From remarks by Somali-born writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali at the Independent Women’s Forum’s Women of Valor Dinner, 11/19/14:
I come from a culture and background, and I spent my youth, in an environment where everything and absolutely everything reminded me of being a woman, being female, and being inferior.
And I didn’t realize until I came to the west that we actually are first and foremost not collectives. We are individuals. We are individual girls with our different characters, with our likes and dislikes. And before you assume the collective, assume the individual. That is the greatest thing about the idea of America.
The Wall Street Journal, “Notable & Quotable,” 11/22/14
“And before you assume the collective, assume the individual. That is the greatest thing about the idea of America.” Why is that foreign observers and immigrants (e.g. Alexis de Tocqueville, Ayn Rand) grasp the essence of America so much more readily than many of our own home-grown, so-called intellectuals?
Reblogged this on Jessica A Bruno (waybeyondfedup).