#Black Lives Matter

(By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) - "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 was ...' 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 ma 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-greatparents' 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.

Adichie Hosts Lupita Nyong'o in Lagos

(By Otosirieze Obi-Young) - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Hosted Lupita Nyong’o in Lagos: How It Happened + Photos & Video

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie hosted Lupita Nyong’o in a private dinner in Lagos, attended by notable personalities in Nigerian entertainment. The event was part of Lupita’s second visit to Nigeria in preparation for the Americanah TV series adaptation, in which she will star as Ifemelu. The series, which has been ordered by HBO Max with Danai Gurira as showrunner and Chinonye Chukwu as director for the first two episodes, will also star Uzo Aduba as Aunty Uju, Zachary Momoh as Obinze, and Corey Hawkins as Blaine.

Chimamanda and Lupita wore near-matching outfits by the Lagos-based womenswear designer Imad Eduso: Lupita in purple, with silver shoes and braids by Zubi, and Chimamanda in shiny green, with blue sandals by TNL designs.

Among the guests were the Nollywood actors Richard Mofe-Damijo, Olu Jacobs, Joke Silva, Nse Ikpe Etim, Omoni Oboli, and Dakore Egbuson; the musicians Femi Kuti, D’banj, Flavour, Omawumi, Waje, and Seun Kuti; the writers and publishers Lola Shoneyin and Eghosa Imasuen; the media entrepreneur Chude Jideonwo; the comedians Chigurl and Bovi; and the actress and singer Onyeka Onwenu, who was given a shoutout in Americanah and played Mama in the Half of a Yellow Sun film. They were all gifted with Narrative Landscape Press’ ankara-bound copies of Americanah.

Celebrating Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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Lagos na Waa. Eko for Life

"Lagos has never been, will never be, and has never aspired to be like New York, or anywhere else for that matter. +Lagos has always been indisputably itself, but you would not know this at the meeting of the Nigerpolitan Club, a group of young returnees who gather every week to moan about the many ways that Lagos is not like New York as though Lagos had ever been close to being like New York. Full disclosure: I am one of them. Most of us have come back to make money in Nigeria, to start businesses, to seek government contracts and contacts. Others have come with dreams in their pockets and a hunger to change the country, but we spend all our time complaining about Nigeria, and even though our complaints are legitimate, I imagine myself as an outsider saying: Go back where you came from! If your cook cannot make the perfect panini, it is not because he is stupid. It is because Nigeria is not a nation of sandwich-eating people and his last oga did not eat bread in the afternoon. So he needs training and practice. And +Nigeria is not a nation of people with food allergies, not a nation of picky eaters for whom food is about distinctions and separations. It is a nation of people who eat beef and chicken and cow skin and intestines and dried fish in a single bowl of soup, and it is called assorted, and so get over yourselves and realize that the way of life here is just that, assorted."

"The first commenter wrote: Rubbish post. Who cares? The second wrote: Thank God somebody is finally talking about this. Na wa for arrogance of nigerian returnees..."

 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

What do you say?

Adichie Roots for Nollywood

"Fred was talking about Nollywood, speaking a little too loudly. 'Nollywood is really public theatre, and if you understand it like that, then it is more tolerable. It's for public consumption, even mass participation, not the kind of individual experience that film is.' He was looking at her, soliciting her agreement with his eyes: they were not supposed to watch Nollywood, people like them, and if they did, then only as amusing anthropology.

"'I like Nollywood,' Ifemelu said, even though she, too, thought Nollywood was more theatre than film.  The urge to be contrarian was strong. If she set herself apart, perhaps she would be less of the person she feared she had become. 'Nollywood may be melodramatic, but life in Nigeria is very melodramatic.'"

Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, Americanah