Reddit reviews Americanah (Ala Notable Books for Adults)

Oh man, I read that book almost ten years ago, and it still breaks my heart in a way that only a couple of others have. I've always considered myself a very empathetic person, but that book made me realize that there was an enormous gap between my own personal experience and what many (most?) others on earth go through. It's not that I thought I knew everything there was to know about the world, but I always thought I could at least imagine it.

FWIW I'm an American woman, and I've always made it a point to read books by women, which I thought did give me a well-rounded view of the world. That's certainly true to some extent, but I'd never given much thought to literary diversity beyond man/woman, black/white, maybe American/European. It's amazing the blind spots we all have, and I'm sure I still have plenty.

For the lazy, along with a few others that had a similar impact on me:
What is the What by Dave Eggers
Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I'm not saying a kid from Lesotho and a kid living in Jamaica will share an innate cultural bond - I am saying that if those two kids both come to the US, they will both be received as Black and treated accordingly, and that will create some commonality of experience between them, and that experience will be different from the experience of a kid received as White in the US. In fact, that commonality of experience might prompt them to want to, say, sit together in the cafeteria, so they can hang out with others who understand their experience from having also lived it firsthand. Have you read Americanah? It's a really beautiful book, and it talks - among other things - about the experience of immigrating to the US from Nigeria and discovering that you are "Black."

Many folks more eloquent than myself have written extensively about why colorblindness is not a helpful ideology in terms of actually ending racism - here are some links.