Statement from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

@OhHolyJesus - two good essays by her to start with are We Should All Be Feminists (available in print as a mini book) and Beware The Single Story which is a genius piece about race and assumptions. It's in print (freeonline I think) but also on YouTube spoken live by her.

She’s on fire! Her writing is amazing. I’m in awe.

I'm glad Adichie called her out. That's despicable behaviour. Even famous and successful people have feelings and it's clear she's been deeply hurt by this woman's duplicity, lies and groundless slurs.

I hope her career flounders. She is a leech

What a star

I highly highly recommend reading this interview where CNA discusses the books she loves (I think I'll be ordering them all😅) www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/books/review/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-by-the-book-interview.html

I am not GC and want trans people to be safe and respected (accepting I may have my head bitten off here)

No one - absolutely no one on these boards in all the time I've been reading the GC threads has ever wanted trans people to be anything other than safe and respected. There is no violence here. The GC feminists/TERFS are not the ones suggesting people who don't share their views should be attacked with machetes or raped or killed etc. If you have that impression you have been reading reactions to the very balanced and considered viewpoints of GC people, not the viewpoints themselves.

I however will be in the garden with butterflies, trying to figure out how to befriend the neighbourhood crows

That's some coded language there. If their "garden" means anything like FWR's garden. Butterflies, they who transform. Who are the crows?

I've often seen 'TERFS' slandered as being comparable to the Westboro Baptist Church but saying someone's parents died as a punishment for their thinking is pure Westboro.

Part 3 was wonderful but I have no problem with Parts 1 and 2. If JKR and Chimamanda can get death threats for politely disagreeing with gender ideology, and if women on Twitter can end up on criminal charges for statements of truth, then I have no problem with shining a light on those making hyperbolic accusations and issuing death threats.

Part three in particular. Wow. Yes. All of that. Particularly the take take take and never give attitude becoming prevalent in society, the demands of puritanism and selflessness from others that the demander certainly won't expect of themselves or tolerate anyone else expecting from them - this absolute double standards of personal entitlement compared to what others are entitled to from them. Lundy Bancroft made similar observations in his book Why Does He Do that.

The whole western world is going to have to consider how the most gently and sensitively disciplined, carefully educated, carefully and scientifically parented generations in history with the aim of a happier, more caring and mentally healthy society have managed to create a society in which these values- and growing amounts of violence and vandalism - are becoming normal.

Amazing 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

It's interesting how many protegees are happy to bite the hand that fed them. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and now this writer.

Indeed. One wonders if young women like Emma Watson might change their views when they get older and maybe have daughters, or become less visible and benefit less from being seen to be woke young stars. But even if they do repent, will they expect their past views and tweets to be forgiven, unlike those of the people they've been denouncing for their GC views?

It’s a lazy, dishonest way to get your name better known.

The four obscure authors who flounced from their publisher over JKRowling, the silly child who publicly withdrew from a talk at the last minute because, I think, Selina Todd was also speaking.
All for that tiny spark of publicity they hope will ignite to fame.

I hope more people catch on and realise that anyone unstable enough to resort to this is neither reliable or particularly good at what they do.

Indeed.

[quote Immunetypegoblin]McDuffy - it's this one:

www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/notes-on-grief[/quote]
Thank you and thanks Eresh

Just bought one of her books to celebrate this fantastic essay

I lost mine suddenly this year too. Do you remember the name of the piece?

so sorry to hear that. Yes it's the one posted.

It’s a lazy, dishonest way to get your name better known.

The four obscure authors who flounced from their publisher over JKRowling, the silly child who publicly withdrew from a talk at the last minute because, I think, Selina Todd was also speaking.
All for that tiny spark of publicity they hope will ignite to fame.

I hope more people catch on and realise that anyone unstable enough to resort to this is neither reliable or particularly good at what they do.

Hadley Freeman has referred to people crawling out of the woodwork to retweet this, who didn't bestir themselves to defend Suzanne Moore - any idea who she's referring to?

Eresh

I love the last parts. So well written and so on point for a lot of issues on twitter and modern “debate”:

People who ask you to ‘educate’ yourself while not having actually read any books themselves, while not being able to intelligently defend their own ideological positions, because by ‘educate,’ they actually mean ‘parrot what I say, flatten all nuance, wish away complexity

People who do not recognize that what they call a sophisticated take is really a simplistic mix of abstraction and orthodoxy – sophistication in this case being a showing-off of how au fait they are on the current version of ideological orthodoxy

People who wield the words ‘violence’ and ‘weaponize’ like tarnished pitchforks. People who depend on obfuscation, who have no compassion for anybody genuinely curious or confused. Ask them a question and you are told that the answer is to repeat a mantra. Ask again for clarity and be accused of violence. (How ironic, speaking of violence, that it is one of these two who encouraged Twitter followers to pick up machetes and attack me

What an incredible woman. So eloquent and insightful. I bought her book (essay?) 'We should all be feminists' for my kids one Christmas, and they engaged with it so well. Recommend for those with sons.