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Quote by Omar El Akkad

“I have spent the entirety of my life stitching together costumes to make Westerners feel at ease in my presence--a massive internal compendium of cultural references and jokes and shorthand and all these alternate means of saying, Don't worry, I'm not foreign, I'm like you--and suddenly I've run out of things to wear.”

Quote by Omar El Akkad

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One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

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Omar El Akkad

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“Earnest feminism leads you to treat men unjustly — to reflexively blame them both collectively and individually for the sheer imperfection of life. Earnest feminism leads you to treat non-feminists unjustly — to respond to reasonable objections with condescension and thinly-veiled threats. Earnest feminism turns you against your family – to see the father and brothers who have always loved and cared for you as part of “the enemy.” And earnest feminism leads you to treat yourself poorly — to see yourself as a victim, whose only reliable allies are other earnest feminists.”

“I'm reasonably certain, salmon, swordfish, and hammerhead sharks do not find themselves paralyzed by spasms of self-blame for their plight - What could I do differently to placate these people? If only I were a better fish they would not hate me - but instead know precisely who is killing them. The same can be said for the indigenous. You can't get much clearer than Sitting Bull, who said, when forced to speak at a celebration of the completion of a railroad through what had been his people's land: "I hate you. I hate you. I hate all the white people. You are thieves and liars. You have taken away our land and made us outcasts, so I hate you." It's important to note, by the way, that the white translator did not speak these words, but instead the "friendly, courteous speech he had prepared." [Glaspell, Kate Eldridge. "Incidents in the Life of a Pioneer." North Dakota Historical Quarterly, 1941, 187-88.]”