“In Nigeria I’m not black…We don’t do race in Nigeria. We do ethnicity a lot, but not race. My friends here don’t really get it. Some of them sound like white Southerners from 1940. They say, ‘Why are black people complaining about race? Racism doesn’t exist!’ It’s just not a part of their existence.”

By :

Publish in :

Category

Tags

Author

Literature

Film

TV Show

“In Nigeria I’m not black…We don’t do race in Nigeria. We do ethnicity a lot, but not race. My friends here don’t really get it. Some of them sound like white Southerners from 1940. They say, ‘Why are black people complaining about race? Racism doesn’t exist!’ It’s just not a part of their existence.”

On how views of race differ in Nigeria than the United States in “Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: ‘I Wanted To Claim My Own Name’” in Vogue (2015 Nov 3)