6/29/2023 0 Comments Ifemelu bookBut it takes a while to figure it all out.” Americanah, p. Americans assume that everyone will get their tribalism. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are leaving the country. (Or as that marvelous rhyme goes: if you’re white, you’re all right if you’re brown, stick around if you’re black, get back!). As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. White is always on top, specifically White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, otherwise known as WASP, and American Black is always on the bottom, and what’s in the middle depends on the time and place. One of the main things that struck me while reading Americanah was the use of hair, specifically black woman’s hair, as a symbol for Ifemelu’s struggle with identity and the embedded racism in American culture and society. There’s a ladder of racial hierarchy in America. The North looks down on the South while the South resents the North. The two sides fought a civil war and tough stains from that war remain. Intermarriage is discouraged an on the rare occasion that it happens, is considered remarkable. Ifemelu’s answer is something many bookworms will relate to: She wonders why people ask what a book is about, as if a novel has to be about only one thing. They don’t merely disagree on political issues, each side believes the other is evil. There are four kinds – class, ideology, region, and race.
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