Americanah: Chapter 36 Summary & Analysis

Ifemelu attends a surprise birthday party for Blaine’s friend Marcia. The guests at the party talk about Barack Obama’s announcement that he is running for president. Ifemelu has started feeling more uncomfortable around Blaine’s academic friends, as they seem to live only within their specialized fields and not be curious about other knowledge. Ifemelu has met Blaine’s ex by now, a white professor named Paula who seems to fit more comfortably than Ifemelu herself does in his world of academia.

Paula is at the party as well, and she acts excessively friendly towards Ifemelu. Paula compliments her blog and then reads out loud a post from it called “Friendly Tips for the American Non-Black: How to React to an American Black Talking About Blackness.” The post is telling white people to stop bringing up their own suffering or their ancestors who might have been discriminated against, because everyone has suffered, but not everyone has suffered for the particular reason of being black. Ifemelu says that black people don’t want everything to be about racism, as this doesn’t actually help them in any way—so if they say something is a racial issue, then it probably is.

Ifemelu’s post criticizes many of the things white people say to avoid admitting that racism exists: things like “my ancestors were Irish” or “black people can be racist too.” The truth is that racism is different from simple prejudice, because racism has a complex system of power behind it, and white people have that power in America. Paula finishes reading and the guests compliment the post.

They replay the video of Barack Obama announcing that he is running for president, and different guests have different reactions: some think he has no chance, others that he could do it, and others are simply glad that he makes them feel good. Ifemelu doesn’t know much about Obama yet. One guest says that she is ready for a black president, but she doesn’t think the country is. Paula criticizes this, saying that there is no “the country” apart from themselves, the voters.

Ifemelu later borrows this sentiment for a blog post about the ridiculousness of asking whether the country is “ready” for a black president. After the party Ifemelu admits to Blaine that she was jealous of Paula. Paula seemed like a true activist and idealist, and Ifemelu realizes how much she and Blaine have in common. She isn’t jealous that anything would happen between Blaine and Paula, but only jealous because Paula is “good” in the same way Blaine is.

The chapter ends with another blog post, this one called “Traveling While Black.” It discusses how black foreigners are viewed in different countries, and how they are often looked down upon, even in non-white countries. Ifemelu mentions a friend saying that “native blacks are always treated worse than non-native blacks everywhere in the world.”