Because I was in psychiatric treatment for most of my childhood and had to learn English and had to adjust to a white-dominated society, I truly know what being Sudanese refugees [adopting by white family] mean. It's not something that you can explain in the confines of an interview, but there is an immediate comfort, a connection between black phenotypes that is natural.

The media has outright lied on me. They reported that I called myself Osama's [Bin Laden] 'sex slave,' apparently unaware that sex slaves aren't allowed to look their master in the eye, write poetry with him or go on hunting excursions with him.

I'm not at all against white people adopting black children, because we're all human beings who need to give love and be nurtured in safety, but I do think it's better to be adopted by blacks.

I'm too good for assimilation.

I happen to know at least a hundred Sudanese refugees in the United States, all of whom were taken in by white families and white churches, and they all tell me''Naima, you were blessed to be raised by Black Americans.'

I appear topless as a way of holding on to my Nilotic culture, and I also do it to taunt those Africans who are ashamed of our original cultural beliefs.

I do feel it's crucial that women's opinions be taken equally with men's. But still'I have not been accepted by the American white feminist writers and activists, and frankly I don't care to be, so I am a womanist. I am feisty and I am given to womanish behavior.