4.2: "The Intersection of Race and Romantic Relationships in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah" By Isabella D’Aquila

The Intersection of Race and Romantic Relationships in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah

By Isabella D’Aquila

Race in the United States of America is convoluted and filled with nuance. Individuals often interact with their own race and the race of those around them based on the context in which they grew up. One defining difference is location — race in the United States is widely believed to be socially constructed, so those who grew up outside of the U.S. will interpret race relations differently. This theme is apparent throughout much of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novels, articles, writings, and speeches. She has attested multiple times to the fact that she did not consider herself “Black” until she came to the United States for college, having been born and raised in Nigeria. The protagonist in her novel, Americanah, which was loosely based on her own life experiences, has the same experience with her race and identity after coming to the United States.

In Americanah, Adichie explores race and its intersection with politics, education, and friendships. However, at its core, Americanah is a love story about protagonist Ifemelu and her high school sweetheart, Obinze. Some of the most critical intersections, however, happen in the relationships that lead her back to him after years of separation. Adichie explores the intersection of race and romantic relationships through two of Ifemelu’s love interests — one with a white man, Curt, and one with an African American man, Blaine. After a tumultuous end to her relationship with Curt, Ifemelu enters into a relationship with Blaine, a professor, and quickly realizes that there are differences between the African immigrant experience in America and the African American experience. Through these relationships, Adichie demonstrates how multifaceted race in the United States is and shows that race goes far deeper than the color of your skin tone; Ifemelu’s relationship quarrels based around race do not disappear when she goes from dating a white man to a Black man, but take different forms. Through Ifemelu’s interactions with her romantic partners, Adichie demonstrates that national identity, culture, and class are just as important to how Ifemelu negotiates her identity as the color of her skin.

In order to understand how race intersects with the romantic relationships in Ifemelu’s life, it is important to first understand the construction of race in the United States. The identity of the United States is unique, as compared to other nations, because while the country was built on the idea of being a melting pot of immigrants from many countries, those immigrants were primarily white and European. This created systemic Eurocentrism, or white supremacy, that informs the nation’s racial power dynamics. For one, the United States was formed through displacing and killing millions of people indigienous to the Americas. Then, the transatlantic slave trade exploited the millions of Africans forced into slavery in the United States, deepening the cultural and political investment in racial inequality. The recent Black Lives Matter movement has brought to light a long history of rampant police violence and brutality against Black Americans. Ava Landry, in her article “Black Is Black Is Black?: African Immigrant Acculturation in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing,” explains how the history of slavery in the United States has informed the development of people’s identities. She writes, “the construction of Blackness is a social project with ideological and material implications. African Americans are bound together by not only the presence of outward physical similarities but also a collective history of American slavery and racial subjecthood” (Landry 127). A racial hierarchy was established hundreds of years ago in the early days of this country.

One of Ifemelu’s first relationships in the United States is with Curt, a wealthy white man and the cousin of one of Ifemelu’s employers. Curt is wealthier than Ifemelu, older than Ifemelu, and more socially connected than she is. However, the defining difference within their relationship is their race: Curt is white; Ifemelu is Black. This difference is not only defined within the context of their own personal relationship, but also in the way that people around them interpret and react to their relationship. Adichie writes, “Curt had never been with a black woman; he told [Ifemelu] this after their first time, in his penthouse apartment. . . with a self-mocking toss of his head, as if this were something he should have done long ago but had somehow neglected” (Adichie 240). This passage shows an objectification and exoticization of a Black woman in America, something that has been seen since the early days of American slave history. There is a dark history of white slave owners inflicting sexual violence onto enslaved women, and using their power and ownership of them to do whatever they wished to their bodies. They were physical objects, both sexually and materially: a means of work, not human beings. To Curt, he is not just having sex with a woman when he had sex with Ifemelu — he is having sex with a Black woman. This objectification of Black women began with the Atlantic Slave Trade, which April Haynes describes in her article “How Did It Feel? Open Secrets about Sex and Race in Early America.” She notes the “cannabalistic dimensions of Atlantic slavery — consumption of people as commodities” (Haynes 159). African women were initially brought to the United States as commodities, meant to be bought, sold, and consumed as capitalist items. Therefore, it is not a surprise that African American and non-American Black women are so heavily objectified in modern relationships and media, especially interracial relationships. A study of interracial dating from Sherelyn Yancey and George Yancey hypothesized that white individuals seek out interracial relationships more so than racial minorities do (337). Based on this study, it is not surprising that in Americanah, Adichie makes Curt Ifemelu’s pursuer, rather than the other way around. Black women are separated from women of different races and ethnic backgrounds, treated as a commodity that men check off their list of experiences to have.

Race is also central to the way people outside of their relationship perceive Curt and Ifemelu together; they are not simply a man and a woman together, or even a beautiful man and woman together. They are a Black woman and a white man. Ifemelu experiences a negative response to their relationship when one day “she stood hand in hand with Curt in front of a tray of apples, [and] a black man walked past and muttered, ‘You ever wonder why he likes you looking all jungle like that?’” (Adichie 263). This interaction demonstrates the caste system that is present between Black and white people living in America. Landry explains this, “the degradation of black bodies is foundational to the structure of US society. Whiteness and Blackness are relational and contingent because white advantage cannot be constructed and maintained without black disadvantage” (129). White privilege cannot exist without Black lack-of-privilege, and people place these expectations and societal standards onto Curt and Ifemelu’s relationship, without even understanding the intimate intricacies that exist in their personal lives. By being with Curt, this man could also assume that Ifemelu is degrading herself in order to present a fantasy of domination for a white man. She is perceived to be recreating the power system between a white slave owner and his slave that was wrought with sexual violence and abuse. This moment does not just reflect on their relationship, but Ifemelu internalizes this man’s words. She “felt dispirited and . . . drove to the beauty supply store and ran her fingers through small bundles of silky straight weaves” (Adichie 264). Hair is an important facet of self expression and cultural expression, and particularly for Black women, whose bodies are constantly under surveillance. At this moment, Ifemelu feels that there is something wrong with her hair. It makes her feel inferior to her partner and causes her to call her styling choices into question. The man at the farmer’s market has placed ideas and standards about race and relationships onto Ifemelu and Curt, and it has caused Ifemelu to have an identity crisis of her own.

Ifemelu herself sees how much of an issue race can be, especially in interracial relationships, even if she does not when she is with Curt. After her relationship with Curt has come to an end and Ifemelu is well into her next relationship with Blaine, she is offered the opportunity to discuss the idea with a Black Haitian woman at a dinner party in Manhattan. This woman does not perceive race as having been an issue in her long term relationship with a white man, and Ifemelu cannot keep herself from correcting her:

The only reason that you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America. When you are black in America and you fall in love with a white person, race doesn’t matter when you’re alone together because it's just you and your love. But the minute you step outside, race matters. . . We don’t tell our white partners the small things that piss us off and things we wish they understood better, because we’re worried they will say we’re overreacting, or we’re being too sensitive. (Adichie 359)

Race is central within an interracial relationship, especially when outside of the four walls of one’s home, which is how Ifemelu understands it. In Ifemelu and Curt’s relationship, this racial divide between them creates barriers for Curt to fully understand Ifemelu. He does not understand what it means to be a Black woman, specifically an African immigrant, in America. Ifemelu cites multiple occasions where Curt does not seem to fully understand her, and this drives her to feel disconnected from him.

The relationship between Curt and Ifemelu ends in a less than satisfactory way: Ifemelu cheats on Curt. Interestingly, her discussion with Curt afterwards becomes one centered around race rather than the actual cheating. After Ifemelu tells Curt that she has cheated on him, Curt asks not only who the man is but also whether he was white, which takes Ifemelu by surprise (Adichie 356). Curt asking Ifemelu the race of the man she cheated with might seem irrelevant, but it could have offered a simple explanation for Curt. If Ifemelu had cheated on him with a Black man, it would have been clear to Curt, at least in his mind, that he was inadequate solely based on his whiteness. Ifemelu wanted a Black man. It would not point to other possible inadequacies he had or any of the ways she felt unsatisfied in their relationship.

Ifemelu experiences a sense of uncertainty in her relationship with Curt prior to cheating, and feels a loss or displacement of self following the breakup. H. Oby Okolocha offers a possible explanation for this sense of displacement in their article “Negotiating Race, Identity & Homecoming in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Pede Hollist’s So the Path Does Not Die.” For many immigrants, the reality of migrating is filled with psychological and physical displacement as well as the complete disillusionment in the system placed in front of them. Okolocha says, “the circumstances leading to migration are diverse but many instances of migration are geared towards a desire for something better than what exists in the home nation” (144). By sleeping with Rob, Ifemelu finds a way out of her unsatisfying relationship with Curt. On the other side of the end of their relationship was a possibility better than what she was living through. However, the reality of immigration often quickly shines through, as Okolocha writes, “the young women find that the reality of America greatly differs from their expectations” (145). The same applies to Ifemelu cheating on Curt. The reality of cheating on her significant other greatly disillusions her: “it puzzled her, the ability of romantic love to mutate, how quickly a loved one could become a stranger . . . her relationship with Curt was what she wanted, a crested wave in her life, and yet she had taken an axe and hacked at it” (Adichie 357-358). This is not to say that Ifemelu cheated on Curt thinking things would go over well. However, she becomes disillusioned by the fact that her relationship seemed better once it was in the rear view mirror, just as life in the United States might not be as great as some immigrants will come to see it as.

Based on the way racial differences shaped Ifemelu’s experiences with Curt, one could assume that having a Black partner would make her romantic life much easier. However, racial identity is far more nuanced than just the simple color of one’s skin as is demonstrated through Ifemelu’s relationship with Blaine. Blaine is African American, making his skin color arguably the same as Ifemelu’s, but race remains a source of contention in their relationship as they demonstrate the differences between the experience of an African American and an African immigrant. This becomes clear when Ifemelu does not show up for a protest to support a colleague who experienced racial profiling on the college campus where they work. Blaine, who organizes the protest, is furious that Ifemelu is not similarly invested in the situation. Blaine calls Ifemelu lazy, and Ifemelu “recognized, in his tone, a subtle accusation, not merely about her laziness, her lack of zeal and conviction, but also about her Africanness; she was not sufficiently furious because she was African, not African American” (Adichie 428). This altercation between the couple, which begins a period of not speaking to one another for nine days, is indicative of some of the differences between Africans in America and African Americans. Though police brutality and racial profiling has a long and fraught history in the United States, Ifemelu does not feel as angered or affected by it as Blaine does, perhaps she has lived her entire life as a Black person in the United States the way he has.

Ifemelu does not identify as an “American Black,” and she, in fact, did not identify as being Black until she came to the United States. In her blog, Ifemelu does a series of posts titled “Understanding America for the Non American Black.” She explores cultural phenomenons in the United States that those raised outside might not understand, such as American Tribalism, the WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), and the appeal of Obama’s candidacy. Ifemelu also explores what it means to be labeled “Black” when coming from a country that did not evaluate race the same way as Americans do. She tells her readers that Americans do not care if you are from Ghana or Jamaica or anywhere else — you are simply Black, and you are shouldering all of the societal and cultural norms and expectations around being Black whether you want to or not (Adichie 274). Mindi McMann explains this idea in her article ““You’re Black”: Transnational perceptions of race in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Andrea Levy’s Small Island.” She writes, “being black becomes equated with a distinctly racist and hierarchical American experience for Ifemelu — an experience that is often foisted on her” (211). Blaine is trying to force the experience of American Blackness on Ifemelu by wanting her to engage in the same causes he does, even if she does not feel it aligns with her own personal experience as a Black immigrant.

Barack Obama and his presidential candidacy exposed continued inequities in racial perception in the United States. Many Americans said we “weren’t ready” for a Black president, despite the qualifications Obama presented. His campaign became something for Blaine and Ifemelu to connect and bond over during a tumultuous time in their relationship. Susanna Dilliplane, in her article “Race, Rhetoric, and Running for President: Unpacking the Significance of Barack Obama’s ‘A More Perfect Union’ Speech,” breaks down how Obama pulled people into his campaign using rhetorical strategies: “complex historical and contemporary dynamics of African American oratory, Black churches, race relations, and American politics” are some of the many reasons why his “A More Perfect Union” speech was significant. This is likely part of the reason that Blaine feels such a connection to Barack Obama’s political campaign — he is tying it to roots that make up his genealogical and self identity. However, that is not the case for everyone in Blaine’s family. His sister, Shan, a writer, does not have the same level of passion regarding Obama as Ifemelu and Blaine do. When Ifemelu asks Shan, “‘Isn’t Obama exciting?’” Shan responds, “Oh. I’m not following this election.” (Adichie 445). Despite the fact that Obama is greatly appealing to the plight of African Americans, Ifemelu still feels connected to his campaign. In this instance, Shan has let Ifemelu down, because she would have expected an African American woman to feel connected to and fight for his campaign. This is not to say that every single person of color needs to vote for the only other candidate of color running in an election. It does show that, while sometimes skin color was not enough to keep Blaine and Ifemelu connected, on the issue of Obama, it is. It does not matter that Ifemelu is “African Black” and Blaine is “American Black;” they were both Black, and they were able to come behind the policies and campaign goals of a Black presidential candidate together, and that was enough at the time. Obama’s campaign appealed to many minorities, as he showed that people could persevere in a racialized United States with ingrained hierarchies and institutionalized forms of oppression.

Despite the fact that Obama’s presidential campaign offers bonding opportunities and a moment of reprieve in the tensions of Blaine and Ifemelu’s relationship, their shared racial affiliation is not enough to prevent misunderstanding based on their cultural differences. Ifemelu examines her own jealousies regarding Blaine’s relationships with his ex-girlfriend, Paula, offering a way to understand how race and nationality intersect. Like Blaine, Paula immerses herself in activist and intellectual work, but she is also white. Her education status is closer to Blaine’s than Ifemelu’s — Paula and Blaine both have graduate degrees and continue to work in academia, whereas Ifemelu only has a Bachelor’s. In reflecting on how Blaine interacts with Paula as compared to her, Ifemelu looks at the differences between nationalities; Blaine and Paula are both American, whereas Ifemelu is Nigerian. It does not matter to her that she and Blaine are both Black and Paula is white. Adichie says to Blaine, “For you and Paula, fried chicken is battered. For me, fried chicken has no batter. I just thought about how you both have a lot in common.” This relates back to transnational identities, and how a transnational identity can over persevere over a racial identity. McCann explores this in her article; Ifemelu has been called Black in the most unsophisticated terms. She is Black based only on the color of her skin tone, nothing else, and the same goes for Blaine. However, they both have identities that go far, far deeper than that, and this “Black” identity fails to acknowledge it. Ifemelu has experienced diaspora and displacement on multiple levels. Because of the trauma that immgration can cause, Ifemelu still feels a strong connection to her Nigerian identity and descent. She has not fully assimilated or acculturated to American identities and customs, so, being the same “race” or “color” as Blaine does not fully fix her relationship issues; their national and cultural identities still remain a source of significant difference between them.

Romantic relationships are about far more than just the color of each individual’s skin tone. However, when someone is witnessing your relationship from the outside, if one individual is Black and the other is white, it might be the only thing that they can see. Curt and Ifemelu’s relationship demonstrates how family and strangers will judge a relationship based on the fact that the individuals are different skin colors. So, when reading Americanah, one can assume that those relationship issues will be remedied when Ifemelu begins dating a Black man. However, this is not the case. The African American identity is heavily rooted in a shared history of slavery started with the Atlantic Slave Trade, and what it meant to become “free men,” but still live through constant oppression and prejudice, with a system constantly meant to tear them down. Ifemelu does not have this same shared identification with African Americans, despite sharing the same skin color, as many white Americans might assume. This book, particularly Ifemelu’s relationships, show us that skin color is really only skin deep; instead, our identities are made up of so much more than that.

Works Cited

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Haynes, April. “How Did It Feel? Open Secrets about Sex and Race in Early America.” Early American Literature, vol. 51, no. 1, 2016, pp. 157–177., doi:10.1353/eal.2016.0009.

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McMann, Mindi. “‘You’re Black’: Transnational Perceptions of Race in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Andrea Levy’s Small Island.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, vol. 59, no. 2, 2017, pp. 200–212.,

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