Writers of Color Book Club discussion

Here we will discuss Chapters 14-30 (a.k.a the end of Part 3). Please make sure that you are courteous when divulging events in the book. If you feel like it is going to give something HUGE away in the book please use the (view spoiler)[spoiler brackets. (hide spoiler)]

I thought similarly to you, Elizabeth. One thing that particularly resonated with me as an English person was the idea that in England, class comes first before race and in America, it's the other way around. Even nowadays I feel like its strange to people to marry outside of your social class in England but interracial marriages are seemingly more accepted, at least if the two people are of the same social class? In the American culture I've read about it seems like there is a much more clear division between black and white? Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

That's a very interesting observation, Louise, on race and class distinctions in the U.S. and in England.

Of course, the U.S. would claim that it's a classless society. Not really true but the U.S. has never had the type of ingrained class system that exists in Europe and, perhaps, in England in particular. There has been a concept of marrying "beneath one's class" though. As to race, well it wasn't until 1967 that laws prohibiting inter-racial marriage were declared unconstitutional in the United States. Nowadays I think it's a non-issue. That doesn't mean there aren't some bigoted people still left.

Wow! For me, this part of the book was really a huge step up from the first part in terms of complexity. I made similar reflections as Elisabeth about how the African characters acted towards English/American people when it comes to racism. As Ifemelu points out, she only speaks of it in a way that will amuse. This was heartbreaking to me because I could so easily identify with that strategy. Not when it comes to racism but I do this almost everyday with feminist issues. The desire to not be "that bitter and angry girl" is sadly quite overwhelming.

Something that was a a bit of an eye-opener for me was the part at the dinner party that Elisabeth also mentions. I feel completely guilty of mainly focusing on the question of immigration in terms of refugees when speaking of Africa. I feel grateful that this books is painting a very clear, different, picture. Being shown new perspectives is hands down the best part of reading.

I really enjoy this part of the book. Even though Obinze's parts feel slightly more distanced and not _as_ engaging as Ifemelu's, I feel very strongly for Obinze's story. One thing I noticed was that I didn't feel like I got as good mental images of the people surrounding Obinze. It seemed to me that there were very many characters introduced in a short amount of time, and it was hard for me to get a good grip of the people around him. Possibly a side effect of Obinze being in a state of life where he himself feels very detatched and just bouncing around against these people he can't really let into his life (for safety reasons).