Claudia Rankine's National Book Critics Circle award-winning book of poetry and criticism, Citizen: An American Lyric confronts the myriad ways racism preys upon the black psyche. In this memory, a secondary memory is evoked, but this time it is the author's memory. Definitions and examples of 136 literary terms and devices. Rankine wants us to look and pay attention to the background of the text, the landscape where these everyday moments of erasure occur. Even the paper that the text is printed on speaks to the political nature of Rankines form, for the acid free, 80# matte coated paper (Rankine 174), which looks and feels expensive, holds within it so much Black pain and trauma. 38, no. Citizen: An American Lyric. The erasure of Black people is a theme that is referenced throughout Citizen.Rankine describes this erasure of self as systemic, as ordinary (32). Rankine, Claudia. claudia rankine is oxygen to a world under water. "Yes, of course, you say" (20). This reminds the narrator of a medical term "John Henryismfor people exposed to stresses stemming from racism" (16). 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). This metaphor becomes even more complex when analyzing the way Rankine describes the stopping-and-frisking of Black people by the police. In the final sections of the book, the second-person protagonist notices that nobody is willing to sit next to a certain black man on the train, so she takes the seat. At a glance, the interactions seem to be simple misunderstandings - friends mistaken for strangers, frustrations incorrectly categorized as racial, or just honest mistakes. Many of the interactions deal with a type of racism that is harder to detect than derogatory slurs. It's a moment like any other. 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 . Its various realities-'mistaken' identity, social racism, the whole fabric of urban and suburban life-are almost too much to bear, but you bear them, because it's the truth. I feel like Citizen is one of those books everyones read in some portion. The thing is, most people who commit these microaggressions don't realize they are making them yet they have an accumulated effect on the psyche. Cerebral Caverns, 2011. Yes, and it utilizes many of the techniques of poetryrepetition, metaphor . A hoodie. This structure which seems to keep African-Americans in chains harkens all the way back to the trans-Atlantic slave trade (59), where Black people were subjected to the most dehumanizing of white supremacys injuries, chattel slavery (Javadizadeh 487). (That part surprised me.) C laudia Rankine's book may or may not be poetry - the question becomes insignificant as one reads on. While Rankine did not create these photos, the inclusion of them in her work highlights the way that her creation of her own poetic structure works with the content. . Courtesy of John Lucas. 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. The woman grabs his arm and tells him to apologize. She says the things that we have all said and describes situations we have all been in. 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. Javadizadeh, Kamran. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform and stay alive. The fact that only the hood of the hoodie exists, with the seam rips still evident and the strings still hanging, alludes to the historical lynching of Black people in America, which has erased and dismembered the black body. "Those years of and before me and my brothers, the years of passage, plantation, migration, of Jim Crow segregation, of poverty, inner cities, profiling, of one in three, two jobs, boy, hey boy, each a felony, accumulate into the hours inside our lives where we are all caught hanging, the rope inside us, the tree inside us, its roots our limbs, a throat sliced through and when we open our mouth to speak, blossoms, o blossoms, no place coming out, brother, dear brother, that kind of blue. Predictably, my finger hovers over sections that are more like prose than poetry ( that bit on Serena was a highlight). Refine any search. The celebrated poet and playwright is preparing to deliver a three-part lecture series at the University of Chicago during a pivotal moment: Russia has invaded Ukraine; the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage the world; and the United States, she said, still teeters between fascism and fragile notions of democracy. Ominously, it got rave reviews from Hilton Als - whose recent memoir gave me similar migraines. Claudia Rankine's acclaimed 2014 poetry book "Citizen" was a potent and incisive meditation on race. She teaches at Yale and is also the founder of The Racial Imaginary Institute. Each word is a lyrical tribute to Black Americans and all that isn't shouted out on a daily basis. Teachers and parents! Unsurprisingly, the protagonist is right. 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). So much racism is unconscious and springs from imagined . It's the best note in the wrong song that is America. InCitizen, Rankine does more than illustrate the erasure and lynching of Black people, for the image of a deer is also used as a metaphor to symbolize the dehumanization of Black people in America. Caught in these moments of racism, the Black subject is forced to ruminate on these microaggressions, processing how they have become reduced to that of an animal. PDF downloads of all 1699 LitCharts literature guides, and of every new one we publish. Instant PDF downloads. "The rain this mourning pours from the gutters and everywhere else it is lost in the trees. 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. 8389., doi:10.17077/0021-065x.6414. 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. It was a lesson., Instant downloads of all 1699 LitChart PDFs Recounting several of Williamss outburst[s] in response to this unfairness, Rankine shows that responding to racism with angerwhich understandably arises in such situationsoften only makes matters worse, as is the case for Williams when shes fined $82,500 for speaking out against a line judge who makes a blatantly biased call against her. Amid historic times, Claudia Rankine feels a deep sense of obligation. In her book-length poem "Citizen," from 2014, the writer Claudia Rankine probed some of the nuances and contradictions of being a Black American.Her focus fell on what it means to be erased . You are in Catholic school and a girl who you can't remember is looking over your shoulder as you take a test. 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. 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 challenges this norm in more than one way. The next situation video that Rankine presents is about the 2006 soccer World Cup, when Zinedine Zidane headbutted Marco Materazzi, who verbally provoked him. In Citizen, Claudia Rankine's lyrical and multimedia examination of contemporary race relations, readers encounter a kind of racism that is deeply ingrained in everyday life. The artwork which is featured on the coverDavid Hammons In the Hood depicts a black hood floating in a white space. More books than SparkNotes. (84-85); Did you see their faces? (86). Detailed quotes explanations with page numbers for every important quote on the site. The movie that the narrator had gone to see brings about a terrible sense of irony, because The House We Live In (dir. Rankines small book of essays tells us the myriad ways we consistently misinterpret others motives, actions, language. At another event, the protagonist listens to the philosopher Judith Butler speak about why language is capable of hurting people. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine. They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!, This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. Her gripping accounts of racism, through prose and poetry, moved me deeply. The work incorporates lyric essay, prose poem, verse poem, and image in its exploration of the ways in which racism can affect identity. I highly recommend the audio version. What is even more striking about the image is that each photograph looks like both a school photo and a mug shot. Trump is of course unapologetically and infamously racist against various races (and religions, women, and so on), so the woman behind Trump uses the opportunity to read this anti-racist book, knowing it will get national coverage; we see the title, we check it out: Powerful political commentary. You raise your lids. Unable to let herself show anger, she suffers in private. PDF downloads of all 1699 LitCharts literature guides, and of every new one we publish. 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. 1, 2018, pp. The sections study different incidents in American culture and also includes a bit about France (black, blanc beurre). Rankine stresses the importance of remembering because forgetting is part of the erasure. With rightful anger and sadness Claudia Rankine details the racism she has experienced in the United States, as well as the racism that surrounds popular black people in the media like Serena Williams, Barack Obama, and Trayvon Martin and James Craig Anderson. When she objects to his use of this word, he acts like its not a big deal. (including. The door is locked so you go to the front door where you are met with a fierce shout. Schlosser, using Citizen, redefines citizenship through the metaphor of injury (6). He is, the neighbor says, talking to himself. Suduiko, Aaron ed. Between the World and Me. One World, 2015. 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. Hoping he was well-intentioned, the woman answered . I pray it is not timely fifty years from now. We categorize such moments just as we categorize the incongruous things that people say and who said them. As Michelle Alexander writes in. Complete your free account to access notes and highlights. Rankine also points out instances where underlying racism hurts more than flat out racist remarks. 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. Whether Rankine is talking about tennis or going out to dinner, or spinning words until youre not sure which direction youre facing, there is strength, anger, and a call for white readers like myself to see whats in front of us and do better, be better. Rankine does a brilliant job taking an in-depth look at life being black. ISBN 978-1-55597-690-3 Format Paperback She repeats this again when she says, youre not sick, not crazy / not angry, not sad / Its just this, youre injured (145). 475490., doi:10.1632/pmla.2019.134.3.475. 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. Microaggressions exist within and without black communities, among people of color and people of privilege. Courtesy of Radcliffe Bailey and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Jamaican-born author Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, two plays, and numerous video collaborations. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Figure 1. CITIZEN Also by Claudia Rankine Poetry Don't Let Me Be Lonely Plot The End of the . Memories are told through a second-person point of view, inviting the reader to experience them firsthand instead of at a distance. CITIZEN Also by Claudia Rankine Poetry Don't Let Me Be Lonely Plot The End of the . From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Nor are the higher echelons of the academic and literary worlds any insulation against such behavior. Brilliant, deeply troubling, beautiful. Discover Claudia Rankine famous and rare quotes. For Serena, the daily diminishment is a low flame, a . Complete your free account to access notes and highlights. 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. The Question and Answer section for Citizen: An American Lyric is a great "Citizen: An American Lyric", p.124, Macmillan . The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of. By utilizing form, visual imagery, and poetry, Rankine enables us to see the systemic oppression of Black people by the state. The route is . Claudia Rankine (2014). Here, the form and figuration of the text, which emphasizes white space, works to illustrate this key theme of erasure through visual metaphor. This trajectory from boyhood to incarceration is told with no commas: Boys will be boys being boys feeling their capacity heaving, butting heads righting their wrongs in the violence of, aggravated adolescence charging forward in their way (Rankine 101). Claudia Rankine uses poetry to correlate directly to accounts of racism making Citizen a profound experience to read. A relevant question might be, talented . Where have they gone? (66). This consideration of numbness continues into the concluding section, entitled July 13, 2013the day Trayvon Martins killer was acquitted. At Like in Sections IV and III, Rankine puts special focus on the body and its potentials to be made known. 52, no. Best to drive through the moment instead of dwelling on it. You can't put the past behind 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. 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. Perhaps this dissociation, seen in the literariness of Rankines poetics and use of you, speaks to the kind of erasure of self that happens when you experience racism every day. She's published several collections of poetry and also plays. Short on words, but every one counts and rings with purpose. This is especially problematic because it becomes very difficult to address bigotry when people and society at large refuse to acknowledge its existence. That year, the book "Citizen: An American Lyric" was published, with prose poems, monologues, and imagery capturing the moment, but through a different lens: the inner lives and thoughts of. In particular, she considers the effect anger has on an individual, illustrating the frustrating conundrum many people of color experience when they encounter small instances of bigotry (often called microaggressions) and are expected to simply let these things go. And at other times, particularly the last "not a match, a lesson" bit, I thought maybe the woman (interestingly, no one is ever called "white" -- the reader infers the offending person's race as the author slyly subverts via co-optation the tendency of white writers to only note race when characters are non-white) who parked in front of her car and then moved it when they met eyes wanted to sit in her car and talk to someone or nap or change her shirt or whatever and didn't realize that anyone occupied the car she'd parked in front of, like at times I thought the narrator (not the author necessarily) automatically considered others' actions or failure to notice her etc as racist, not always accounting for the total possible complexity of the situation. It happens in the schools (6), on the subway (17), and in the line at the grocery store (77), where the non-Black teacher, everyday citizen, or cashier looks straight past the Black person. Chan, Mary-Jean. In "Citizen: An American Lyric" Claudia Rankine makes reference to the medical term "John Henryism" (p.13), to explain the palpable stresses of racism. 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. 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. 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. Our, "Sooo much more helpful thanSparkNotes. While reading Citizen, people may interpret Rankine's use of different pronouns as a . 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. High-grade paper, a unique/large sans-serif font, and significant images. All day blue burrows the atmosphere. Rankines clear emphasis on form here enables us to not just see, but feel the inevitability and anxiety that is conveyed in the content. By Parul Sehgal, Bookforum, Dec/Jan 2015. Read the Study Guide for Citizen: An American Lyric, Considering Schiller and Arnold Through Claudia Rankines Citizen, Poetry, Politcs, and Personal Reflection: Redefining the Lyric in Claudia Rankine's Citizen, Ethnicity's Impact on Literary Experimentation, Citizen: A Discourse on our Post-Racial Society, View our essays for Citizen: An American Lyric, Introduction to Citizen: An American Lyric, View the lesson plan for Citizen: An American Lyric, View Wikipedia Entries for Citizen: An American Lyric. Rankine writes, [T]he first person [is] a symbol for something. At this point, Citizen becomes more abstract and poetic, as Rankine writes scripts for situation video[s] she has made in collaboration with her partner, John Lucas, who is a visual artist. Claudia Rankine, (born January 1, 1963, Kingston, Jamaica), Jamaican-born American poet, playwright, educator, and multimedia artist whose work often reflected a moral vision that deplored racism and perpetuated the call for social justice. The childhood memories are particularly interesting because they give the reader a sense of otherness right from the start. The picture of a deer first appears in Kate Clarks Little Girl (Rankine, 19), a sculpture that grafts the modeled human face of a young girl onto the soft, brown, taxidermied body of an infant caribou (Skillman 428). It was a thing hunted and the hunting continues on a certain level (Skillman 429). This was quite an emotional read for me, the instances of racial aggressions that were illustrated in this book being unfortunately all too familiar. Rankine will answer . 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. The rain begins to fall. resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss thenovel. I think this is probably excellent and I enjoyed most of it but my caveat needs to be I am inept at appreciating poetry. Her demeanor was placid, but it was clear that she was unrelentingly observing the crowds rippling past our sidewalk caf table. In this moment, the protagonist realizes that being black in a white-dominated world doesnt make her feel invisible, but hypervisible. This, in turn, accords with the author Zora Neale Hurstons line that she feels most colored when shes thrown against a sharp white background. These thoughts, however, dont ease the painthe persistent headachethat the protagonist feels on a daily basis because of the racist way people treat her. The voice is a symbol for the self. 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. The world says stop that. Teachers and parents! Their citizenship which took many centuries to gain does not protect them from these hardships. 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). is so apt, especially for those of us living in multicultural environments. No, this is just a friend of yours, you explain to your neighbor, but it's too late. 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. Below are questions to help guide your discussions as you read the book over the next month. 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. ", After reading Citizen, its hard not to hear Rankines voice as I ride the subway, walk around NYC, or even pick up other books. Coates refers to these two institutions as arms of the same beastfear and violence were the weaponry of both (33). There is, in other words, no way of avoiding the initial pain. The structure, which breaks up the poetics with white space and visual imagery, uses space and mixed media to convey these themes. Flat out racist remarks of black people by the police the metaphor of injury ( ). He first person [ is ] a symbol for something black in a white-dominated doesnt. Racism is unconscious and springs from imagined racism is unconscious and springs from imagined III, Rankine enables us look! Over the bodies of the interactions deal with a fierce shout finger hovers over sections that more!, a secondary memory is evoked, but every one counts and rings with purpose historic times Claudia. 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