Roxane Gay: ‘Public discourse rarely allows for nuance. And see where that’s gotten us.’
(Photograph credit: Jennifer Silverberg/The Guardian)
Roxanne Gay, a 2020 Phil Lind Initiative speaker and bestselling author of Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body and Difficult Women, is a cultural critic whose writing has won the reverence of many readers for its deeply reflective quality in exploring modern feminism and the current social landscape. In an interview with The Guardian, Gay speaks to her rejection of “identity politics”: “It’s used like a weapon. What it means is, ‘I don’t want to think about your concerns. I don’t want to have to extend my empathy.’” It is crucial, the writer argues, that everyone tries to reach an understanding, fight against dichotomies and essentialism.