After the exciting word lesson, he started telling me all the possible Q words one can spell without a U. I wondered, Is there a Q in “motherfucker”? - Roxane Gay

If rape culture had its own cuisine, it would be all this shit you have to swallow.

When people wield accusations of privilege, more often than not, they want to be heard and seen. Their need is acute, if not desperate, and that need rises out of the many historical and ongoing attempts to silence and render invisible marginalized groups. Must we satisfy our need to be heard and seen by preventing anyone else from being heard and seen? Does privilege automatically negate any merits of what a privilege holder has to say? Do we ignore everything, for example, that white men have to say?

If people cannot be flawed in fiction there's no place left for us to be human.