Americanah

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

So here goes: When you want to join a prestigious social club, do you wonder if your race will make it difficult for you to join? When you go shopping alone at a nice store, do you worry that you will be followed or harassed? When you turn on mainstream TV or open a mainstream newspaper, do you expect to find mostly people of another race? Do you worry that your children will not have books and school materials that are about people of their own race? When you apply for a bank loan, do you worry that, because of your race, you might be seen as financially unreliable? If you swear, or dress shabbily, do you think that people might say this is because of the bad morals or the poverty or the illiteracy of your race? If you do well in a situation, do you expect to be called a credit to your race? Or to be described as “different” from the majority of your race? If you criticize the government, do you worry that you might be seen as a cultural outsider? Or that you might be asked to “go back to X,” X being somewhere not in America? If you receive poor service in a nice store and ask to see “the person in charge,” do you expect that this person will be a person of another race? If a traffic cop pulls you over, do you wonder if it is because of your race? If you take a job with an Affirmative Action employer, do you worry that your co-workers will think you are unqualified and were hired only because of your race? If you want to move to a nice neighborhood, do you worry that you ...