With Citizen, Claudia Rankine takes on the daunting task of both speaking to the truth of racism in America and making it accessible to the people who don’t feel the brunt of it everyday. She uses short, lyrical passages, explicitly displaying the raw emotion that is behind the interactions we have. Superficially, the stories she tells can come across differently to different people who read them, but ultimately drive home her focus on dichotomy and blatant injustice. She points out how “colored” is most colored when pitched against a white background, and how this lends to the racial discomfort and stress felt by the African-American community. Her most important point to me, however, is about the right they have to be angry and frustrated by such a situation. Too often a slip of anger is interpreted, as she puts it, as “bad sportsmanship.” The default expectation is of grace and contented retention of composure, but such a euphemized presumption is not what this country deserves nor needs.