Show a people as one thing, only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.

If I were not African, I wonder whether it would be clear to me that Africa is a place where the people do not need limp gifts of fish but sturdy fishing rods and fair access to the pond. I wonder whether I would realize that while African nations have a failure of leadership, they also have dynamic people with agency and voices.

At some point I was a HappyAfricanFeminist who does not hate men. And who likes lip gloss and who wears high heels for herself but not for men.

There were people thrice her size on the Trenton platform and she looked admiringly at one of them, a woman in a very short skirt. She thought nothing of slender legs shown off in miniskirts--it was safe and easy, after all, to display legs of which the world approved--but the fat woman's act was about the quiet conviction that one shared only with oneself, a sense of rightness that others failed to see.

He was already looking at their relationship through the lens of the past tense. It puzzled her, the ability of romantic love to mutate, how quickly a loved one could become a stranger. Where did the love go? Perhaps real love was familial, somehow, linked to blood, since love for children did not die as romantic love did.

I don't believe that art and politics or social issues must be separated. In writing about marriage, for example, money can be a big factor, and money is linked to earning, and earning is influenced by politics.

I didn't know I was even supposed to HAVE issues until I came to America