One of the contradictions of American society is that although race is central to the nation's history—a fact few deny—Americans often seem to struggle to see the ways that historical legacy continues to influence life today. (My colleague Ta-Nehisi Coates noted this tendency this week in a piece on comments Charles Barkley made about black criminality.)
Perhaps the problem is the lack of a comparative experience: If all you know is American society, you can't pick out the anomalies. That's why it's helpful to hear the voices of people like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The novelist is the author of Americanah, and she may be best known to a broad audience through a sample of her TED Talk on the importance of feminism included on BeyoncÉ's "Flawless." Adichie was born in Nigeria but splits her time between there and the United States—"Home is where my best shoes are," she has said.
[For more of this story, written by David A. Graham, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/10/american-blindness-to-the-racism-all-around-us/382152/]
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