“How about we ditch him and go and have one drink?” Paula had said to Ifemelu that evening after her talk, her cheeks flushed from the excitement and relief of having done well.
“I’m exhausted,” Ifemelu had said.
Blaine said, “And I need to prep for class tomorrow. Let’s do something this weekend, okay?” And he hugged her goodbye.
“It wasn’t too bad, was it?” Blaine asked Ifemelu on their drive back to New Haven.
“I was sure you were going to have an orgasm,” she said, and Blaine laughed. She had thought, watching Paula speak, that Paula was comfortable with Blaine’s rhythms in a way that she was not, and she thought so now, as she watched Paula eat her third helping of collard greens, sitting next to her girlfriend Pee and laughing at something Marcia had said.
The woman with the helmetlike hair was eating her collard greens with her fingers.
“We humans are not supposed to eat with utensils,” she said.
Michael, seated beside Ifemelu, snorted loudly. “Why don’t you just go on and live in a cave?” he asked, and they all laughed, but Ifemelu was not sure he had been joking. He had no patience for fey talk. She liked him, cornrows running down the length of his scalp, and his expression always wry, scornful of sentimentality. “Michael’s a good cat but he tries so hard to keep it real that he can seem full of negativity,” Blaine had said when she first met Michael. Michael had been in prison for a carjacking when he was nineteen and he was fond of saying “Some black folk don’t appreciate education until after they go to prison.” He was a photographer on a fellowship and the first time Ifemelu saw his photographs, in black-and-white, in dances of shadow, their delicacy and vulnerability had surprised her. She had expected grittier imagery. Now one of those photographs hung on the wall in Blaine’s apartment, opposite her writing desk.
From across the table, Paula asked, “Did I tell you I’m having my students read your blog, Ifemelu? It’s interesting how safe their thinking is and I want to push them out of their comfort zone. I loved the last post, ‘Friendly Tips for the American Non-Black: How to React to an American Black Talking About Blackness.’ ”
“That is funny!” Marcia said. “I’d love to read that.”
Paula brought out her phone and fiddled with it and then began to read aloud.
Dear American Non-Black, if an American Black person is telling you about an experience about being black, please do not eagerly bring up examples from your own life. Don’t say “It’s just like when I …” You have suffered. Everyone in the world has suffered. But you have not suffered precisely because you are an American Black. Don’t be quick to find alternative explanations for what happened. Don’t say “Oh, it’s not really race, it’s class. Oh, it’s not race, it’s gender. Oh, it’s not race, it’s the cookie monster.” You see, American Blacks actually don’t WANT it to be race. They would rather not have racist shit happen. So maybe when they say something is about race, it’s maybe because it actually is? Don’t say “I’m color-blind,” because if you are color-blind, then you need to see a doctor and it means that when a black man is shown on TV as a crime suspect in your neighborhood, all you see is a blurry purplish-grayish-creamish figure. Don’t say “We’re tired of talking about race” or “The only race is the human race.” American Blacks, too, are tired of talking about race. They wish they didn’t have to. But shit keeps happening. Don’t preface your response with “One of my best friends is black” because it makes no difference and nobody cares and you can have a black best friend and still do racist shit and it’s probably not true anyway, the “best” part, not the “friend” part. Don’t say your grandfather was Mexican so you can’t be racist (please click here for more on There Is No United League of the Oppressed). Don’t bring up your Irish great-grandparents’ suffering. Of course they got a lot of shit from established America. So did the Italians. So did the Eastern Europeans. But there was a hierarchy. A hundred years ago, the white ethnics hated being hated, but it was sort of tolerable because at least black people were below them on the ladder. Don’t say your grandfather was a serf in Russia when slavery happened because what matters is you are American now and being American means you take the whole shebang, America’s assets and America’s debts, and Jim Crow is a big-ass debt. Don’t say it’s just like antisemitism. It’s not. In the hatred of Jews, there is also the possibility of envy—they are so clever, these Jews, they control everything, these Jews—and one must concede that a certain respect, however grudging, accompanies envy. In the hatred of American Blacks, there is no possibility of envy—they are so lazy, these blacks, they are so unintelligent, these blacks.
Don’t say “Oh, racism is over, slavery was so long ago.” We are talking about problems from the 1960s, not the 1860s. If you meet an elderly American black man from Alabama, he probably remembers when he had to step off the curb because a white person was walking past. I bought a dress from a vintage shop on eBay the other day, made in 1960, in perfect shape, and I wear it a lot. When the original owner wore it, black Americans could not vote because they were black. (And maybe the original owner was one of those women, in the famous sepia photographs, standing by in hordes outside schools shouting “Ape!” at young black children because they did not want them to go to school with their young white children. Where are those women now? Do they sleep well? Do they think about shouting “Ape”?) 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 about the power of a group and in America it’s white folks who have that power. How? Well, white folks don’t get treated like shit in upper-class African-American communities and white folks don’t get denied bank loans or mortgages precisely because they are white and black juries don’t give white criminals worse sentences than black criminals for the same crime and black police officers don’t stop white folk for driving while white and black companies don’t choose not to hire somebody because their name sounds white and black teachers don’t tell white kids that they’re not smart enough to be doctors and black politicians don’t try some tricks to reduce the voting power of white folks through gerrymandering and advertising agencies don’t say they can’t use white models to advertise glamorous products because they are not considered “aspirational” by the “mainstream.”
So after this listing of don’ts, what’s the do? I’m not sure. Try listening, maybe. Hear what is being said. And remember that it’s not about you. American Blacks are not telling you that you are to blame. They are just telling you what is. If you don’t understand, ask questions. If you’re uncomfortable about asking questions, say you are uncomfortable about asking questions and then ask anyway. It’s easy to tell when a question is coming from a good place. Then listen some more. Sometimes people just want to feel heard. Here’s to possibilities of friendship and connection and understanding.
Marcia said, “I love the part about the dress!”
“It’s cringe-funny,” Nathan said.
“So you must be raking in the speaking fees from that blog,” Michael said.
“Only most of it goes to my hungry relatives back in Nigeria,” Ifemelu said.
“It must be good to have that,” he said.
“To have what?”
“To know where you’re from. Ancestors going way back, that kind of thing.”
“Well,” she said. “Yes.”
He looked at her, with an expression that made her uncomfortable, because she was not sure what his eyes held, and then he looked away.
Blaine was telling Marcia’s friend with the helmetlike hair, “We need to get over that myth. There was nothing Judeo-Christian about American history. Nobody liked Catholics and Jews. It’s Anglo-Protestant values, not Judeo-Christian values. Even Maryland very quickly stopped being so Catholic-friendly.” He stopped abruptly and brought his phone out of his pocket and got up. “Excuse me, folks,
” he said, and then in a lower voice to Ifemelu, “It’s Shan. I’ll be right back,” and walked into the kitchen to take the call.
Benny turned on the TV and they watched Barack Obama, a thin man in a black coat that looked a size too big, his demeanor slightly uncertain. As he spoke, puffs of cloudy steam left his mouth, like smoke, in the cold air. “And that is why, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a divided house to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for president of the United States of America.”
“I can’t believe they’ve talked him into this. The guy has potential, but he needs to grow first. He needs some heft. He’ll ruin it for black people because he won’t come close and a black person won’t be able to run for the next fifty years in this country,” Grace said.
“He just makes me feel good!” Marcia said, laughing. “I love that, the idea of building a more hopeful America.”
“I think he stands a chance,” Benny said.
“Oh, he can’t win. They’d shoot his ass first,” Michael said.
“It’s so refreshing to see a politician who gets nuance,” Paula said.
“Yes,” Pee said. She had overly toned arms, thin and bulging with muscles, a pixie haircut and an air of intense anxiety; she was the sort of person whose love would suffocate. “He sounds so smart, so articulate.”
“You sound like my mother,” Paula said in the barbed tone of a private fight being continued, words meaning other things. “Why is it so remarkable that he’s articulate?”
“Are we hormonal, Pauly?” Marcia asked.
“She is!” Pee said. “Did you see she’s eaten all the fried chicken?”
Paula ignored Pee, and, as though in defiance, reached out to have another slice of pumpkin pie.
“What do you think of Obama, Ifemelu?” Marcia asked, and Ifemelu guessed that Benny or Grace had whispered her name in Marcia’s ear, and now Marcia was eager to unleash her new knowledge.
“I like Hillary Clinton,” Ifemelu said. “I don’t really know anything about this Obama guy.”
Blaine came back into the room. “What did I miss?”
“Shan okay?” Ifemelu asked. Blaine nodded.
“It doesn’t matter what anybody thinks of Obama. The real question is whether white people are ready for a black president,” Nathan said.
“I’m ready for a black president. But I don’t think the nation is,” Pee said.
“Seriously, have you been talking to my mom?” Paula asked her. “She said the same exact thing. If you’re ready for a black president, then who exactly is this vague country that isn’t ready? People say that when they can’t say that they are not ready. And even the idea of being ready is ridiculous.”
Ifemelu borrowed those words months later, in a blog post written during the final, frenzied lap of the presidential campaign: “Even the Idea of Being Ready Is Ridiculous.” Does nobody see how absurd it is to ask people if they are ready for a black president? Are you ready for Mickey Mouse to be president? How about Kermit the Frog? And Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?
“My family has impeccable liberal credentials, we’ve ticked all the right boxes,” Paula said, lips turned down in irony, twirling the stem of her empty wineglass. “But my parents were always quick to tell their friends that Blaine was at Yale. As if they were saying he’s one of the few good ones.”
“You’re being too hard on them, Pauly,” Blaine said.
“No, really, didn’t you think so?” she asked. “Remember that awful Thanksgiving at my parents’ house?”
“You mean how I wanted mac and cheese?”
Paula laughed. “No, that’s not what I mean.” But she did not say what she meant and so the memory was left unaired, wrapped in their shared privacy.
Back in Blaine’s apartment, Ifemelu told him, “I was jealous.”
It was jealousy, the twinge of unease, the unsettledness in her stomach. Paula had the air of a real ideologue; she could, Ifemelu imagined, slip easily into anarchy, stand at the forefront of protests, defying the clubs of policemen and the taunts of unbelievers. To sense this about Paula was to feel wanting, compared to her.
“There’s nothing to be jealous about, Ifem,” Blaine said.
“The fried chicken you eat is not the fried chicken I eat, but it’s the fried chicken that Paula eats.”
“What?”
“For you and Paula, fried chicken is battered. For me, fried chicken has no batter. I just thought about how you both have a lot in common.”
“We have fried chicken in common? Do you realize how loaded fried chicken is as a metaphor here?” Blaine was laughing, a gentle, affectionate laugh. “Your jealousy is kind of sweet, but there is no chance at all of anything going on.”
She knew there was nothing going on. Blaine would not cheat on her. He was too sinewy with goodness. Fidelity came easily to him; he did not turn to glance at pretty women on the street because it did not occur to him. But she was jealous of the emotional remnants that existed between him and Paula, and by the thought that Paula was like him, good like him.
Traveling While Black
A friend of a friend, a cool AB with tons of money, is writing a book called Traveling While Black. Not just black, he says, but recognizably black because there’s all kinds of black and no offense but he doesn’t mean those black folk who look Puerto Rican or Brazilian or whatever, he means recognizably black. Because the world treats you differently. So here’s what he says: “I got the idea for the book in Egypt. So I get to Cairo and this Egyptian Arab guy calls me a black barbarian. I’m like, hey, this is supposed to be Africa! So I started thinking about other parts of the world and what it would be like to travel there if you’re black. I’m as black as they get. White folk in the South today would look at me and think there goes a big black buck. They tell you in the guidebooks what to expect if you’re gay or if you’re a woman. Hell, they need to do it for if you’re recognizably black. Let traveling black folk know what the deal is. It’s not like anybody is going to shoot you but it’s great to know where to expect that people will stare at you. In the German Black Forest, it’s pretty hostile staring. In Tokyo and Istanbul, everyone was cool and indifferent. In Shanghai the staring was intense, in Delhi it was nasty. I thought, ‘Hey, aren’t we kind of in this together? You know, people of color and all?’ I’d been reading that Brazil is the race mecca and I go to Rio and nobody looks like me in the nice restaurants and the nice hotels. People act funny when I’m walking to the first-class line at the airport. Kind of nice funny, like you’re making a mistake, you can’t look like that and fly first class. I go to Mexico and they’re staring at me. It’s not hostile at all, but it just makes you know you stick out, kind of like they like you but you’re still King Kong.” And at this point my Professor Hunk says, “Latin America as a whole has a really complicated relationship with blackness, which is overshadowed by that whole ‘we are all mestizo’ story that they tell themselves. Mexico isn’t as bad as places like Guatemala and Peru, where the white privilege is so much more overt, but then those countries have a much more sizable black population.” And then another friend says, “Native blacks are always treated worse than non-native blacks everywhere in the world. My friend who was born and raised in France of Togolese parents pretends to be Anglophone when she goes shopping in Paris, because the shop attendants are nicer to black people who don’t speak French. Just like American Blacks get a lot of respect in African countries.” Thoughts? Please post your own Traveling Tales.
CHAPTER 37
It seemed to Ifemelu as though she had glanced away for a moment, and looked back to find Dike transformed; her little cousin was gone, and in his place a boy who did not look like a boy, six feet tall with lean muscles, playing basketball for Willow High School, and dating the nimble blond girl Page, who wore tiny skirts and Converse sneakers. Once, when Ifemelu asked, “So how are things going with Page??
?? Dike replied, “We’re not yet having sex, if that’s what you want to know.”
In the evenings, six or seven friends converged in his room, all of them white except for Min, the tall Chinese boy whose parents taught at the university. They played computer games and watched videos on YouTube, needling and jousting, all of them enclosed in a sparkling arc of careless youth, and at their center was Dike. They all laughed at Dike’s jokes, and looked to him for agreement, and in a delicate, unspoken way, they let him make their collective decisions: ordering pizza, going down to the community center to play Ping-Pong. With them, Dike changed; he took on a swagger in his voice and in his gait, his shoulders squared, as though in a high-gear performance, and sprinkled his speech with “ain’t” and “y’all.”
“Why do you talk like that with your friends, Dike?” Ifemelu asked.
“Yo, Coz, how you gonna treat me like that?” he said, with an exaggerated funny face that made her laugh.
Ifemelu imagined him in college; he would be a perfect student guide, leading a pack of would-be students and their parents, showing them the wonderful things about the campus and making sure to add one thing he personally disliked, all the time being relentlessly funny and bright and bouncy, and the girls would have instant crushes on him, the boys would be envious of his panache, and the parents would wish their kids were like him.
SHAN WORE a sparkly gold top, her breasts unbound, swinging as she moved. She flirted with everyone, touching an arm, hugging too closely, lingering over a cheek kiss. Her compliments were clotted with an extravagance that made them seem insincere, yet her friends smiled and bloomed under them. It did not matter what was said; it mattered that it was Shan who said it. Her first time at Shan’s salon, and Ifemelu was nervous. There was no need to be, it was a mere gathering of friends, but still she was nervous. She had agonized about what to wear, tried on and discarded nine outfits before she decided on a teal dress that made her waist look small.