Claudia Rankine tells the story with the powerful second person: "you". "You" can be anyone. You can be from the South, the Midwest, or New England; you can be a real estate owning millionaire, a new member of the middle class who is still invested in the bubbles of the suburb, or a homeless person on the city streets. It doesn't matter who you are, where you are from, what class you belong, or anything: If you are of African descent and identify as an African American, you will understand the anguish and anger the book attempts to express. It is a universal experience.
Rankine even uses the example of a black artist, Jayson Musson, who attempts to spread the "angry nigger exterior". White America has taken African Americans the right to be angry for a long time. By spreading messages of black inferiority, White America forced African Americans to question or relinquish their race pride. W.E.B. Dubois described it as the creation of "double consciousness", an internal conflict of fragmented identities. The resulting belief in racial uplifting and respectability politics silenced the African Americans since. White America even created the image of Asian model minority to further categorize blacks as "loud", ill-mannered, and demanding.
But African Americans today are resisting and fighting against it. Black Lives Matter movement does not shy away from stereotyped behaviors for a respectable campaign. Instead, it provides African Americans a way to channel their anger. Let's not, however, turn the anger into hatred and spites. Instead, turn the anger into a tool to fight against oppression. #Resist
Rankine even uses the example of a black artist, Jayson Musson, who attempts to spread the "angry nigger exterior". White America has taken African Americans the right to be angry for a long time. By spreading messages of black inferiority, White America forced African Americans to question or relinquish their race pride. W.E.B. Dubois described it as the creation of "double consciousness", an internal conflict of fragmented identities. The resulting belief in racial uplifting and respectability politics silenced the African Americans since. White America even created the image of Asian model minority to further categorize blacks as "loud", ill-mannered, and demanding.
But African Americans today are resisting and fighting against it. Black Lives Matter movement does not shy away from stereotyped behaviors for a respectable campaign. Instead, it provides African Americans a way to channel their anger. Let's not, however, turn the anger into hatred and spites. Instead, turn the anger into a tool to fight against oppression. #Resist