Citizen: An American Lyric
Claudia Rankine's bold book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named "post-race" society.
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Community Reviews
This was a hard book for me to read. It made me face truths about my world view that are painful. But this book is not about me. It is about ignorance and racism and responsibility and admitting that the problem is ours, all of ours. We need to get over our white, privileged, over-sensitivity, and own our place in the conversation. It will be hard but it is long overdue. Read this book and truly own the author's "you".
This was required reading for school. It was a quick, interesting book that makes you think. Have I been in one of these situations? Have I done anything like this and made someone else uncomfortable? How can I be a part of making these things better?
I recommend that everyone read this book. It's definitely worth the time.
I recommend that everyone read this book. It's definitely worth the time.
Provocative truly exemplifies this set of essays on race. They will provide me with food for thought for a long time.
I almost gave this book 4 stars (or 4.5 stars) because it is a difficult book to read. It's painful. I had to go slower than I wanted to go to really take it in. I felt dejected. I felt defeated. I felt outside the experience. I felt suffocated inside it. It's really hard to read. When I got to the end, I realized that all my agonizing meant Rankine had done an amazing job as an artist.
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