Ifemelu suggests that if white Americans want to learn about race, they should “[t]ry listening” (406). Read the whole of the blog entry in which Ifemelu’s comment appears (403-406). What do we learn if we listen to Ifemelu?
If we listen what she really wants from the “American Non-Black,” is for them to listen. In the first part of her blog post, she brings up the common response of human beings to want to empathize and share stories with others who have experienced suffering. Ifemelu’s advice however, it is not the time to do this when talking with an American Black person. It would not come off as understanding, but rather as dismissive. Ifemelu experiences this a lot in her time in America, and people dismiss her individual struggles too, categorizing her into the same group as Black Americans, when she herself is from Nigeria.
She then goes onto say that the American Black does not wish it was about race. But it is. By denying the fact that race is an integral part of every American Black person’s struggles is denying the fact that systems in American have made their struggles about race. While other groups in America have faced suffering and persecution, like Irish people, Eastern Europeans, Italians, Jews, and Russians. But their struggles are not based on the exact fact of race. Ifemelu specifically points this out, and makes the statement that race always is there, even when class differences are not. She quotes, “racism is about the power of a group and in America it’s white folks who have that power.” (Adichie 405) Whether or not a white person is poor, they will still never face the same challenges as a poor Black American person.
Ifemelu is constantly searching for honest connections in her life with people who are not racist towards her or other black people, but never seems to find them in America. Even when Blaine’s friends bring up the blog post, “Dear American Non-Black,” they do so in a performative way. Paula says that she uses it for her students to “push them out of their comfort zone.” (Adichie 403) But to Ifemelu, this even feels as though she is being used as a piece just for conversation. Ifemelu wants more than that, and even her friends who read her posts, don’t take her advice. They never really listen to what she says, and Blaine even tries to change what she talks about in her posts. It often sems as though Ifemelu’s blogs are written directly to her friends and peers, the people who claim to listen and focus on forming these connections, but they are still blind to her advice.
Ifemelu encourages people to focus on the history of American culture when talking about race. These are not issues that are long gone, but have happened and are happening in her lifetime. And when she circles back around to her final advice at the end of the blog, Ifemelu is very clear in what she wants. She wants people to form connections and create loving relationships, because that is how prejudices are solved in real life.
The misinterpretation of Ifemelu’s blog by her friends was a great way of telling the reader what kind of person those characters were. At the birthday party with Blaine’s friends, the conversation turns away from the message Ifemelu included in the post. Instead, we hear Nathan refer to it as “’cringe-funny,’” while Michael asks about the money Ifemelu makes from her blog (406). Aside from their mutual love of Barack Obama, I got the impression from her descriptions that Ifemelu generally found Blaine’s friends too academic and pseudo-intellectual. Those reactions to her blog make Obinze’s opinion even more important. He tells Ifemelu that, upon reading the archives of her first blog, it “made me proud. I thought: [Ifemelu’s] gone, she’s learned, and she’s conquered” (534). At last, someone in her life recognizes the blog as more than a talking point; Obinze sees Ifemelu’s writing as the extension of herself that it is. This view is similarly clear in his compliments of her second blog. Adichie is giving the reader another piece to the puzzle that is their relationship: Obinze reads the blog to better understand its author, while Blaine sought to change the blog, which in turn caused Ifemelu to change. Not only is the blog a means for Adichie to voice more directly her thoughts about race in America, but it is also a lens through which Ifemelu’s relationships can be examined.
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