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Gay described “diversity” as a word so overused as to become meaningless and “identity politics” as a phrase misused to imply that “we can’t both acknowledge and embrace our identities and be part of a broader community.”Īs a woman who is black, bisexual, Haitian-American, and who grew up middle class and then upper middle class, Gay said her identity “is political because so much of who I am is part of the public discourse, subject to legislation, discrimination and disadvantage. Gay argued for the need to “move beyond tidy words that make us feel like the world is a better, more unified place than it actually is,” and for the need to recognize when phrases are used to duck responsibility or dismiss important issues. Language matters because sometimes it becomes an empty container,” for whatever people want to fill it with, she said. “The phrase ‘loves Trumps hate’ was equally loathsome,” Gay said, “because that is in fact rarely the case and by repeating it over and over, people were literally centering Trump. When they go low we have to be willing to go lower if we have any hope of resisting their greedy, shallow and insular brand of fascism.” There is no high road with a man who has appointed a white supremacist as his chief strategist in the White House. “Too many people were and are invested in this idea of purity and infallibility to realize that there can be no purity in fighting fascism. “Millions of people went on to parrot these words with no understanding of the world and how it really works,” Gay said. Gay cited the adoption of Michelle Obama’s oft-cited “They go low, we go high,” statement, the use of “nasty woman” by Hillary Clinton supporters as a slogan and “love Trumps hate” as understandable but misguided attempts to find comfort or solidarity. There were all kinds of pithy catchphrases that became popular.” “I thought about words because I’m a writer, and words are how we make sense of the world and how I make sense of myself.
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“Throughout the campaign, I did think about language, and how careless we got with the words we use,” Gay said. To call what is currently happening a ‘disgrace’ is my way of being polite,” she added, citing the president’s executive order to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, the effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and actions relating to national and international security undertaken “with no regard for actual security.” “I didn’t write a lot about the presidential campaign - I regret that now,” Gay said.
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Gay teaches English at Purdue University and has written novels, short stories, essays and the Marvel comic series "Black Panther: World of Wakanda." She said she thinks of herself primarily as a fiction writer but lately has had “cause to write a lot of nonfiction.” 9, 2016, and grappling with a new political order. Gay, whose visit to Brown was organized by graduate students in the Department of American Studies, read two stories from her collection "Difficult Women" followed by a nonfiction work about waking up on Nov.
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14, writer, scholar and cultural commentator Roxane Gay discussed the reality television show “The Bachelor,” drew attention to the imprecise language that characterized the presidential campaign and urged the crowd to fight for social and economic justice. In a sharp, funny and wide-ranging reading and discussion at Brown University’s De Ciccio Family Auditorium on Feb.