“Racism should never have happened and so you don’t get a cookie for reducing it.”
The brutally honest words of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah are some of the most hilarious yet illuminating I’ve ever read.
The novel follows the trials of love, culture, and diaspora through the eyes of Ifemelu, who migrates from Nigeria to the United States and learns for the first time in her life, what it means to be a problem.
Adichie introduces us to the complexities and nuances of American racism through the eyes of a black foreigner who has never experienced them before. This lends her critique of what is often pejoratively referred to as “identity politics” a sense of objectivity; while Ifemelu is enlightened to the daily absurdities and frustrations black people in the West face, the reader is, too. Along with this, Adichie is able to comment on the intersectionality of gender inequality as it exists in the U.S. and Nigeria, and by expanding upon systems of oppression through the lens of an outsider, she reveals to the reader the implicit and subtle codes of racism that exist in the foundations of American culture in a succinct and eyeopening manner.
Adichie is blunt in her choice of words and commentary. Often, when discussing the cultural barriers facing marginalized communities in the West today, members of said marginalized communities are excruciatingly aware of how they are perceived in a world that historically has always dismissed them and their feelings:
“If you’re telling a non-black person about something racist that happened to you, make sure you are not bitter. Don’t complain. Be forgiving. If possible, make it funny. Most of all, do not be angry. Black people are not supposed to be angry about racism. Otherwise you get no sympathy. This applies only for white liberals, by the way. Don’t even bother telling a white conservative about anything racist that happened to you. Because the conservative will tell you that YOU are the real racist and your mouth will hang open in confusion.”
Books like this are important because they give voice to the experiences of people of color in as concise and understandable a manner as possible. There is no need for academic language to validate this particular social commentary or comedy to diffuse tension and personal responsibility the reader may hold for complying to a racist social structure on a daily basis. Through Ifemelu — and to a lesser degree, her lover Obinze — Adichie can be as honest about her opinions and experiences as she likes. She will not grant the white moderate the comfort of false equivalency the way an online forum or other mass media might. No, she is going to tell the truth and she is not going to sugarcoat it.
“The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America.”
In light of disintegrating journalistic integrity and a divisive political atmosphere of the United States, political themes and social analysis in books like Americanah ring truer now more than ever. There is something insidious about the overlooked danger of Steve Bannon’s appointment in Trump’s administration and the empowerment of white supremacists as a whole in the wake of the election. It seems we must now rely, as we always have, on writers and thinkers who will challenge oppressive forces with courage and sharp tongues, writers like Adichie.
It’s concerning to me that so many people don’t simply want to make America great, but to make America great again.
“…In the West, their best is already past and so they have to make a fetish of that past.”
For someone who is not even American, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie really seems to know what she’s talking about.
