Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote an article on social media behavior among young people who are “choking on holiness and having no mercy” and says they are part of a generation “so afraid of having wrong opinions that they are take the opportunity to think, learn and grow. “
The article was published with the title It’s Obscene Nigerian writer and feminist on her website Tuesday night. It got so much attention that its website went down temporarily.
The article explores her interaction with two unnamed writers who attended Adichie’s writing workshop in Lagos. Both later criticized her on social media for her comments on transgender people and feminism in a 2017 interview on Channel 4. She says, “A trans woman is a trans woman“.
Adichie then rejected claims that she did not believe transgender women. say: “Of course it’s women, but when it comes to feminism and sexuality and all of that, it’s important for us to recognize the differences in sexual experience.”
Adichie was later mentioned in the biography of the author of the first novel by one of the authors. Citing emails sent at the time, Adichie’s article recounts how she asked for her name to be removed from the book, further attacks on social media, and how “this person started a story that I had sabotaged his career”.
Last year transgender writer Akwake Emmezi did Tweet it Two days after the publication of her novel “Fresh Water”[Adichie] I asked that her name be removed from my resume everywhere because of my tweets on the internet. Most of them were transphobic. “
Adichie wrote in her essay that she “supports this writer very much” because she believes that “we need a variety of African stories”.
“Requiring my name to be removed from your résumé won’t sabotage your career. It’s about protecting my boundaries from what I think is acceptable of civilian behavior, ”wrote the author of Half a yellow sun.
On Wednesday, Emezi posted a video on Instagram, partially responding to Adichie’s article. “I wouldn’t read what the maid wrote and, surprisingly, I would like to disprove it because I wouldn’t even read it. They said it doesn’t affect my life. ” that we are important, that we are important, that our worlds are bigger than anything these people can imagine, nor do we need to be read to them. We don’t have to confirm it from them. “
In her article, Adichie wrote that the other writer Adichie mentioned was “welcome” in the writer’s life, but after criticizing Adichie’s comments, he “publicly” insulted Adichie on social media.
“It’s a simple story – you reached out to a celebrity, publicly insulted them to glorify yourself, cut you off from the celebrity, sent ignored emails and texts, and then decided to use social media to help them out Bypassing lies, ”writes Adichie.
Adichie ended her article on the criticism that “some young people today are like these two guys from my writing workshop,” calling them “outrageous” her “emotional achievement of virtue, which was well executed in public on Twitter, but not in the public domain intimate space of friendship. ”
“We have a generation of young people on social media who are so afraid of having wrong opinions that they are depriving themselves of opportunities to think, learn, and grow,” Adichie wrote. “I have spoken to young people who have told me that they are afraid to tweet anything, that they will read and retweet their tweets because they fear they will attack them. The assumption of good faith is dead. What matters is not the good, but the appearance of the good. We are no longer human. We are creeping angels now. On an outside angel. May God help us. It’s obscene.
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