I love that Pittmike and a couple other people assume that the 2 black posters who aren't lawyers must be the same guy.

Posts like this make me want to ask the question so I know once and for all. Are you black?

Didn't we already do this with the penis length thread?

Didn't we already do this with the penis length thread?

Are you Jewish?

Posts like this make me want to ask the question so I know once and for all. Are you black?

Posts like this make me want to ask the question so I know once and for all. Are you black?

like corn bitches bi-color

I don't think 'pale' and 'gray' count.

n!gga you gay.

In your novel, Americanah, your heroine is African, and you illustrate her experience of coming to America and what she learned about blackness in America. I’m curious to hear about your experience of coming to America. What have you learned about how Americans see blackness in America? Or the difference between being African American and being African?

First of all, I wasn’t black until I came to America. I became black in America.

Growing up in Nigeria, I didn’t think about race because I didn’t need to think about race. Nigeria is a country with many problems and many identity divisions, but those identity divisions are mainly religion and ethnicity.

So my identity growing up was Christian, Catholic, and Igbo. And sometimes I felt Nigerian in sort of a healthy way, especially when Nigeria was playing in the World Cup. Then I would think about my nationality as a Nigerian. But, when I came to the U.S., it just changed. I think that America, and obviously because of its history, it’s the one country where, in some ways, identity is forced on you, because you have to check a box. You have to be something. And, I came here and very quickly realized to Americans I was just black. And for a little while, I resisted it, because it didn’t take me very long when I came here to realize how many negative stereotypes were attached to blackness.

For me, the story that I hold onto as my defining moment of realizing what blackness meant was when I was in college and I had written this essay and it was the best essay in the class, so the professor wanted to know who had written it. I raised my hand and he looked surprised when he found out that it was me.

I remember realizing then that, “Oh, so this is what it means.” This professor doesn’t expect the best essay in class to be written by a black person. And I had come from a country where black achievement is absolutely normal. It wasn’t remarkable to me the idea that black people are academically superior because, you know, everybody in Nigeria was black. So the people who were bright were black. So I resisted it. I didn’t want to be black. I would say to people, “I’m not black, I’m Nigerian.” Or, another identity that America gives me was African, so that in college people just wanted me to explain Africa. I knew nothing about anywhere else, apart from Nigeria, really.

Looking back, especially my first year in the U.S., my insistence on being Nigerian, or even African, was in many ways my way of avoiding blackness. It’s also my acknowledgement of American racism––which is to say that if blackness were benign, I would not have been running away from it. And so it took a decision on my part to learn more. I started, on my own, reading African-American history. Because I wanted to understand. It was reading about post-slavery and post-reconstruction, Jim Crow, that really opened my eyes and made me understand what was going on, and what it meant.

And it also made me start claiming this blackness. I went full-circle and started identifying as black. I think it was a political decision; I decided that having understood African-American history, I was a part of it. African-American history doesn’t actually start on the slave ship. It starts in Africa. So in a way, we’re related. But America will label you black anyway––so the things that black people experience, I experience. I remember, for example, going to the store years ago. And it was a bit of a fancy store that sold expensive dresses, and I just wanted to go and look around. I remember very acutely––you know when somebody wants to make it clear to you that you’re not welcome, but they never actually say you’re not welcome? It was so obvious to me. I just remember being a little shaken by it. I think I hadn’t experienced anything of that sort.

Nigeria has many divisions but it’s really hard to tell who is who just by looking at people––so that kind of immediate and overt discrimination just can’t happen. If I walk into a store in Nigeria you can’t tell if I’m Igbo or Yoruba. Now as a public figure, I’m still struck by how, in the airport––and this happens very often––I’m jumping in line, and I’m going to the First Class line, invariably somebody will say to me, “Oh, that’s not where you’re supposed to be, ma’am, this way.” And it’s just an automatic assumption. And I realize it’s because I’m black––you’re not supposed to be there because you’re black.

The point is that I started out not identifying as black, now I do very happily, and also partly because I take a lot of pride. I deeply, deeply admire African-American history. I think it’s just all full of resilience and I think it is under-celebrated in the U.S., and I find that quite sad.

I think the stories of slavery are important, but also I think the stories of just… grit. I look at these pictures and there’s this little girl that wants to go to school and she’s surrounded by a bunch of adults and they’re screaming at her. I just think it must take something deeply noble to somehow keep going when you live in a society that dehumanizes you, really.

You didn’t grow up in America, so you likely have an advantage. Being taught that society values you less must take high toll on confidence, right? I’m curious about how people like that young African American girl can overcome that.

Yes, I think it’s important to acknowledge that to be a black immigrant is different. To be a black immigrant from a black majority country is to come with a certain level of confidence. Just growing up seeing black achievement as normal. And to be African-American is to have had a very different experience. There are people who have said to me, “Oh, you’re not angry. You’re different.” And I find that deeply offensive because it’s Americans that say this, white Americans. And the reason I find it offensive is that by saying that, what they’re really doing is that they’re denying American history. If they think that African Americans are angry, there’s a reason for that. It’s just constantly being put down and absorbing all of these things in the media and culture. We’ve seen all of these studies about teachers who say to the black kids, “Oh, you can’t aspire to this thing; you can only do so much.”

So I think that there’s a privilege to growing up black in a country that isn’t based on race. I also do think that America can do better and do more about racism. Actually maybe the first step is acknowledgement. I’m always struck––the minute an African American talks about experiences, I’m struck by how many people are very quick to find ways to discredit it. As though somehow African Americans like racism. I mean, nobody wants racism to exist.

You know, an African American will talk about racism and people will say, “Oh, no, no, no, that can’t be.” But why else would somebody say that it’s racism? It’s not like we enjoy it. I want it to end.

“The language with which we talk about racism in America hasn’t changed in 80 years.”
I think, also, that we live in a culture where people don’t actually listen to one another and people don’t actually hear one another. And this is even before. I think America is terribly divided today. But even before this administration, people just didn’t really listen to one another. And I also think that people who are not black in America feel threatened, and feel that to talk about this is somehow to indict them and to make them responsible or guilty––and I don’t think that’s the case. I mean, white Americans didn’t choose to be born white, they just happened to be. I think what’s important is what one does with white privilege, right?




So here’s an example: I think that white men have to be front and center in the fight against racism. They have the power, so they have to be the ones to say, “We need a more diverse workforce. We need to start very early. We need to have kindergartens in African American neighborhoods that are actually very good.” Because that’s where it starts.

No, but we are wiling to learn.

In my experience Adichie is a rarity. But now I'm interested in her writings. Thanks for sharing.

I don't know about that. There's also Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Alain Mabanckou. They hit on some similar themes from different perspectives. For Adichie, her novel is interesting for the story itself but I found it more interesting for the racial insight, specifically how an African immigrant discovers what "blackness" means. For more i'd just follow her speeches and interviews. I think she came out with a new book but am too lazy to Google that.