Four braids wrap the cover of Americanah, binding the stories and experiences of the race within it. Stories of doing your own running and how mobility changes in different places. Stories of understanding power. In Americanah, Adichie uses hair as a metaphor for race and the level of power it offers, challenging her white audience, Western liberal assumptions about race, and the depth to which racial inequality is rooted in America today. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Americanah, a history of modern conceptions of race, begins insightfully with a journey from Princeton University to a Trenton hair salon, where the representation of power will occur throughout the narrative. Adichie clarifies the distance, literally and metaphorically, between "clean streets and stately homes, delicately expensive shops and the quiet, constant air of earned grace" (3) with very few other blacks, and the neighborhood that can find its hair cut. This Adichie describes in stark contrast: "the part of town that had graffiti, damp buildings, and no white people" (10). In the first ten pages, Adichie has established opposing worlds of race and related power. This is the main environment where hair and the power it symbolizes “happens”. What happens here will be conveniently interspersed with stories of Ifemelu and Obinze's experiences in the nations that Adichie describes as places where white privilege and power dictate society. Inside the salon, the audience sees the same power dynamics that occur in the protagonists' stories. At the same time there are stories of African immigrants trying to integrate into Western society, all from different countries and who may even speak different languages, for example Mariama's interspersed with French dialogue. Aisha, like Obinze, is desperate to gain citizenship through marriage. There is also a level of respect afforded to those who are more Americanized, seen in Ifemelu's offense when Aisha assumes she hasn't lived in America long, and in Aisha's respectful reaction when Ifemulu tells her that it's been fifteen years ( 19). These exchanges provide a deeply rooted ideal of power associated with America and its “people.” Adichie shows us this ideal embedded in white privilege with Kelsey's remarkable appearance. The moment the “young white woman walked in” (232), the power dynamic of the room changed. The owner Mariama, who had greeted Ifemulu casually and paid little attention to her, suddenly "wiped her hands over and over in front of her shorts" and "smiled an overly enthusiastic smile" (232). The white-skinned Kelsey receives respect and power the moment she steps foot into the setting where American racial issues are portrayed. Kelsey easily accepts and fills the role she unconsciously plays in her society, having the power and privilege of being white. She is undoubtedly available and takes her voice into the room, dominating the conversation. Ready to comply, Kelsey assumes that Mariama "couldn't even have this business in [her] country" (232), that her children would have a worse life in Mariama's home country of Mali, and questions her social progress asking if women can vote. Kelsey represents the assumptions that those in power are able to make, following the dialogue of the Afropolitan novels that Adichie aims to criticize. These narratives stereotype African characters as those with little agency who look to the 2017.