Roxane Gay, Author, Profsor and Mentor - Brief but Spectacular | PBS NewsHour

Contents:

• INSI THE NEAR MELTDOWN OF ROXANE GAY AND CHRISTA HOFF SOMMERS’S ATRALIAN MI-TOUR
• ‘I’LL ALWAYS BE A BAD FEMIST!’: ROXANE GAY ON LOVE, SUCCS – AND UPSETTG PIERS MAN
• ROXANE GAY STARTS PUBLISHG IMPRT WH GROVE ATLANTIC
• ROXANE GAY
• ROXANE GAY TICKETS

INSI THE NEAR MELTDOWN OF ROXANE GAY AND CHRISTA HOFF SOMMERS’S ATRALIAN MI-TOUR

Hollars, Roxane Gay!, Marcia Aldrich, Ryan Van Meter, Bonnie J.

” Two of his favore femists were Roxane Gay and Christa Hoff Sommers, and he wonred if might be worthwhile to get the two onstage together Atralia. Gay, who has a Ph. Sommers was exced by the ia but didn’t thk Gay would agree; Gay’s management team was receptive but siarly skeptil.

In June of last year, Dh says, he sent Gay an email layg out his visn and cg the famo Buckley-Vidal bate, self the subject of a documentary, as his spiratn.

‘I’LL ALWAYS BE A BAD FEMIST!’: ROXANE GAY ON LOVE, SUCCS – AND UPSETTG PIERS MAN

Eventually, Gay agreed.

This event beme the subject of ntroversy a full six months ahead of s schled dat, when, a September 2018 terview wh the Sydney Morng Herald, Gay lled Sommers a “whe supremacist, ” a claim for which there don’t appear to be any evince (Sommers is Jewish and says she is a registered Democrat, for what ’s worth). ” Gay had been asked about her cisn to share a stage wh a “whe supremacist, ” given that she had pulled a New Yorker article rponse to that magaze havg ved Steve Bannon to a New Yorker Ftival (after the outcry, he was disved) and had also pulled a book she’d been ntracted to wre for Simon & Schter after the publisher ked Milo Yiannopoulos to a (sce nceled) al.

In rponse, Gay told the Morng Herald that she’d never heard of Sommers before but that after she’d mentned the mi-tour on Twter, the Southern Poverty Law Center, an anti-hate group, sent her rmatn about Sommers that she found “disturbg. There was so much hostily the room, wh the spectators sperate to see Gay outdo Sommers at every turn.

ROXANE GAY STARTS PUBLISHG IMPRT WH GROVE ATLANTIC

Each of Gay’s pots was followed by loud applse, while Sommers was met wh snickerg and lghter even as she was speakg … I found really difficult to ncentrate on what was beg said at tim bee the crowd was so disptive, and seemed like I was one of few who actually wanted to hear the exchang full. It’s clear the crowd was solidly pro-Gay and anti-Sommers and fairly rowdy, creasgly so as the event went on.

Here and there are moments when Sommers and Gay appear to agree, even if they don’t say so. When Sommers cricized the monly repeated statistic that “one five” women are sexually asslted on llege mp, for example, Gay noted that clud sexual harassment, not jt asslt — meang they agreed that the figure is an overtimate when to asslt. Both also seemed to agree that certa gray-area s of sexual misbehavr, like that of Aziz Ansari, were not a good directn for the #MeToo movement (on Twter, Gay had bemoaned the lumpg of the bad-date story wh more ser cints like those surroundg Matt Ler and Louis C.

Sommers gave a posive asssment; then Dh approached Gay and asked her the same qutn. ’” Gay prsed the same pot an email to me: “At the first event, he asked, ‘What is femism? ” (The st of the event had been a pot of ntentn between Dh and Gay and her management team.

ROXANE GAY

Dh says that pric were higher than ual bee of Gay’s large fee and that AU$247 reprented the hight tier of ticket, which clud the bt seats, food, and drk, pl a meet-and-greet. Dh did ask Gay and Sommers to expla what tersectnaly meant to them a fairly 101-level way, but the sillier-soundg qutn he was acced of askg — What is femism? It across, ntext, as an obv means of cug up some of the broar disagreements between Gay and Sommers.

ROXANE GAY TICKETS

A slight but important misreprentatn of one of Gay’s answers spread on social media as well.

In a tweetstorm (archived here), the first tweet of which got 2, 700 retweets, Omayma Mohamed wrote that Gay said “ would be rich for a wterner to assume that they knew what was bt for other cultur & that we didn’t need to tervene their affairs. ” There’s some tth to the ia that Gay downplayed the differenc between the women’s-rights fights the Wt and plac like Indonia (“We are alg wh the very same issu the Wtern world when is not end by Sharia law, ” Gay said). Here’s an excerpt om Gay’s rponse:.