By using such an expensive paper, Rankine seems to be commenting on the veneer of American democracy, which paints itself white and innocent in comparison to other nations. In keeping with this indication that its difficult to move on from this entrenched kind of racism, Rankine includes a picture called Jim Crow Rd. by the photographer Michael David Murphy. 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. 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. By including Hammons In the Hood and the altered Public Lynching photograph, Rankine helps to bring the [black] dead forward (Adams 66) by asking us: Where is the rest of the lynched bodies in Lucas photograph, or the face in Hammons hoodie? The natural response to injustice is anger, but Rankine illustrates that this response isnt always viable for people of color, since letting frustration show often invites even more mistreatment. Their citizenship which took many centuries to gain does not protect them from these hardships. Gang-bangers. Rankines visual metaphor and allusions to modern-day enslavement is repeated in John Lucas Male II & I(Rankine 96-97), which also frames Black and white subjects and objects in wooden frames (Figure 5). Three years later, Serena Williams wins two gold medals at the 2012 Olympic Games, and when she celebrates by doing a three-second dance on the tennis court, commentators call her immature and classless for Crip-Walking all over the most lily-white place in the world.. Rankine stays with the unnamed protagonist, who in response to racist comments constantly asks herself things like, What did he just say? and Did I hear what I think I heard? The problem, she realizes, is that racism is hard to cope with because before people of color can process instances of bigotry, they have to experience them. Her repetition of this question beckons us to ask ourselves these questions, and the way the question transitions from a focus on the lingering impact of the event (haveyou seen their faces) to a question of historicity (didyou see their faces) emphasizes the ways these black bodies disappear from life (presence) to death (absence). In Claudia Rankines, Citizen: An American Lyric, she explores racism in a unique way. Its dark light dims in degrees depending on the density of clouds and you fall back into that which gets reconstructed as metaphor. This reminds you of a conversation contrasting the pros and cons of sentences beginning with yes, and or yes, but. This imagery speaks specifically to the erasure of Trayvon Martin (Adams 59, Coates 130), while also highlighting the other disappearances of Black people. Continuing to detail the experiences of this unnamed protagonist, Rankine narrates an instance later in the young womans life, when her friend frequently calls her by the name of her own housekeeper. The highly formalised and constructed aesthetic of Rankines work is purposeful, for the almost heightened awareness of the form draws our attention to the function of form and the constructed nature of racism. The text becomes a metaphor for the way racism in America (content) is embedded in the existing social structures of systemic racism (form). The door is locked so you go to the front door where you are met with a fierce shout. Your neighbor has already called the police. My students love how organized the handouts are and enjoy tracking the themes as a class., Requesting a new guide requires a free LitCharts account. To see the fascinating ways she conceives and evolves her projects is one of the great experiences of my life as an editor. Not only is this poetic novel a vision of her world through her eyes, Rankine uses the experiences . Hearing this, the protagonist wonders why her friend feels comfortable saying this to her, but she doesnt object. All day blue burrows the atmosphere. "Citizen: An American Lyric", p.124, Macmillan . 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. (including. 1, 2018, pp. Essays for Citizen: An American Lyric. You see Venus move in and put the gorilla effect on. As a woman of color, I am always concerned about bringing a raced text into a classroom, especially at universities that are less diverse. A picture appears on the next page interrupting Rankine's poem, something that the reader will get used to as the text progresses. 134, no. On a plane, a woman and her daughter are reluctant to sit next to you in the row. She's published several collections of poetry and also plays. Claudia Rankine is an American poet and playwright born in 1963 and raised in Kingston, Jamaica and New York City. 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). This direct reference to systemic oppression illustrates how [Black] men [and women] are a prioriimprisoned in and by a history of racism that structures American life (Adams 69). Referring to Serena Williams, Rankine states, Yes, and the body has memory. Sometimes you sigh. At a glance, the interactions seem to be simple misunderstandings - friends mistaken for strangers, frustrations incorrectly categorized as racial, or just honest mistakes. Find related themes, quotes, symbols, characters, and more. At Like in Sections IV and III, Rankine puts special focus on the body and its potentials to be made known. Citizen: An American Lyric is the book she was reading. Rankine challenges this norm in more than one way. Citizen is definitely a must read for everyone, especially if one day we hope to annihilate racism all together. Here, the form and figuration of the text, which emphasizes white space, works to illustrate this key theme of erasure through visual metaphor. Each word is a lyrical tribute to Black Americans and all that isn't shouted out on a daily basis. 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. featured health poetry Post navigation. When he says this, the protagonist realizes that the humorist has effectively excluded her from the rest of the audience by exclusively addressing the white people in the crowd, focusing only on their perspective while failing to recognize (or care about) how racist his remark really is. PDFs of modern translations of every Shakespeare play and poem. The question itself responds to an incident at the 2004 U.S. Open, during which, Williams loses her temper after a Rankine switches between several speakers, although the reader may not be informed of these switches at all. Instant PDF downloads. 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. 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. It wasnt a match, she replies. The heads in Cerebral Caverns become a visual metaphor for Rankines poetry, connecting the slavery of the past to modern-day incarceration. 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. Javadizadeh, Kamran. African-Americans are still experiencing hardships every day that stem from slavery such as racial profiling, and stereotyping. This decision to use second-person also draws attention to the second-class status of black citizens in the US (Adams 58), or blackness as the second person (Sharma). Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. He says he will call wherever he wants. Sister Evelyn does not know about this cheating arrangement. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Rankine, Claudia. The inescapability of their social condition and positioning, of their erasure and vulnerability, is also emphasized in Rankines highly stylised poem about the Jena Six (98-103). Even though it will be obvious that the girl behind her is cheating, the protagonist obliges by leaning over, wondering all the while why her teacher hasnt noticed. At another event, the protagonist listens to the philosopher Judith Butler speak about why language is capable of hurting people. Still, the interaction leaves her with a dull headache and wishing she didnt have to pretend that this sort of behavior is acceptable. Charging. What did she just do? However, Rankin explores this idea of citizenship through alienation. What is most striking about the visual image is the omission of a human subject. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, the winner of the . Citizen: An American Lyric essays are academic essays for citation. In the beginning of this poem, Rankine asks you to recall a time when you felt absolutely nothing. You are in Catholic school and a girl who you can't remember is looking over your shoulder as you take a test. These two different examples illustrate various scales of erasure. Nor are the higher echelons of the academic and literary worlds any insulation against such behavior. Rankines use of form goes beyond informing the contentthe form is also political. This parallel between erasure and lynching can be seen more clearly when we look at Hulton Archives Public Lynchingphotograph, whose image had been altered by John Lucas (Rankine, 91) (Figure 1). Our, "Sooo much more helpful thanSparkNotes. [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. The way the content is organized, LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in. Words can enter the day like "a bad egg in your mouth and puke runs down your blouse" (15). It is no longer a black subject, or black object (93)it has been rendered road-kill. The picture is of a well-manicured suburban neighborhood with sizable houses in the background. Rankine describes these everyday events of erasure in small blocks of black text, each on its own white page. You raise your lids. In the image (Figure 2), the deers body looks distortedits legs are oddly bent, its fourth leg is obscured, and one of its legs is cut off by the margin of the page. Figure 5. The narrator contemplates why this person feels comfortable saying this in front of her. This erasure (Rankine 11, 24, 32, 49, 142) or invisibility (43, 70-72, 82-84) of Black people is also illuminated in the use of second-person pronouns, which displaces the Ithe individualand replaces it with a youa subject. Black Blue Boy, 1997.Courtesy of Carrie Mae Weems. The protagonist is reacting to an encounter with "the wrong words" as one would to the taste of "a bad egg.". 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. In context, the author is referring to the weight of memory, the racial insults, the slights, and the mistreatment by other players. Read it all in one flow. By my middling review, I definitely dont mean to take away anything from. -Graham S. Would not have made it through AP Literature without the printable PDFs. She envisioned her craft as a means to create something vivid, intimate, and transparent. The childhood memories are particularly interesting because they give the reader a sense of otherness right from the start. Predictably, my finger hovers over sections that are more like prose than poetry ( that bit on Serena was a highlight). Claudia Rankin's novel Citizen explores what it means to be at home in one's country, to feel accepted as an equal in status when surrounded by others. You are forced to separate yourself from your body. 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). He is, the neighbor says, talking to himself. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. The repetition of the same image highlights the racial profiling of Black men: And you are not the guy and still you fit the description because there is only one guy who is always the guy fitting the description (Rankine 105, 106, 108, 109). Another stop that. Between the World and Me. One World, 2015. Citizen is comprised of multiple different artforms, including essayistic vignettes, poems, photographs, and other renderings of visual art. Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including "Citizen: An American Lyric" and "Don't Let Me Be Lonely"; two plays including "The White Card," which premiered in February 2018 (ArtsEmerson and American Repertory Theater) and will be published with Graywolf Press in 2019, and "Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue"; as Suddenly you smell good again, like in Catholic school. Claudia Rankine is the author of Citizen: An American Lyric and four previous books, including Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes. This book is necessary and timely. 9 likes. Chan, Mary-Jean. Jenn Northington. The physical carriage hauls more than its weight. How do sports in particular encourage spectators and officials to assume influence or even ownership over the bodies of. The dominance of white space in the text (Rankine 3, 12, 21-22, 45, 47, 59, 81-82, 93, 108, 125, 133, 148-149) illuminates how this erasure of the black body takes place in white spaceswhere the environment is white or dominated by whiteness. 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. Rankine narrates another handful of uncomfortable instances in which the unnamed protagonist is forced to quietly endure racism. Eventually, the friend stops calling the protagonist by the wrong name, but the protagonist doesnt forget this. For Serena, the daily diminishment is a low flame, a . The erasure of Black people is a theme that is referenced throughout Citizen.Rankine describes this erasure of self as systemic, as ordinary (32). Coates refers to these two institutions as arms of the same beastfear and violence were the weaponry of both (33). Moaning elicits laughter, sighing upsets. ", After reading Citizen, its hard not to hear Rankines voice as I ride the subway, walk around NYC, or even pick up other books. Yes, and leads to a narrow pathway with no forks in the road. Listened as part of the Diverse Spines Reading Challenge. 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). Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of . While she highlights a vast number of stories that illustrate the hate crimes that have occurred in the United States during the 21st century, the James Craig Anderson case is prevalent because his heartbreaking story is known by few individuals throughout . Citizen by Claudia Rankine is an exceptional book which is much deserving of all the awards it has won. 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. Page forty-one describes an incident about a friend rushing to meet with another friend in the "distant neighborhood of Santa Monica . She teaches at Yale and is also the founder of The Racial Imaginary Institute. In the book Citizen, Claudia Rankine speaks on these particular subjects of stereotyping deeply. 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). It just often makes that friendship painful. You exhaust yourself looking into the blue light. Clearly - from the blurb and the plaudits - this is an 'important work' - and my failure to 'get it' is a failure to police my mind (or something). Claudia Rankine uses poetry to correlate directly to accounts of racism making Citizen a profound experience to read. The mess is collecting within Rankine's unnamed citizen even as her body rejects it. The use of such high quality paper could also be read in a different way, one that emphasizes the importance of Black literary and artistic contribution through form, as the expensive pages contain the art of so many racialized artists. In addition to questioning unmarked whiteness, Claudia Rankine's Citizen contains all the hallmarks of experimental writing: borrowed text, multiple or fractured voices, constraint-based systems of creation, ekphrastic cataloging, and acute engagement with visual art. It's the best note in the wrong song that is America. It's an image that lingers in your mind because it is so powerful and emotionally evocative. A group of men stand in solidarity behind the woman as she solicits his apology. The route is often . Its rare to come across art, least of all poetry, that so obviously will endure the passing of time and be considered over and over, by many. Complete your free account to access notes and highlights. The physiological costs are high. Find related themes, quotes, symbols, characters, and more. C laudia Rankine's book may or may not be poetry - the question becomes insignificant as one reads on. The erratum to the chapter is available at 10.1007/978-3-319-49085-4_14. Creating notes and highlights requires a free LitCharts account. A friend called you by the name of her black housekeeper several times. Some of them, though, arent actually all that micro. Skillman, Nikki. Rankine repeats: flashes, a siren, the stretched-out-roar (105, 106, 107) three times. Although the man doesnt turn to look at her, she feels connected to him, understanding that its sometimes necessary to numb oneself to the many microaggressions and injustices hurled at black people. Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including "Citizen: An American Lyric" and "Don't Let Me Be Lonely"; two plays including "The White Card," which premiered in February 2018 (ArtsEmerson and American Repertory Theater) and will be published with Graywolf Press in 2019, and "Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue"; as You'll also get updates on new titles we publish and the ability to save highlights and notes. By doing so, he accounts for the ways microaggression pushes minorities down, and often precludes the opportunity for a response. No, this is just a friend of yours, you explain to your neighbor, but it's too late. After a tense pause, he tells her that he can take his calls wherever he wants, and the protagonist is instantly embarrassed for telling him otherwise. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine. the exam room speaking aloud in all of its blatant metaphorsthe huge clock above where my patients sit implacably measuring lifetimes; the space itself narrow and compressed as a sonnetand immediately I'm back to thinking . When you get back, apologies are exchanged and you tell your friend to use the backyard next time he needs to make a phone call. Rivetingly worth it for the Serena Williams section and the slices of life in the first half that so effectively/efficiently dramatize overt and less obvious instances of racism. How do sports in particular encourage spectators and officials to assume influence or even ownership over the bodies.. 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