My Dearest Ifemelu,
You were never born to be perfect. Allow me to apologize for all those who thrust that expectation upon you. I, too, know what it is like to be expected of. Your story was never meant to be a master thesis on race. Allow me to apologize for all those who think your experience is the experience. One can never perfectly encounter the multi-dimensional beast of race in one lifetime.
Your experiences in American society, although ones I will never have, are not any less valid because you are African and I am white. Perhaps even more importantly, your experiences in American society are not any less valid because they are not ones shared by every individual who shares a similar skin tone.
When you go to have your hair braided for the first time in years, you are not capitulating to the demands of a racist society. You are simply embracing a culture you had long since been detached from. In refusing to straighten your hair with harmful chemicals, you are resisting the demands of a racist society that would see you, black, broken, and bent.
The way you found love is magical. It is the power of fiction that brought you and Obinze together. I can only envy the eloquence with which your story was written. Choices constitute the volume of any novel, and the choices that brought you and he together, imperfect as humans are, must be forgiven.
You are a work of fiction. We as readers must not forget this. You and Chimamanda are not the same, although you may be sisters. Chimamanda knows the terrible power of a single story; this is a lesson you may still be learning. Take your time to learn; the effort is worth it.
The fashion in which you dismissed the complex lives of the women working in the hair salon may be contentious, but it is not unexpected. To think that a woman of color can hold no prejudice against other women of color is, frankly, absurd. Melanin does not destroy preconceived notions. It only adjusts a few. I recall the offensive impressions my mother performs for her black husband. She means well, just as I am sure you do. Just because one has racist thoughts does not make them racist, nor does it mean one cannot fight against racism, as you and my mother do on a daily basis.
Ifemelu, remember this: remember you are human. Regardless of the paper skin and inked tattoos you bear, you live just as I do. You think, you feel, you forget, you grow. Do not allow those who do not realize this to impede your forward progress. To do so, is to forsake the love and care with which you were created.
Sincerely,
A writer.
