Americanah

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Obama will end racism in this country,” and a large-hipped, stylish poet from Haiti agreed, nodding, her Afro bigger than Ifemelu’s, and said she had dated a white man for three years in California and race was never an issue for them. “That’s a lie,” Ifemelu said to her. “What?” the woman asked, as though she could not have heard properly. “It’s a lie,” Ifemelu repeated. The woman’s eyes bulged. “You’re telling me what my own experience was?” Even though Ifemelu by then understood that people like the woman said what they said to keep others comfortable, and to show they appreciated How Far We Have Come; even though she was by then happily ensconced in a circle of Blaine’s friends, one of whom was the woman’s new boyfriend, and even though she should have left it alone, she did not. She could not. The words had, once again, overtaken her; they overpowered her throat, and tumbled out. “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. When you are black in America and you fall in love with a white person, race doesn’t matter when you’re alone together because it’s just you and your love. But the minute you step outside, race matters. But we don’t talk about it. We don’t even tell our white partners the small things that piss us off and the things we wish they understoo...