For the past month, following the unlawful killing of George Floyd and under the keen instruction to “educate” ourselves about racism, book lists, watch lists and listen lists have
been posted on every corner of the internet. Reni Eddo-Lodge’s ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking
to White People About Race’ temporarily went out of stock on amazon for the first time since
its publication in 2017 and in the past week has broken records for black authors. The sudden momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement is something that cannot be avoided. However, with the internet’s 20 minute news cycle, it is a place much better suited to overwhelming its clientele than educating them. Taking the time to read and educate is a
luxury, and one best suited to offline.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s third novel ‘Americanah’ is a book that has appeared on
many recommended reading lists. Originally published in 2013, Americanah won the National
Book Critics’ Circle Award, following in the successful footsteps of the success of Adichie’s
previous two novels. The semi-autobiographical story sprawls across three continents and
over 15 years in a glorious coming-of-age tale which tackles issues as personal as first love
and as political as systemic racism. Set in Nigeria, the plot follows Ifemelu, her romance with
classmate Obinze and her emigration to America (and becoming what her Nigerian family
dub an ‘Americanah’). With the move comes the stark reality of racism and an existential
feeling of Odysseus homesickness. Adichie uses this backdrop to allow Ifemelu to start to
unravel American’s race problem from an equally black and outsider perspective. Setting up
a blog, Ifemelu, and indirectly Adichie, addresses latent and cross-cultural biases within
America. Ifemelu’s black perspective is one that is largely homogenous and she notes at one
point that she only became aware of her blackness once she landed in America. She
addresses the difference between the African black experience and the African American
experience when it comes to identity and taboo words (seeing no issue herself with the n-word). Her African privilege is something she sees matched with the white privilege around
her, in knowing her family tree and heritage. However, in areas ranging from class and job
prospects to hair, beauty, and body image, there is a gulf.
Following the novel’s primary publication, a review in The Guardian maintained that Adichie included a few too many of Ifemelu’s blog posts. Reading these excerpts peppered across the novel in 2020 feels sinister and sharply relevant; they talk about mental illness in the black community, welfare, and police brutality. The problem of a journalist critiquing that
these issues are too explicitly discussed within the novel exposes a particular strand of white
privilege; white readers do not want to read about it in all its forms. Whilst Ifemelu faces a life
as an immigrant in America, her boyfriend Obinze travels to England. Here Adichie cleverly
shows a similar level but entirely different grimness when it comes to settling into society
there as an immigrant. Where Ifemelu talks about racist policing, Obinze experiences
othering in terms of how his education and skillsets are viewed. Whilst in Nigeria he was
comfortably middle-class with ambition and status, his eventual deportation from England is
due to an illegal National Insurance number and an attempted green card marriage.
Adichie shines through her portrayal of group discussion, using conversation to make her
cases for her own opinions and experiences through her main characters. During a dinner party in England, Obinze observes how race is talked about over civilised drinks. There is a competitive attempt to know the most and appear the most woke offering sympathy to the
immigrant populace. Obinze remains quiet throughout the conversation listening to what he
describes as people who understand fleeing from famine and burning villages but not
emmigration for the point of looking for something else. Through the setting of a dinner
conversation, Adichie is able to tackle the crux of racism within immigration; free movement
and a desire for more in life is something that is taken for granted by white people.
Americanah never loses its edge nor its direction as a love story. Whilst still being able to
tackle the bumpy landing of coming home after being away for so long and readjusting to a
culture grown out of, the final chapters of the book focuses on Ifemelu and Obinze’s
romantic reconciliation. Adichie’s point here being that whilst not having the privilege to not
talk about race, the universal experiences of love and loss are not lesser within black stories
Words by H.R. Gibs.
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