The designation is useful and necessary and sometimes limiting but it is only limiting to people who think, for example, that African-American literature couldn't possibly be something they could be interested in or relate to. They have limited imaginations, which is sad.
Roxane GayThe other day, I saw a blog post where a woman wrote about why she was unfollowing me and that made me feel incredibly self-conscious and embarrassed about my tweets. I also feel more exposed now that I've become a more visible writer but then I try to get over all that and just use Twitter the way I want.
Roxane GayI love writing fiction because I can totally lose myself and I get to make up the rules of the world that I'm writing.
Roxane GayPeople do terrible things all the time, but we don’t regularly disown our humanity. We disavow the terrible things.
Roxane GayI never imagined that I would be the kind of person who is recognized when I am out and about just living my life.
Roxane GayThe notion that I should be fine with the status quo even if I am not wholly affected by the status quo is repulsive.
Roxane GayI'm fat positive, in that I don't see fat as a bad thing. But what I do see as a bad thing is how I'm treated. I can have the most positive outlook in the world, but that is not going to change how hecklers and people walking down the street are yelling at me.
Roxane GayGood fiction challenges us as much as it entertains and these days, we could do with both of these things.
Roxane GayI wrote myself back together. I wrote myself toward a stronger version of myself . . . Through writing and feminism, I also found that if I was a little bit brave, another woman might hear me and see me and recognize that none of us are the nothing the world tries to tell us we are.
Roxane GayPeople of color are not under any kind of obligation beyond working hard, doing their best, and learning from their mistakes.
Roxane GayI think hunger is a natural state of being for most people. I mean, hunger is a desire - and you don't only have physical hunger, you have emotional hunger. A lot of my hungers are, in fact, emotional. I think a lot of fat people's hungers are emotional. There are things we very much want, and it can be so difficult to satisfy those hungers. Yet we try. We try so hard.
Roxane GayJust write and love what you're writing. And if you're not loving what you're writing, take a look at why and fix that.
Roxane GayIt's a very weird cultural perception that if you're fat you're dumb, that you're lazy or a loser. Clearly, those are the preconditions for fatness. You're a failure, because only a lazy person, only a dumb person, would allow themselves to get into this situation. It's appalling that this is the mindset. People generally treat fat people like we don't know anything about anything. It's incredibly demeaning. And incredibly frustrating.
Roxane GayIt's gut instinct that helps me determine how to write a story. I love the surreal because I am faced with the challenge of making the unbelievable believable. That challenge is thrilling.
Roxane GaySomewhere along the line we started misinterpreting the First Amendment and this idea of the freedom of speech the amendment grants us. We are free to speak as we choose without fear of prosecution or persecution, but we are not free to speak as we choose without consequence.
Roxane GayI look at my older writing to see where my weaknesses are and then I try to address those weaknesses and make new mistakes.
Roxane GayDon’t flirt, have sex, or engage in emotional affairs with your friends’ significant others. This shouldn’t need to be said, but it needs to be said. That significant other is an asshole, and you don’t want to be involved with an asshole who’s used goods. If you want to be with an asshole, get a fresh asshole of your very own. They are abundant.
Roxane GayI am fine with my books being categorized as African-American literature but I hope they are also considered Haitian-American literature and American literature. All of these things are part of who I am and what I write.
Roxane GayI like what the internet offers: the ability to get people interested in your mind, and have a chance if you're not conventionally attractive.
Roxane GayOftentimes, when a woman demands accountability, respect, or consideration, she is crazy or nagging or whatever.
Roxane GayWe assume whiteness is the default because whiteness, historically, has been the default. This is one of the many reasons diverse representation matters so much. We need to change the default.
Roxane GayIntellectually, I know I am worthy, however arbitrary a thing worthiness is, and have always been worthy.
Roxane GaySo many of us are reaching out, hoping someone out there will grab our hands and remind us we are not as alone as we fear.
Roxane GayNo woman or man is any one thing and the men in my stories, well, some of them are good and some of them are terrible, and most of them make the lives of the women they love much harder than need be. Why? Because that's the kind of storytelling I was drawn to when I wrote these stories, most of which are at least seven years or more old.
Roxane GayThere's certainly a portion of my brain that is always tuned to making wry observations about the world, but that portion of my brain was alive and well before Twitter.
Roxane GayI don't read the comments anymore, unless they are moderated. Which is not to say censored, but I don't need to read someone saying, "You're ugly."
Roxane GayI love romantic comedies. I know how terrible they are, but I love them! And I don't think that makes me less of a feminist.
Roxane GayGenerally, the ways we discuss the fat body pathologize it; we treat it as a medical problem and/or a social problem that must be solved. "Morbid obesity" is in many ways saying we are the walking dead. Or walking to our death. And that is no way to live, with that sort of moniker hanging over your head at all times. I think it forces fat people to internalize a lot of unnecessary self-loathing.
Roxane GayWe don't all have to believe in the same feminism. Feminism can be pluralistic so long as we respect the different feminisms we carry with us, so long as we give enough of a damn to try to minimize the fractures among us. Feminism will better succeed with collective effort, but feminist success can also rise out of personal conduct.
Roxane GayI believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn’t make certain choices for ourselves.
Roxane GayKnowing that a story needs to be told is a great motivator, even if telling a given story comes at a price. Writing Hunger has been the most difficult writing of my life, and it's the rawest and perhaps most necessary. We'll see how people take it. I always strive to write beyond personal catharsis because though I write first and foremost for myself, I do recognize that I need to look outward as much if not more than I look inward, so the reader has something with which they can engage.
Roxane GayI approach most things in life with a dangerous level of confidence to balance my generally low self-esteem.
Roxane GayWe need to stop playing Privilege or Oppression Olympics because we'll never get anywhere until we find more effective ways of talking through difference. We should be able to say, “This is my truth,” and have that truth stand without a hundred clamoring voices shouting, giving the impression that multiple truths cannot coexist.
Roxane GayMaybe I'm a bad feminist, but I am deeply committed to the issues important to the feminist movement. I have strong opinions about misogyny, institutional sexism that consistently places women at a disadvantage, the inequity in pay, the cult of beauty and thinness, the repeated attacks on reproductive freedom, violence against women, and on and on. I am as committed to fighting fiercely for equality as I am committed to disrupting the notion that there is an essential feminism.
Roxane GayI was called a feminist, and what I heard was, 'You are an angry, sex-hating, man-hating victim lady person.' This caricature is how feminists have been warped by the people who fear feminism most, the same people who have the most to lose when feminism succeeds.
Roxane GayFeminism's failings do not mean we should eschew feminism entirely. People do terrible things all the time, but we don't regularly disown our humanity. We disavow the terrible things. We should disavow the failures of feminism without disavowing its many successes and how far we have come.
Roxane Gay