & race.
Feel me, see me, hear me, reach me Peculiar benefits Typical first year professor To scratch, claw or grope clumsily or frantically - Gender & sexuality/ How to be friends with another woman Girls, girls, girls I once was Miss America Garish, glorious spectacles Not here to make friends How we all lose Reaching for catharsis : getting fat right (or wrong) and Diana Spechler's "Skinny" The smooth surfaces of idyll The careless language of sexual violence What we hunger for The illusion of safety/the safety of illusion The spectacle of broken men A tale of three coming out stories Beyond the measure of men Some jokes are funnier than others Dear young ladies who love Chris Brown So much they would let him beat them Blurred lines, indeed The trouble with Prince Charming, or, He who trespassed against us - Race & entertainment. My parents raised my siblings and I in a strict but loving environment.Introduction. I’m a woman, a person of color, and the child of immigrants but I also grew up middle class and then upper middle class. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do is accept and acknowledge my privilege. The problem is, we talk about privilege with such alarming frequency and in such empty ways, we have diluted the word’s meaning.When people wield the word privilege it tends to fall on deaf ears because we hear that word so damn much the word it has become white noise.
At some point, you have to surrender to the kinds of privilege you hold because everyone has something someone else doesn’t. There is racial privilege, gender (and identity) privilege, heterosexual privilege, economic privilege, able-bodied privilege, educational privilege, religious privilege and the list goes on and on. Privilege is a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor. It wasn’t until many, many years later that I realized my education on privilege began long before I could appreciate it in any meaningful way. It was hard for a child who grew up on cul-de-sacs, to begin to grasp the contrast between such inescapable poverty alongside almost repulsive luxury and then, the United States, a mere eight hundred miles away, with it’s gleaming cities rising out of the landscape, and the well- maintained interstates stretching across the country, the running water and the electricity. I saw the sprawling slums, the shanties housing entire families, the trash piled in the streets, and then, the gorgeous beach, and the young men in uniforms who brought us Coca Cola in glass bottles and made us hats and boats out of palm fronds. To this day, I remember my first visit, and how at every intersection, men and women, shiny with sweat, would mob our car, their skinny arms stretched out, hoping for a few gourdes or American dollars. To see poverty so plainly and pervasively left a mark on me. Until visiting Haiti, I had no idea what poverty really was or the difference between relative and absolute poverty. For my brothers and I it was an adventure, sometimes, a chore, and always a necessary education on privilege and the grace of an American passport. Peculiar Benefits - The 1/3 Peculiar Benefits By Roxane Gay May 16th, 2012 When I was young, my parents took our family to Haiti during the summers.