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How I Became Black in America
The Atlantic ^ | March 2023 | Chimamanda Adichie

Posted on 04/11/2024 12:30:44 PM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?

America fascinated me as America fascinates every newcomer. Nineteen years old and fleeing the study of medicine at my Nigerian university, I longed to be a writer, to live a life of the mind. From my first days, I watched and read and learned. I was struck by the excess and the newness of America, by its flagrant contradictions, but mostly by how identity as an idea shaped so much of American life.......

Shortly after the Black American George Floyd was murdered by a White police officer, a woman told me she had just read Americanah. “You are a prophet; you foresaw this,” she said, as if my novel were preparation for the social and cultural reckoning about Blackness that began as a result of Floyd’s murder. And yet, even though mainstream women’s magazines now include braids in general roundups of style choices, the shift is hardly seismic. The Black experience is not yet so ordinary that it becomes, as the White experience has been for centuries in America, invisible, and therefore the norm. (I capitalize White in my writing, like Black, because to lowercase it perpetuates this idea of whiteness as the invisible norm.)

I did not permit myself to have high expectations for this novel, and so when it was embraced by so many, I experienced a unique gratitude. (Gratitude, when one does not expect to feel it, has an extra undertone of delight.) I still experience this today. I have heard from Nigerian American readers who were inspired to move back to Lagos, and Black women who decided to go natural. A professor who said that Americanah helped his students talk about anti-Blackness in other minority communities and colorism within the Black community.

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Books/Literature; Chit/Chat; Conspiracy; Society
KEYWORDS: adichie; anothercommie; bidensfault; blackness; blackracists; blacksupremacy; chimamanda; chimamandaadichie; fakenews; gesundheit; indoctrination; invasion; obamasfault; racism
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I posted this because she actually tries to address the capitalization of "Black" and "White" by saying: (I capitalize White in my writing, like Black, because to lowercase it perpetuates this idea of whiteness as the invisible norm.) . However I'm unclear as to what "whiteness as the invisible norm" means?

But notice that "whiteness" is lowercased but a few sentences later she writes a capitalized "Blackness". So just another black racist, yes I think it is racist to capitalize black and white differently, or to capitalize them at all.

1 posted on 04/11/2024 12:30:44 PM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

BFL


2 posted on 04/11/2024 12:35:40 PM PDT by rlmorel (In Today's Democrat America, The $5 Dollar Bill is the New $1 Dollar Bill.)
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

Headline: “How I came to America to Enjoy Free Shit, and Wound Up With a Neo-Marxist Brainwashing and Learned How to Hate White Popo.”


3 posted on 04/11/2024 12:36:12 PM PDT by PGR88
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To: where's_the_Outrage?
🙄😬🤢🤮

Bitch comes, as a refugee, soaks up all the free bennies Uncle Sugar has to offer and then craps on MY country.

Racist bitch can go back to the s**thole she left.

4 posted on 04/11/2024 12:38:47 PM PDT by Eagles6 (Welcome to the Matrix . Orwell's "1984" was a warning, not an instruction manual.)
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

Rachel Dolezal?

or

Talcum X?


5 posted on 04/11/2024 12:40:01 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

“It was never easy for me…”


6 posted on 04/11/2024 12:42:22 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

So many lies in one sentence. Floyd wasn’t murdered. The coroner was threatened. The cop was railroaded. Floyd died of a heart attack or drug overdose. Cops don’t kill blacks.


7 posted on 04/11/2024 12:42:40 PM PDT by DeplorablePaul
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

the invisible norm. wow, that’s got a sinister ring to it.


8 posted on 04/11/2024 12:43:11 PM PDT by xoxox
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

This strangely named individual came to these United States of America (invented by Whitemen) on an airplane (invented by Whitemen), writes in English (a language of Whitemen), on the internet (invented by Whitemen), and has the damnable temerity to complain about Whitemen.

She can quit appropriating my White culture and haul her sorry carcass back to Nigeria where she came from.


9 posted on 04/11/2024 12:45:12 PM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

Stopped reading when George Floyd and murdered were used in the same sentence. Propaganda is not worth my reading time.


10 posted on 04/11/2024 1:00:54 PM PDT by JimRed (TERM LIMITS, NOW! Finish the damned WALL! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH!)
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To: dfwgator

Go back!


11 posted on 04/11/2024 1:01:59 PM PDT by cowboyusa (AT THIS POINT, I'M WARMING TO AN AMERICAN PINOCHETE. )
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

This article is just a promotion for the book Americanah.


12 posted on 04/11/2024 1:05:00 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
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To: dfwgator

My story?


13 posted on 04/11/2024 1:11:51 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

“”Black women who decided to go natural.””

Is THAT what those “hairdos” are? The more we see, the sillier they become. It seems they don’t have any problem coming up with the cost of having that done. I would imagine if they went BACK to Africa, they would be laughed at.


14 posted on 04/11/2024 1:13:19 PM PDT by Thank You Rush ( )
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To: rlmorel

White as a social classification of humans is not a skin color or a race or a nationality. Just ask Irish, Eyetallians, and Jews to name a few. Who became white after generations of assimilation. White is anyone who holds to a way of life and beliefs. Just ask blacks and who “act white”.

Most of the fresh off the boat from Africa disparage the idea of being black.

Indians the ones from India are down right disturbing. Ever meet a very dark skinned Indian from India who speaks the Kings English right proper and has the stiff upper lip? Are they black?

How could Billy be the first black president?


15 posted on 04/11/2024 1:17:38 PM PDT by FreedomNotSafety
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To: SaveFerris

W.E.B. DuBlanc


16 posted on 04/11/2024 1:17:44 PM PDT by Jeff Vader ( )
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To: yesthatjallen

I love to read but that’s one I won’t have any problem passing up....


17 posted on 04/11/2024 1:19:09 PM PDT by Thank You Rush ( )
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

Most Nigerians come here and work. And generally have a low opinion of American born African-Americans. In my experience at least.


18 posted on 04/11/2024 1:22:24 PM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.c)
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

There are NO black people and NO white people. Shade of one’s skin is based on melanin, more you have the darker the shade, less you have the lighter the shade. Only racists use color to identify people. BTW, there is only one race, the human race. You are either human or not, and people using color to identify a race are NOT human. Maybe we should call these melanin rich people “melanin supremacists”


19 posted on 04/11/2024 1:24:06 PM PDT by Dead Leo
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To: where's_the_Outrage?
Shortly after the Black American George Floyd was murdered by a White police officer,

That's where I stopped reading because the rest is apparently based on this falsehood.

20 posted on 04/11/2024 1:27:50 PM PDT by libertylover (Our biggest problem, by far, is that almost all of big media is AGENDA-DRIVEN, not-truth driven.)
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