AN AMERICAN AFRICAN'S MEDITATION ON RACE (AND BLACKNESS) IN AMERICA

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah: A Novel (New York: Knopf, 2013) ("In America , racism exists but racists are all gone. Racists belong to the past. Racists are the thin-lipped mean white people in the movies about the civil rights era. Here's the thing: the manifestation of racism has changed but the language has not. So if you haven't lynched somebody then you can't be called a racist. If you're not a bloodsucking monster, then you can't be called a racist. Somebody has to be able to say that racists are not monsters. They are people with loving families, regular folks who pay taxes. Somebody needs to get the job of deciding who is racist and who isn't. Or maybe it's time to just scrap the word 'Racisits.' Find something new. Like Racial Disorder Syndrome. And we could have different categories for suffers of this syndrome: mild, medium, and acute." Id. at 316. [A]cademics were not intellectuals; they were not curious, they built their stolid tents of specialized knowledge and stayed securely in them." Id. at 325.).