Rankines deliberate omission of the commas is powerful. You nobody. You are in Catholic school and a girl who you can't remember is looking over your shoulder as you take a test. This sighing is characterized as self-preservation, (Rankine 60) and is repeated multiple times (62, 75, 151), just as breath or breathing is also repeated (55, 107, 156). In disjointed and figurative writing, Rankine creates a sense of desperation and inequity, depicting what it feels like to belong to one of the many black communities along the Gulf Coastcommunities that national relief organizations all but ignored and ultimately failed to properly serve after the hurricane devastated the area and left many people homeless. In the very last story, the racist realization is shouted down on the narrator. They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!, This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. While this style of narration positions the reader as [a] racist and [a] recipient of racism simultaneously (Adams 58), therefore placing them directly in the narrative, the use of you also speaks to the invisibility and erasure of Black people (Rankine 70-72). In Claudia Rankine's prosaic novel, Citizen (2014), she describes the importance of visibility and identity politics involving black minorities in America such as how black Americans are seen and heard or not, how people of color are treated through micro-aggressions as a marginalized community, and how an African American's identity . Essays for Citizen: An American Lyric. Citizen: An American Lyric essays are academic essays for citation. ISBN: 978-1-55597-690-3CHAPTER 1 When you are alone and too tired even to turn on any of your devices, you let yourself linger in a past stacked among your pillows. Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in 21st century daily life and in the media. A mixed-media collection of vignettes, poems, photographs, and reproductions of various forms of visual art, Citizen floats in and out of a multiple topics and perspectives. She determines that its either because her teacher doesnt care about cheating or, worse, because she never truly saw the protagonist sitting there in the first place. Teaching Citizen by Claudia Rankine is a perfect text for such spaces. Read it all in one flow. The trees, their bark, their leaves, even the dead ones, are more vibrant wet. The woman grabs his arm and tells him to apologize. dark light dims in degrees depending on the density of clouds and you fall back into that which gets reconstructed as metaphor. This makes Rankines use of the lyric form political in its subversive nature. In response, the protagonist turns the question back around, asking why he doesnt write about it. This narrator, who seems to be a version of Rankine herself at this moment, remembers a different time with a different racial make-up than the one in which she currently resides. Rankines use of form, visual imagery, and metaphor are not only used to emphasize key themes of erasure, disembodiment, systemic hunting, and the mass incarceration of Black people, but it also works to construct the history of Black citizenship from the time of slavery to Jim Crow, to modern-day mass incarceration. Leaning against the wall, they discuss the riots that have broken out in London as a response to the unjustified police killing of a young black man named Mark Duggan. The placement of the photograph at the bottom of the page is deliberate, as it makes the empty black space seem even smaller in comparison to the white figures and white space that surrounds it. Rankine writes: we are drowning here / still in the difficultythe water show[ed] [us] no one would come (85). Rankine will answer . A nuanced reflection on race, trauma, and belonging that brings together text and image in unsettling, powerful ways. Rankine transitions to an examination of how the protagonist and other people of color respond to a constant barrage of racism. Their citizenship which took many centuries to gain does not protect them from these hardships. From this description, it is clear that Rankine sees the I as a symbol for a human being, for she later states: the I has so much power; its insane (71). She envisioned her craft as a means to create something vivid, intimate, and transparent. Javadizadeh, Kamran. Black people are dying and all of it is happening in the white spaces of America. Hearing this, the protagonist wonders why her friend feels comfortable saying this to her, but she doesnt object. By choosing to give space to the white space on the page, Rankine forces us to pause and sit with these moments of everyday racism. African-Americans are still experiencing hardships every day that stem from slavery such as racial profiling, and stereotyping. On the drive back from the movie, the protagonist receives a call from her neighbor, who tells her that theres a sinister looking man walking back and forth in front of her house. Detailed quotes explanations with page numbers for every important quote on the site. In the beginning of this poem, Rankine asks you to recall a time when you felt absolutely nothing. Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes. A cough launches another memory into your consciousness. Medically, "John Henryism . It was timely fifty years ago. Look at the cover. Claudia Rankine gives us an act of creativity and illumination that combats the mirror world of unseeing and unseen-ness that is imprinted onto the American psyche.I can't fix it or even root it out of myself but Rankine gives me, a white reader, (are there other readers - the mirror keeps reflecting), a moment when I can walk through the glass. She tells him she was killing time in the parking lot by the local tennis courts that day when a woman parked in the spot facing her car but, upon seeing the protagonist sitting across from her, put her car in reverse and parked elsewhere. By merging poetic language with visual imagery, and subverting lyric convention in pursuit of her own poetic structure and form, Rankine forces us to see the erasure of Black people in every aspect of Citizen. By rejecting previous poetic structures in favour of a new poetic form, Rankine forces us to think about the possibility and the importance of creating a new social frameworkone that serves its Black citizens, rather than erasing them. Rankines use of the lyric deeply complicates the trope of lyric presence (Skillman 436) because it goes against the literary trope [that is often] devoid of any social markings such as race (Chan 152). A piercing and perceptive book of poetry about being black in America. Best to drive through the moment instead of dwelling on it. What is most striking about the visual image is the omission of a human subject. At another event, the protagonist listens to the philosopher Judith Butler speak about why language is capable of hurting people. Considering what she calls the social death of history, Rankine suggests that contemporary culture has largely adopted an ahistorical perspective, one that fails to recognize the lasting effects of bigotry. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine. This book is necessary and timely. By doing so, he accounts for the ways microaggression pushes minorities down, and often precludes the opportunity for a response. Rankine writes from great depth, personal experiences, and also from a greater, inclusive point of view. The same structures from the past exist today, but perhaps it has become less obvious, as seen in the almost invisible frames of Weems photograph. You see Venus move in and put the gorilla effect on. Rankine concludes that this social conditioning of being hunted leads to injury, which then leads to sighing and moaning (Rankine 42). Perhaps each sigh is drawn into existence to pull in, pull under, who knows; truth be told, you could no more control those sighs than that which brings the sighs about. Rankine illustrates this theme of erasure and black invisibility in the visual imagery, whose very inclusion in the work speaks to the poetic innovation of Rankines Citizen. You can't put the past behind you. This imagery speaks specifically to the erasure of Trayvon Martin (Adams 59, Coates 130), while also highlighting the other disappearances of Black people. A relevant question might be, talented . Where have they gone? (66). The protagonist knows that her friend makes this mistake because the housekeeper is the only other black person in her life, but neither of them mention this. As the chapter progresses, so does the strength of the negative feeling produced. The narrator contemplates why this person feels comfortable saying this in front of her. But then again I suppose it's a really strong point that her consciousness is so occupied by overt racism that she sees subtle racism everywhere -- "because white men cant police their imaginations, black men are dying," particularly -- even where it likely may not exist. Its dark light dims in degrees depending on the density of clouds and you fall back into that which gets reconstructed as metaphor." (Citizen, 1) - Section I These two different examples illustrate various scales of erasure. Citizen: An American Lyric essays are academic essays for citation. It is no longer a black subject, or black object (93)it has been rendered road-kill. Citizen by Claudia Rankine is an exceptional book which is much deserving of all the awards it has won. With the sophistication of its dialectical movement, the gravitas of its ethical appeal, and the mercy of its psychological rigor, Claudia Rankine's Citizen combines traditional poetic strains in a new way and passes them on to the reader with replenished vitality. This symbolism of the deer, which signifies the hunting and dehumanization of Black people, is emphasized throughout the work through the repetition of sighing, moaning, and allusions to injury: To live through the days sometimes you moan like deer. ", After reading Citizen, its hard not to hear Rankines voice as I ride the subway, walk around NYC, or even pick up other books. The collection opens with a reproduction of Kate Clark's 2008 sculpture, Little Girl. Male II & I. [White Americans] have forgotten the scale of theft that enriched them in slavery; the terror that allowed them, for a centruy, to pilfer the vote; the segregationist policy that gave them thier suburbs. She takes situations that happen on a daily basis, real life tragedies and acts in the media to analyze and bring awareness to the subtle and not so subtle forms of racism. Not affiliated with Harvard College. Many of the interactions deal with a type of racism that is harder to detect than derogatory slurs. This reminds you of a conversation contrasting the pros and cons of sentences beginning with yes, and or yes, but. To demonstrate this, she turns to the career of the famous African American tennis player Serena Williams, pointing to the multiple injustices she has suffered at the hands of the predominantly white tennis community, which judges her unfairly because of her race. "Yes, of course, you say" (20). Ta-Nehisi Coates, journalist and author of Between the World and Me (2015),argues that: The forgetting is habit, is yet another necessary component of the Dream. She writes in second person: "you." The general expectation, Rankine upholds, is that people of color must simply move on from their anger, letting racist remarks slide in the name, Claudia Rankines Citizen provides a nuanced look at the many ways in which humanitys racist history brings itself to bear on the present. Teacher Editions with classroom activities for all 1699 titles we cover. 134, no. Her formally and poetically innovative text utilizes form, figuration, and literariness to emphasize key themes of the erasure, systemic hunting, and imprisonment of African-Americans in the white hegemonic society of America. I saw the world through her eyes, a profound experience. (143). Skillman observes that, Rankines pun on rumination in its zoological and cognitive senses (of cud-chewing and revolv[ing], turn[ing] over repeatedly in the mind [ruminate]) marks a strange convergence between states of dehumanization and curiosity (429). Black Blue Boy, 1997.Courtesy of Carrie Mae Weems. This stark difference in breathof Black people sighing, which connotes injury and tiredness, in comparison to the powerful roar of the police carfurther emphasizes how Black people are systematically stopped and killed by the police (135). The Atlantic Ocean Breaking on Our Heads: Claudia Rankine, Robert Lowell, and the Whiteness of the Lyric Subject. PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. Ms. Rankine said that "part of documenting the micro-aggressions is to understand where the bigger, scandalous aggressions come from.". By Parul Sehgal, Bookforum, Dec/Jan 2015. Citizen is definitely a must read for everyone, especially if one day we hope to annihilate racism all together. Rankine does a brilliant job taking an in-depth look at life being black. They have become a you: You nothing. All day blue burrows the atmosphere. It shows the back of a stop sign with a street sign on top labeled 'Jim Crow Rd'. Complete your free account to request a guide. A friend called you by the name of her black housekeeper several times. Teachers and parents! It's more than a book. This confounds and seemingly irks him, prompting the protagonist to wonder why he would think itd be difficult to properly feel the injustice wheeled at a person of another race. We live in a culture as full of microaggressions as breaking new headlines, and Citizen brings it home. Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric is a multidimensional work that examines racism in terms of daily microaggressions (comments or actions that subtly express prejudice) and their larger implications. It's a moment like any other. is so apt, especially for those of us living in multicultural environments. Jenn Northington. So much racism is unconscious and springs from imagined . Jamaican-born author Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, two plays, and numerous video collaborations. As the photographs show Zidane register what Materazzi has said, turn around, and approach him, Rankine provides excerpts from the previously mentioned thinkers, including Frantz Fanons thoughts about the history of discrimination against Algerian people in France. In an article discussing the Black Lives/White Backgrounds of Rankines Citizen, Bella Adams states: the blank and typically white backgrounds on which Rankines words and images appear (69) is representative of the hierarchical racial formation that is rendered nearly invisible by its colour (white) and positioning (background) in the contemporary, so-called colour-blind or post-racial United States (55). Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric [Yes, and] When I was a little girl in Birmingham, Alabama, wracked with shame over some transgression I can no longer remember, I asked my father how, when faced with a choice, to know which decision is the right one. 1, 2008, pp. The first of these scripts is made up of quotes that the couple has taken from CNN coverage of Hurricane Katrina and the terrible aftermath of the disaster. These structures which imprison Black people are referenced in Rankines poetics and seen in the visual motifs of frames, or cells, referenced in the three photographs of Radcliffe Baileys Cerebral Caverns(Rankine 119), John Lucas Male II & I(96-97), and in Carrie Mae Weems Black Blue Boy (102-103), which frame and imprison the black body: My brothers are notorious. We categorize such moments just as we categorize the incongruous things that people say and who said them. Charging. It's the best note in the wrong song that is America. The repetition of this visual motif highlights the existing structures of racism which has allowed for slavery to be born again in the sprawling carceral state of America (Coates 79). When she objects to his use of this word, he acts like its not a big deal. PDFs of modern translations of every Shakespeare play and poem. resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss thenovel. The heads in Cerebral Caverns become a visual metaphor for Rankines poetry, connecting the slavery of the past to modern-day incarceration. The next situation video that Rankine presents is about the 2006 soccer World Cup, when Zinedine Zidane headbutted Marco Materazzi, who verbally provoked him. By the time she and her partner get to their house, the police have already come and gone, and the neighbor has apologized to their friend, who was simply on the phone. In an interview, Rankine remarks that upon looking at Clarks sculpture, [she] was transfixed by the memory that [her] historical body on this continent began as property no different from an animal. To see so many people moved and transformed by her work and her vision is something that should give us all hope. Poetry is about metaphor, about a thing standing in for something else. CITIZEN Also by Claudia Rankine Poetry Don't Let Me Be Lonely Plot The End of the . Reviewed: Citizen: An American Lyric. The visual motifs of frames and cells illustrate the way racist ideology, which endorsed slavery, continues to keep Black people in chains in modern-day America. This disrupts the historically white lyric form even further because she is adapting and changing the lyric form to include her Black identity and perspective. No, this is just a friend of yours, you explain to your neighbor, but it's too late. The erasure of Black people is a theme that is referenced throughout Citizen.Rankine describes this erasure of self as systemic, as ordinary (32). Referring to Serena Williams, Rankine states, Yes, and the body has memory. In this vein, Rankine is interested in the idea of invisibility and its influence on ones self-conception. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. What is more concerning than the injured, cut-off state of the deer is the fact that a human face looks pinned onto the animal (163). A former lawyer, he worked on the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday. Sometimes you sigh. At times I wondered why she for example attributes a single horrible quotation about Serena to a monumental non-existent entity called "the American Media." What did he say? Time and Distance Overcome. The Iowa Review, vol. However, Rankin explores this idea of citizenship through alienation. 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