Americanah

“This magazine’s kind of racially skewed,” he said.

“What?”

“Come on. Only black women featured?”

“You’re serious,” she said.

He looked puzzled. “Yeah.”

“We’re going to the bookstore.”

“What?”

“I need to show you something. Don’t ask.”

“Okay,” he said, unsure what this new adventure was but eager, with that childlike delight of his, to participate.

She drove to the bookstore in the Inner Harbor, took down copies of the different women’s

magazines from the display shelf, and led the way to the café.

“Do you want a latte?” he asked.

“Yes, thanks.”

After they settled down on the chairs, paper cups in front of them, she said, “Let’s start with the covers.” She spread the magazines on the table, some on top of the others. “Look, all of them are white women. This one is supposed to be Hispanic, we know this because they wrote two Spanish words here, but she looks exactly like this white woman, no difference in her skin tone and hair and features. Now, I’m going to flip through, page by page, and you tell me how many black women you see.”

“Babe, come on,” Curt said, amused, leaning back, paper cup to his lips.

“Just humor me,” she said.

And so he counted. “Three black women,” he said, finally. “Or maybe four. She could be black.”

“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. Not one of them looks like me, so I can’t get clues for makeup from these magazines. Look, this article tells you to pinch your cheeks for color because all their readers are supposed to have cheeks you can pinch for color. This tells you about different hair products for everyone—and ‘everyone’ means blonds, brunettes, and redheads. I am none of those. And this tells you about the best conditioners—for straight, wavy, and curly. No kinky. See what they mean by curly? My hair could never do that. This tells you about matching your eye color and eye shadow—blue, green, and hazel eyes. But my eyes are black so I can’t know what shadow works for me. This says that this pink lipstick is universal, but they mean universal if you are white because I would look like a golliwog if I tried that shade of pink. Oh, look, here is some progress. An advertisement for foundation. There are seven different shades for white skin and one generic chocolate shade, but that is progress. Now, let’s talk about what is racially skewed. Do you see why a magazine like Essence even exists?”

“Okay, babe, okay, I didn’t mean for it to be such a big deal,” he said.

That evening, Ifemelu wrote a long e-mail to Wambui about the bookstore, the magazines, the things she didn’t tell Curt, things unsaid and unfinished. It was a long e-mail, digging, questioning, unearthing. Wambui replied to say, “This is so raw and true. More people should read this. You should start a blog.”

Blogs were new, unfamiliar to her. But telling Wambui what happened was not satisfying enough; she longed for other listeners, and she longed to hear the stories of others. How many other people chose silence? How many other people had become black in America? How many had felt as though their world was wrapped in gauze? She broke up with Curt a few weeks after that, and she signed on to WordPress, and her blog was born. She would later change the name, but at first she called it Raceteenth or Curious Observations by a Non-American Black on the Subject of Blackness in America. Her first post was a better-punctuated version of the e-mail she had sent to Wambui. She referred to Curt as “The Hot White Ex.” A few hours later, she checked her blog stats. Nine people had read it. Panicked, she took down the post. The next day, she put it up again, modified and edited, ending with words she still so easily remembered. She recited those words now, at the dinner table of the French and American couple, while the Haitian poet stared, arms folded.

The simplest solution to the problem of race in America? Romantic love. Not friendship. Not the kind of safe, shallow love where the objective is that both people remain comfortable. But real deep romantic love, the kind that twists you and wrings you out and makes you breathe through the nostrils of your beloved. And because that real deep romantic love is so rare, and because American society is set up to make it even rarer between American Black and American White, the problem of race in America will never be solved.

“Oh! What a wonderful story!” the French host said, her palm placed dramatically on her chest, looking around the table, as though to seek a response. But everyone else remained silent, their eyes averted and unsure.

A Michelle Obama Shout-Out Plus Hair as Race Metaphor

White Girlfriend and I are Michelle Obama groupies. So the other day I say to her—I wonder if Michelle Obama has a weave, her hair looks fuller today, and all that heat every day must damage it. And she says—you mean her hair doesn’t grow like that? So is it me or is that the perfect metaphor for race in America right there? Hair. Ever notice makeover shows on TV, how the black woman has natural hair (coarse, coily, kinky, or curly) in the ugly “before” picture, and in the pretty “after” picture, somebody’s taken a hot piece of metal and singed her hair straight? Some black women, AB and NAB, would rather run naked in the street than come out in public with their natural hair. Because, you see, it’s not professional, sophisticated, whatever, it’s just not damn normal. (Please, commenters, don’t tell me it’s the same as a white woman who doesn’t color her hair.) When you DO have natural Negro hair, people think you “did” something to your hair. Actually, the folk with the Afros and dreads are the ones who haven’t “done” anything to their hair. You should be asking Beyoncé what she’s done. (We all love Bey but how about she show us, just once, what her hair looks like when it grows from her scalp?) I have natural kinky hair. Worn in cornrows, Afros, braids. No, it’s not political. No, I am not an artist or poet or singer. Not an earth mother either. I just don’t want relaxers in my hair—there are enough sources of cancer in my life as it is. (By the way, can we ban Afro wigs at Halloween? Afro is not costume, for God’s sake.) Imagine if Michelle Obama got tired of all the heat and decided to go natural and appeared on TV with lots of woolly hair, or tight spirally curls. (There is no knowing what her texture will be. It is not unusual for a black woman to have three different textures on her head.) She would totally rock but poor Obama would certainly lose the independent vote, even the undecided Democrat vote.

UPDATE: ZoraNeale22, who’s transitioning, asked me to post my regimen. Pure shea butter as a leave-in conditioner works for many naturals. Not for me, though. Anything with lots of shea butter leaves my hair grayish and dryish. And dry is my hair’s biggest problem. I wash once a week with a silicone-free hydrating shampoo. I use a hydrating conditioner. I do not towel-dry my hair. I leave it wet, divide it in sections, and apply a creamy leave-in product (present favorite is Qhemet Biologics, other preferred brands are Oyin Handmade, Shea Moisture, Bask Beauty, and Darcy’s Botanicals). Then I put my hair in three or four big cornrows, and knot my satin scarf around my head (satin is good, it preserves moisture. Cotton is bad, it soaks up moisture). I go to sleep. The next morning, I take out the cornrows and voilà, a lovely fluffy ’fro! Key is to add product while hair is wet. And I never, ever comb my hair when it’s dry. I comb only when wet, or damp, or totally drenched in a creamy moisturizer. This plait-while-wet regimen can even work for our Seriously Curly White Girlfriends who are tired of flatirons and keratin treatments. Any AB and NAB naturals out there who want to share their regimen?

CHAPTER 32

For weeks, Ifemelu stumbled around, trying to remember the person she was before Curt. Their life together had happened to her, she would not have been able to imagine it if she had tried, and so, surely, she could return to what was before. But before was a slate-toned blur and she no longer knew who she had been then, what she had enjoyed, disliked, wanted. Her job bored her: she did the same bland things, writing press releases, editing press releases, copyediting press releases, her movements rote and numbing. Perhaps it had always been so and she had not noticed, because she was blinded by the brightness of Curt. Her apartment felt like a stranger’s home. On weekends, she went to Willow. Aunty Uju’s condo was in a cluster of stucco buildings, the neighborhood carefully landscaped, boulders placed at corners, and in the evenings, friendly people walked their handsome dogs. Aunty Uju had taken on a new lightheartedness; she wore a tiny anklet in the summer, a hopeful flash of gold on her leg. She had joined African Doctors for Africa, volunteering her time on two-week medical missions, and on her trip to Sudan, she met Kweku, a divorced Ghanaian doctor. “He treats me like a princess. Just like Curt treated you,” she told Ifemelu.

“I’m trying to forget him, Aunty. Stop talking about him!”

“Sorry,” Aunty Uju said, not looking sorry at all. She had told Ifemelu to do everything to save the relationship, because she would not find another man who would love her as Curt had. When Ifemelu told Dike that she had broken up with Curt, he said, “He was pretty cool, Coz. Are you going to be okay?”