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Amma
Yazz is Amma and Roland’s daughter. She relentlessly criticizes her parents for what they believe are their progressive beliefs, but that Yazz sees as out of touch. Yazz has inherited her family’s revolutionary spirit and is deeply committed to social justice. However, just like her mother, she can be so focused on criticizing others that it blinds her to her own privileges and hypocrisies. Yazz falls into the trap of ranking her peers from most to least oppressed, failing to acknowledge how intersectionality complicates the simple narrative she tries to impose on the world around her. Yazz attends a university where the student body is predominately white and wealthy, which often leaves her feeling out of place. She and her friends Waris and Nenet initially connect because they are three among the few women of color at the college. They call themselves “The Unfuckables,” asserting their right to exist and succeed within an institution of power and privilege. Even though her unconventional upbringing was sometimes challenging, Yazz is proud of it and defends her parents against anyone who suggests that the way she was raised may have been damaging to her.
Yazz Quotes in Girl, Woman, Other
The Girl, Woman, Other quotes below are all either spoken by Yazz or refer to Yazz. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 1: Yazz
Quotes
you’ve really suffered, Yazz says, I feel sorry for you, not in a patronizing way, it’s empathy, actually
I haven’t suffered, not really, my mother and grandmother suffered because they lost their loved ones and their homeland, whereas my suffering is mainly in my head
it’s not in your head when people deliberately barge into you
it is compared to half a million people who died in the Somali civil war, I was born here and I’m going to succeed in this country, I can’t afford not to work my butt off, I know it’s going to be tough when I get on the job market but you know what, Yazz? I’m not a victim, don’t ever treat me like a victim, my mother didn’t raise me to be a victim.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
yes but I’m black, Courts, which makes me more oppressed than anyone who isn’t, except Waris who is the most oppressed of all of them (although I don’t tell her that)
in five categories: black, Muslim, female, poor, hijabbed
she’s the only one Yazz can’t tell to check her privilege
Courtney replied that Roxane Gay warned against the idea of playing ‘privilege Olympics’ and wrote in Bad Feminist that privilege is relative and contextual, and I agree, Yazz, I mean where does it all end? is Obama less privileged than a white hillbilly growing up in a trailer park with a junkie single mother and a jailbird father? Is a severely disabled person more privileged than a Syrian asylum-seeker who’s been tortured? Roxane argues that we have to find a new discourse for discussing inequality
Yazz doesn’t know what to say, when did Court read Roxane Gay – who’s amaaaazing?
was this a student outwitting the master moment?
#whitegirltrumpsblackgirl
Yazz noticed that those ‘buns’ reciprocated Courtney’s attention, her creamy softness pouring ostentatiously over the top of her denim blouse
they stared at Courtney, not at Yazz, who wasn’t the one getting checked out as usual, and she usually got checked out a lot
not that she’s interested in the kind of male who belts their trousers underneath their bum
today it’s all about Courtney, who’s not even particularly hot and it’s like Yazz is invisible and her friend is an irresistible goddess
a white girl walking with a black girl is always seen as black-man-friendly
Yazz has been here before with other white mates
it makes her feel so
jaded
Get the entire Girl, Woman, Other LitChart as a printable PDF.
Yazz Quotes in Girl, Woman, Other
The Girl, Woman, Other quotes below are all either spoken by Yazz or refer to Yazz. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 1: Yazz
Quotes
you’ve really suffered, Yazz says, I feel sorry for you, not in a patronizing way, it’s empathy, actually
I haven’t suffered, not really, my mother and grandmother suffered because they lost their loved ones and their homeland, whereas my suffering is mainly in my head
it’s not in your head when people deliberately barge into you
it is compared to half a million people who died in the Somali civil war, I was born here and I’m going to succeed in this country, I can’t afford not to work my butt off, I know it’s going to be tough when I get on the job market but you know what, Yazz? I’m not a victim, don’t ever treat me like a victim, my mother didn’t raise me to be a victim.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
yes but I’m black, Courts, which makes me more oppressed than anyone who isn’t, except Waris who is the most oppressed of all of them (although I don’t tell her that)
in five categories: black, Muslim, female, poor, hijabbed
she’s the only one Yazz can’t tell to check her privilege
Courtney replied that Roxane Gay warned against the idea of playing ‘privilege Olympics’ and wrote in Bad Feminist that privilege is relative and contextual, and I agree, Yazz, I mean where does it all end? is Obama less privileged than a white hillbilly growing up in a trailer park with a junkie single mother and a jailbird father? Is a severely disabled person more privileged than a Syrian asylum-seeker who’s been tortured? Roxane argues that we have to find a new discourse for discussing inequality
Yazz doesn’t know what to say, when did Court read Roxane Gay – who’s amaaaazing?
was this a student outwitting the master moment?
#whitegirltrumpsblackgirl
Yazz noticed that those ‘buns’ reciprocated Courtney’s attention, her creamy softness pouring ostentatiously over the top of her denim blouse
they stared at Courtney, not at Yazz, who wasn’t the one getting checked out as usual, and she usually got checked out a lot
not that she’s interested in the kind of male who belts their trousers underneath their bum
today it’s all about Courtney, who’s not even particularly hot and it’s like Yazz is invisible and her friend is an irresistible goddess
a white girl walking with a black girl is always seen as black-man-friendly
Yazz has been here before with other white mates
it makes her feel so
jaded
