A banner, unfurled, boxy white caps on black cloth. "Racism is as American as Baseball".
In Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine explores the manifestation of racism, specifically anti-blackness, in America: in casual statements, thoughtless asides, the language used by both strangers and friends. Rankine dedicates page 15 to "your" neighbor calling the police on your friend, who was simply pacing outside during a phone call. You "clumsily tell your friend that the next time he wants to talk on the phone he should just go in the backyard"; he "looks at you for a long minute before saying he can speak on the phone wherever he wants." Rankine returns to apologies throughout the book: your neighbor's apologies to you and your friend; your own apologetic response born of your desire to make it easier for your friend and yourself when "making it easier" entails limits on the both of you, restrictions, self-effacement; your therapist's apologies after she evidently mistakes you for someone else, yelling at you "at the top of her lungs" when you meet her, as planned, at her front door. Or maybe she simply mistakes you for what you are, not who you are — what you are, but flattened, dehumanized. A black woman, an intruder, a threat.
Rankine writes about police brutality: "because white men can't / police their imagination / black people are dying" on the page following a list of the names of Black people who have been killed by the police — a list that fades simply into the repeating, fading phrase "In Memory". Rankine's stylistic choice reminds the reader of the limits imposed on the list by the size of the page: not everyone was listed then, not everyone is listed now. The text accompanying the list serves as a reminder of the limits to our progress as a country that will exist as long as police officers' hands are guided by prejudice. This part of the book serves, too, as a warning: as long as the root of the issue goes unaddressed, the list of names will continue, and the number of lives lost will grow.
Rankine's decision to write about Serena Williams is as hard-hitting as the rest of the book: thought-out and impactful. She explores how even Williams, a top-tier athlete, has faced discrimination and injustice in her sport, touching on Williams' struggle with her own anger in the face of this blatant discrimination, set against the backdrop of her identity as a Black woman.
I keep returning to the text on the back cover, contextualized and given depth by the full text of page 55. Rankine masterfully puts into words the experience of many marginalized individuals. "Your friend" idealizes her own response to microaggressions, racism at every turn, but simply brushing this off as an individual both defined and affected by stereotypes and caricatures is not so easy. In another part of the book, Rankine describes the hyperawareness of language as it is used, because language is both what we use to name ourselves and what is used to define us. These add a layer of raw, relatable honesty to the book: the reality of being an American citizen of color, and yet not fully perceived as the first two words ("American citizen") because of the last two ("of color") because of societal and institutional racism, both of which permeate our everyday lives.
In Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine explores the manifestation of racism, specifically anti-blackness, in America: in casual statements, thoughtless asides, the language used by both strangers and friends. Rankine dedicates page 15 to "your" neighbor calling the police on your friend, who was simply pacing outside during a phone call. You "clumsily tell your friend that the next time he wants to talk on the phone he should just go in the backyard"; he "looks at you for a long minute before saying he can speak on the phone wherever he wants." Rankine returns to apologies throughout the book: your neighbor's apologies to you and your friend; your own apologetic response born of your desire to make it easier for your friend and yourself when "making it easier" entails limits on the both of you, restrictions, self-effacement; your therapist's apologies after she evidently mistakes you for someone else, yelling at you "at the top of her lungs" when you meet her, as planned, at her front door. Or maybe she simply mistakes you for what you are, not who you are — what you are, but flattened, dehumanized. A black woman, an intruder, a threat.
Rankine writes about police brutality: "because white men can't / police their imagination / black people are dying" on the page following a list of the names of Black people who have been killed by the police — a list that fades simply into the repeating, fading phrase "In Memory". Rankine's stylistic choice reminds the reader of the limits imposed on the list by the size of the page: not everyone was listed then, not everyone is listed now. The text accompanying the list serves as a reminder of the limits to our progress as a country that will exist as long as police officers' hands are guided by prejudice. This part of the book serves, too, as a warning: as long as the root of the issue goes unaddressed, the list of names will continue, and the number of lives lost will grow.
Rankine's decision to write about Serena Williams is as hard-hitting as the rest of the book: thought-out and impactful. She explores how even Williams, a top-tier athlete, has faced discrimination and injustice in her sport, touching on Williams' struggle with her own anger in the face of this blatant discrimination, set against the backdrop of her identity as a Black woman.
I keep returning to the text on the back cover, contextualized and given depth by the full text of page 55. Rankine masterfully puts into words the experience of many marginalized individuals. "Your friend" idealizes her own response to microaggressions, racism at every turn, but simply brushing this off as an individual both defined and affected by stereotypes and caricatures is not so easy. In another part of the book, Rankine describes the hyperawareness of language as it is used, because language is both what we use to name ourselves and what is used to define us. These add a layer of raw, relatable honesty to the book: the reality of being an American citizen of color, and yet not fully perceived as the first two words ("American citizen") because of the last two ("of color") because of societal and institutional racism, both of which permeate our everyday lives.