Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quotes

I think that show will go down in history... people will scratch their heads and say 'How did this ever get on the air?' I mean, they finally have a planet that's populated with a black race and then they present them as savage warriors, and the men want the white girl!

By seeing the problem of poverty merely in terms of assistance, we overlook that our enormous economic advantage is deeply tainted by how it accumulated over the course of one historical process that has devastated the societies and cultures of four continents.

The first Western attempt to save Africa from itself was in the late 19th century. It was led by Christian missionaries who claimed to be seeking to end poverty, disease and the slave trade.

I do think that humanitarians and journalists alike have focused on all the things that go wrong, and that they sometimes leave the perception in the public that the war on poverty has been lost. That Africa is just a bottomless pit of despair. When, in fact, really the opposite is true on both fronts.

It's very easy for Australians living in big cities to either romanticise or demonise the situation in Aboriginal places - to kind of look at things through the 'noble innocents' prism or through the 'chronically dysfunctional' prism, and I suspect that is so often the case.

The native American has been generally despised by his white conquerors for his poverty and simplicity.

Africa is the continent that the rest of the world prefers not to think about.

I can't stand people who say they've got 'Africa fatigue.'

Much of the image of the amazingness of America comes from the movies into other cultures. And it's much the same thing when you reverse it. Much of Africa is presented through poverty, through drought and war. [But] you're not presenting people, you're not presenting countries, you're not presenting complexity, and so people can't care about an amorphous mass called Africa.

Some people say that the West has a cruel history. These people also may see the achievements of Western countries - in terms of the economy, education, health, and social achievements - as a result of exploitation of poorer countries, including Arab countries. Western nations get rich by using resources such as Arab oil. Meanwhile, the countries supplying them raw materials remain poor. Due to such injustices, jealousies are created.

In my view, the humanity of our world can be measured against the fate of Africa.

U2 was involved in Live Aid, and I ended up going to Ethiopia and working there for some time with my wife, Ali.

People of color have a constant frustration of not being represented, or being misrepresented, and these images go around the world.

On the outside, America looks like this great melting pot, but on the inside, there's this segregation in American cinema. Why does a Latino film have to be for Latinos? Why is a black film just for black people? Why?

If I were to live in Africa, serving the poor, the number-one thing I'd miss wouldn't be running water or electricity - it would be style... being able to get dressed up and feel beautiful.

I've seen so many screw-ups of representations of South Africa, and it makes me so angry every time.

What does it mean to be too black for Hollywood? It's self-explanatory. Hollywood has certain kinds of blacks that they like.

The whole idea of a stereotype is to simplify. Instead of going through the problem of all this great diversity - that it's this or maybe that - you have just one large statement; it is this.

Too often a story is examined through biased eyes, without a sensitivity for everyone who forged it. It's seen from the point of view of the great white savior, and rarely is the perspective of the slave a part.

There's so much material out there that's unnecessarily racist. It takes a shot at what is 'urban' or demonstrates blackness with some sassy, neck-jiving character that's not even relevant to the plot. I see it time and time again, and it doesn't move the story forward. It just kind of cryogenically freezes us in this old racial paradigm.

These vast lands [Africa, South America, Asia]... need only assistance from us to be civilized.

After WWII .... the West exchanged the old racist coinage for new currency. "Uncivilized" became "underdeveloped". "Savage people" became the "third world". There was a genuine change of heart away from racism and toward respect for equality, but a paternalistic and coercive strain survived.

[For those peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world, there should be applied the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization .... the tutelage of such peoples should be entrusted to advanced nations ...

I am concerned about Africa. You can’t have 600 million people of one identifiable ethnicity going backwards and the rest of the world going forwards.

I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.