Contemporary International Writers

In the book, “Americanah” by Chimamanda Adichie, she talks about her character Ifemelu facing racism and dealing with the American way of seeing an African American. The part that I specifically want to focus on in this blog post is the relationship Ifemelu and Curt. I also want to talk about the fact that Curt’s family almost seems as though they are trying hard to prove they are not racist, but they really are.
I have seen someone close to me go through similar things that Ifemelu goes through. One example of this is the fact that Ifemelu is discriminated against at a salon due to her skin tone, the only difference was in the scenario I have personally seen, this girl and her boyfriend have been assumed that she was rich and paying for everything. Not that they would be paying together, or that he would pay for her. Ifemelu has to face this not only at a salon but also with Curt and his family. There is one example of Ifemelu explaining to Curt about the magazine that really stuck out to me. In this book, Chimamanda Adichie is constantly calling America out on its racist views and racist people in the country, but at this moment, she uses an item that the readers see every day and points out that a magazine about black women was not racially skewed. “ ‘so three black women in maybe two thousand pages of women’s magazines, and all of them are biracial or racially ambiguous, so they could also be Indian or Puerto Rican or something. Not one of them is dark.’” I appreciated that this book was calling the country out and her boyfriend out for racism or the racist tendencies or comments. This book was published in 2013, and unfortunately five years later we still have just as much, if not worse, racism in this country.