Analysis Of Claudia Rankine's Citizen : An American Lyric

Citizen, written by Claudia Rankine in 2014, narrates testimonies of systematic racism and every day micro aggressions through poems, essays, scripts and images. Rankine documents the racist encounters through the second person point of view for the reader to feel and understand the effects racism has on the body and mind. This paper will examine hypervisibility and invisibility of the black body embedded in the novel because of decades of racism. Rankine emphasizes the sensory emotions and feelings of the black body as a response to America’s reluctance to recognize and empathize with black men and women.

Claudia Rankine’s Citizen contains a number of intricate images usually following a story within a section of the lyric. Using the context of the story, one is able to perceive his or her own meaning for why the image was included. The images provoke thought and emotion in many different ways. While an image may seem sad to some, others may decipher a positive or progressive view of their own. The true beauty of these images alongside their text is that they will bring forth a unique response from each and every reader.

In Citizen: An American Lyric written by Claudia Rankine, there is a passage where a man is stopped because he fits the description of a “criminal”. The speaker faces immense trauma just trying to relay to the officer that he is not the perpetrator they are looking for. In fact he is just another person trying to get home from a long day at the office. The officers refuse to listen which angers the victim and causes him to curse at the officer saying, “Go ahead hit me motherfucker.” (Rankine 107) While the victim could not have been held for the original reason, he was now charged with speeding. The victim was then taken down to the station on new charges. After being wrongfully targeted, held, fingerprinted, and stripped, he was finally let

The poem America by Claude McKay is on its surface a poem combining what America should be and what this country stands for, with what it actually is, and the attitude it projects amongst the people. Mckay uses the form of poetry to express how he, as a Jamaican immigrant, feels about America. He characterizes the bittersweet relationship between striving for the American dream, and being denied that dream due to racism. While the America we are meant to see is a beautiful land of opportunity, McKay see’s as an ugly, flawed, system that crushes the hopes and dreams of the African-American people.

By concentrating on an ethological approach, Dickerson also makes her family disconnect from stereotypes. In first person point of view, she is able to describe her situation through her knowledge and background. For example, Dickerson describes Johnny with a settled and calm tone of voice. She writes, “Johnny speaks little, never cries, never complains, works diligently to become independent” (225). Because he is black, most people would associate Johnny with violence and gangs. In Black Men and Public Space by Brent Staples, a black men strolling down the avenue was assumed to be a criminal. The color of his skin, in correlation to his environment, evoked a sense of danger. However, through an educated voice, Johnny is not that dangerous black kid who got shot. Johnny is a sensitive victim of an unfortunate shooting. It is very easy to label an individual according to racial status. For this reason, Dickerson is required to inform the reader of elements that do not support these stereotypes. The disconnection from stereotypes satisfies her objection, and broadens the perspective of society.

Even in modern society, the simplest of things can shift the delicate atmosphere. A black man entering a room, or any space, full of white people, can automatically transform the ambiance. This ‘ability’ may not be a desired effect, but in certain situations, it becomes inevitable. Through the use of different rhetorical devices, Brent Staples is able to demonstrate his realization of his “ability to alter public space in ugly ways” simply because of his race and stature in his essay, “Black Men and Public Space.” Staples uses the rhetorical techniques ethos, logos, and pathos in order to get on the “same side” as the reader while still presenting the essence of his argument. The author is able to sympathize with his “victims” and justify their feelings, appealing to ethos. He also analogies and details about his background, such as his doctorate in psychology, and the fact that he was a reporter to appeal to logos. Additionally, by using vivid imagery and creative diction, he engages the reader by use of pathos, evoking the emotions of the reader. With the use of rhetorical devices, Staples is able to effectively describe his experiences of being perceived as a criminal, solely based on his “unwieldy inheritance” (205), while, additionally, extending this concept to be true throughout society.

This book tackled many situations that people of color face on an everyday basis. For example, in one situation Coates and his son were faced with mistreatment. A white lady pushed Coates son, rushing him to hurry up, in an act of showing who was boss, the author tells how he became upset with the situation. What ended up happening was that because of the way Coates defended his child people began to scream at him and threaten to call the police for his behaviors. He states that he faced a state of shock, he was unaware, how cruel people could be and how much power white people attained. (94) This example shows how people misjudge a person of color it doesn’t matter if they did something right, they are being called out just by the pigment of their skin. It goes to show that the statement Coates said was true “not being violent enough could me my body. Being too violent could cost me my body.” (28) Either way one may look at a situation, for a person of color, it can go bad and seeing through the eyes of this author we become aware that social racism still exists in today’s

readers feel the same joy. One of her readers by the name of Claudia Rankine writes on an

Citizen is a narrative written to connect with the reader by telling stories in the second person . In the novel, “Citizen”, Claudia Rankine uses short stories and personal experiences to encapsulate the struggle that African American people endure when they are thrown against a sharp white background .

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine is a lengthy poetic attempt at exposing the competing consciousness pertaining to race and racism in society, pitting the historical person against the individual. Set side by side with The Souls of Black Folks and This Land is Your Land by Woodie Guthrie, Citizen takes on a very distinct impression of separate identities competing in one person.

Citizen is formatted into various stanzas and sentences, in some case the stanzas are just one line. Claudia Rankine uses various literary elements to throughout the lyrics. However, the narrator/point of view is the one that changes constantly being male, female, black or white. Rankine’s most impactful point of view is when she uses second person, making the reader the speaker, thus creating impactful events. The tone of the lyric is tireless, this is expressed through the countless incidents mentioned that resulted without change. Unlike most lyrics Rankine’s work is filled with images some are direct but others are more complex, yet all are representative of discrimination against the black community.

Citizen, is a book by the author Claudia Rankine, who was born in Jamaica, and then immigrated to the US at a young age. After seemingly absorbing and understanding the culture of America, she writes the book Citizen, to not only define violence, but as a voice to black individuals on the racism and violence they face daily. The book does a very good job of putting the reader in the shoes of a black individual in America, without not making it believable. The book has its own style, which is used to show the violence that blacks face daily. This book was the perfect addition to the course in the sense it unwittingly attempts to answer the question, “How does it feel to be a problem?”.

Poetry has a role in society, not only to serve as part of the aesthetics or of the arts. It also gives us a view of what the society is in the context of when it was written and what the author is trying to express through words. The words as a tool in poetry may seem ordinary when used in ordinary circumstance. Yet, these words can hold more emotion and thought, however brief it was presented.

Citizen, written by Claudia Rankine in 2014, narrates testimonies of systematic racism and every day micro aggressions through poems, essays, scripts and images. Rankine documents the racist encounters through the second person point of view for the reader to feel and understand the effects racism has on the body and mind. This paper will examine hypervisibility and invisibility of the black body embedded in the novel because of decades of racism. Rankine emphasizes the sensory emotions and feelings of the black body as a response to America’s reluctance to recognize and empathize with black men and women.

Claudia Rankine’s Citizen An American Lyric is a poetic novel that reveals many types of microaggressions that occur in our everyday lives in a very intriguing way. Rankine does a wonderful job throughout the novel to demonstrate many events in which racism and gender stereotypes occur in our everyday lives. However she does not say how we can fix these problems, that is left up to the readers to decide what to do with this lesson that she has given us. One microaggression that Rankine talks about that seems particularly problematic is when we see the idea of black invisibility taking place, “he walks in front of you and puts his things on the counter.