“There’s a ladder of racial hierarchy in
America. White is always on top, specifically White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, . .
. and American Black is always on the bottom, and what’s in the middle depends
on time and place” (227) are the words Ifemelu uses to explain the racial hierarchy
in the United States to the visitors on her blog. From an outsider’s
perspective to the US, this ranking might seem utterly bizarre, but race is a
prevalent topic in the United States, and Adiche explores America’s issues with
race in-depth in Americanah through
Ifemelu. Due to her skin color, Ifemelu is able to witness firsthand the
disparate treatment that blacks receive in America and recognizes that while
all minorities suffer in the US, none suffer as much as blacks.
Ifemelu explains black people’s grimly unique position at the bottom of the
totem pole in the United States with a separate blog post saying that “There is
an oppression Olympics going on. American racial minorities-blacks, Hispanics,
Asians, and Jews-all get shit on from white folks, different kinds of shit, but
shit still. Each secretly believes that it gets the worst shit. So, no, there
is no United League of the Oppressed. However, all the others think they’re
better than blacks because, well, they’re not black” (253). Blacks essentially take
fire from all sides (and all colors) and are as a result firmly seated at the
bottom of America’s unofficial racial hierarchy. To combat this injustice, it
would make sense for blacks to band together in unison and stand strong
together, right? You know, “United we
stand, divided we fall”.
However, the truth as Americanah
shows is a little more complex than that. In reality there is a sizable amount
of conflict inside the black community in addition to the external factors that
plague black Americans. So while black Americans are fighting a three front war
against whites, Hispanics and everyone else in between who isn’t black, they
are also fighting a sort of civil war at the same time. Now understand, this is
not to equate racism and microaggressions that many blacks experience from
other races in America with the lack of unity inside the black community.
External factors are a much a bigger threat to black Americans than any infighting
that occurs, and it is the preexisting racial hierarchy in the United States
that creates these divides in the black community.
Ifemelu explores the tendency for black people to not want to identify with
being a black American in one of her blog posts where she writes, “Dear Non-American
Black, when you come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I’m
Jamaican or I’m Ghanaian. America doesn’t care. So what if you weren’t black in
your old country? You’re in America now .
. . Admit it-you say “I’m not black” only because you know black is at the
bottom of America’s race ladder. And you want none of that” (273). America’s
racial hierarchy places blacks so far down the totem pole that black Americans will
deny their races in futile hopes of avoiding being labeled black. This has
created an even further schism in the black community besides outside prejudice
which a truly harmful development for equality in the United States. If black
Americans want to change the status quo, they will have to resist the external
factors that challenge them and stand together on a strong, united front.
I think you bring up an important point about the commentary Adichie makes about the inter-racial hierarchy in the United States. However as you mention in the second paragraph, I think Ifemelu’s conflict with intra-racial prejudices is a much more complex construct that cannot be undone by a simple act of intra-racial unity. In her blog post, “Friendly Tips for the American Non-Black: How to React to an American Black Talking About Blackness”, Adichie writes, “Finally, don’t put on a Let’s Be Fair tone and say ‘But black people are racist too.’ Because of course we’re all prejudiced (I can’t even stand some of my blood relatives, grasping, selfish folks), but racism is the power of a group and in America it’s white folks who have that power” (405). While yes this post reveals that Ifemelu concedes to personal intra-racial prejudices as you mention, I for one think Adichie’s main focus of the novel, as demonstrated in this post, is the racism propagated by the white characters. Ifemelu’s denial of “being black” when she first comes to America is certainly in response to the prejudices black Americans face “at the bottom of America’s race ladder”, however, this internalized prejudice towards being black doesn’t hold Ifemelu back in the same way that prejudices from white characters does throughout the novel (273). She goes on to say that white people aren’t given worse sentences by black juries or denied mortgages because of their white skin, but Ifemelu is treated differently in her predominately-white workplace when she wears her natural hair (405, 262). In this way, I agree that internalized intra-racial prejudices adds a complicated element to the novel and its claims, however Adichie might argue that solving that debate is deeply complicated and still might not expunge racism from the white people in perceived positions of power.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting post because I believe that it is a point of view that not many people, especially white people, can see. I think that it is a rather important point of this novel.
ReplyDeleteI think your last paragraph includes an interesting point about what divides the black community, but like you said in the paragraph before, “It is the preexisting racial hierarchy in the United States that creates these divides in the black community.” It is interesting to note that America seems to group all Black people together no matter their background. Because of this, so much of their culture and identity is lost. I feel the same is true of many other minorities, especially Hispanic/Latinx people. To white people, all that is seen is the appearance. It doesn’t matter if someone comes from Puerto Rico, or Nigeria, or Guatemala, or anywhere else. Their diverse and colorful culture gets erased because the idea of race and identity in America is so closely tied to skin color.
I think on the topic of divide in the Black community, it is important to note the role of different “shades” of blackness in the novel. This topic is focused on heavily in her blog post “Why Dark-Skinned Black Women- Both American and Non-American- Love Barak Obama” on pages 264-266. This blog post addresses how dark Black men look for lighter skinned black women, especially those who are biracial. It also comments on how dark skinned Black men resent light skinned Black men for “having it too easy with the ladies.” The point of the blog post is that dark skinned Black women love that Barack Obama, a biracial man, married a dark skinned Black woman, breaking the pattern of favoring lighter skin, and bringing representation to dark skinned Black women. This is another important part of the novel that speaks on the divide in the black community.
As a white American, I find the fact that we attempt to remove any deeper root of identity from POC’s and ethnic groups, such as is occurring when Ifemelu writes “Dear Non-American Black, when you come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I’m Jamaican or I’m Ghanaian. America doesn’t care. So what if you weren’t black in your old country? You’re in America now.” (273). Although this is a slight generalization, I have bountiful experience discussing the identity of a white person, born in America, to American parents. In what seems like an attempt to “spice” up their reality, I constantly hear my white peers state how they are “one third German, six seventeenths Irish, two twenty-sevenths Canadian, etc.”. These people present themselves as an ethnically diverse individual, failing to realize that the cultural differences between the European whites and American whites are miniscule when you look at the difference between a Nigerian black and Dominican black, for example. It seems as if this solely serves to serve a protectionist agenda in making the white person have the “most” interesting/diverse background. What is even more sad about these occurrences is the white person is typically tracing this ancestry back several generations, nearly two centuries old or more possibly. The “blacks” (such as Ifemelu) are more likely to be first through third generation, signifying that they have had legitimate exposure to their ancestry, past a simple ancestry.com search. It is comically sad and embarrassing that my fellow white Americans choose to ignore the true cultural differences of others, while manifesting dreams of their own.
ReplyDeletePatrick, I found your blog post to be very interesting, as it hits on some of the deep-rooted themes that the novel pushes readers to reflect on. You included quite a few of Ifemelu’s quotes that explicitly speak to the racial hierarchy she perceives in America, but I feel that some of the discrete situations in the novel prove to be more eye-opening than the grand claims Ifemelu posts on her blog. I believe that one of the most compelling examples of such a situation occurs when Ifemelu describes her school friends, saying, “The second most popular girl was Ginika…she had caramel skin and wavy hair that, when unbraided, fell down to her neck instead of standing Afro-like. Each year, she was voted Prettiest Girl in the form, and she would wryly say, ‘It’s just because I’m a half-caste’” (p.67). This situation shows how Ifemelu perceives her race as inferior to lighter races, even as a child in Nigeria.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, I completely agree that the theme of intraracial tension within different groups in the black community proves to be another important theme in the novel. However, I believe Ifemelu goes beyond simply recognizing this schism and instead takes active steps towards fixing it. Specifically, she makes an Open Thread blog-post, writing, “This is for the Zipped-Up Negroes, the upwardly mobile American and Non-American Blacks…Tell your story here. Unzip yourself. This is a safe space” (p.380). By encouraging this unity, Ifemelu is creating opportunity to change race relations for the better.