Language serves as a tool that can either bring people together or tear them apart. It consists of what a person says and how they say it, as well as the dialect that each person speaks in. Claudia Rankine argues that a person’s skin color is still the core issue that lies within racism, and while she references Frantz Fanon within her lyric, Fanon discusses how it is language that’s actually the main problem that stems from racism. First hand accounts of racial tension open Citizen, allowing the reader to figure out where they belong within a situation of oppression. Rankine discusses in a LA Times article that this was no accident, she wants to have the reader place themselves in the situation and see how they perceive the world. She questions, …show more content…
Rankine wants people to see race and to take note of it throughout life. Zidane was seen as doing more harm by head-butting Materazzi than Materazzi did when he called Zidane a “big Algerian shit, dirty terrorist, nigger.” Hundreds of articles were written after the incidence, but most of them revolved around the fact that Zidane responded with violence. People would have much rather had Zidane taken the racist remark instead of showing that violence is the best solution to any problem. Rankine combines personal accounts with the script from the altercation, as well as quoting other authors to discuss how it is not okay to just let racial slurs go by, but people are still expecting others to ignore the lack of progression society has made regarding racial acceptance. She quotes Fanon with “when such things happen, he must grit his teeth, walk away a few steps, allude the passerby who draws attention to him, who gives other passersby the desire wither to follow the example of to come to his defense,” illustrating the usual response that people have with racist remarks. …show more content…
We think “did that just come out of my mouth, his mouth, your mouth?” when a racist comment is made; racism is “buried in you,” for it is in my past, your past, everyone’s past. This is a language different from the one that Fanon speaks of, which is one that can equate a black man to a white man. Fanon argues that it is language that causes oppression, and that “the one who expresses himself well, who has mastered the language, is inordinately feared...he is almost white.” Here Fanon says that it’s not the color of your skin that causes oppression but the language you speak. He states that “it must be understood that the Negro want to speak French because it is the key that can open doors which were still barred to him fifty years ago,” claiming that it’s the language that allows a black man to advance in life. Rankine does not agree with Fanon in the sense that it is language at the root of racism, for she show accounts of everyday life that result in oppression based on a person’s skin color, not what they say or how they say it. The opening story is of a little girl of color and a little white girl in middle school, where the white girl asks the girl of color if she can cheat off of her during exams; the white girl compliments the girl of color by saying she has “features more like
"Mother Tongue" and "How if Feels to be Colored Me", touch upon the issues that are faced everyday among human beings. Human beings struggle throughout their lives to understand who they are. Amy Tan and Zora Hurston do this through language. Their storytelling tells their audience what has made them who they are through the use of metaphors, similies, and ancedotes.
Rankine’s awesome work on World Cup Clip At 2006 World Cup Final, the scenario which shocked the world happened. The French Algerian soccer super star Zidane headbutted Italy’s Marco Materazzi after an offensive comment about racism on him. This incident hit a sensitive nerve of people around the world including the author of KU’s common book Citizen, Claudia Rankine. She spent 10 pages talking about the incident by appropriating language from famous litterateurs like Shakespeare, James Baldwin and Frantz Fanon. Also, she used the word Zidane said himself.
Allison Joseph and Sekou Sundiata are both great writers who engage the world by expressing their struggles through poetry. Both authors write about how people make assumptions because of what they hear and see around them. Their poems discuss the altercations and obstacles they have faced only because of the color of their skin. In the poem “On Being Told I Don’t Speak Like a Black Person,” Joseph incorporates a wide breath of experiences from her point of view. She expresses her strong emotion by using descriptive language which allows us to read with emotion. In “Blink your eyes,” Sundiata shows the intensity of his feelings by using the repetition of phrases and reinforcing the poems irony.
Claudia Rankine analyze racism to its core, bringing to surface that miniscule event are just as problematic as televised one. Her words are beautifully brutal, striking up emotions for anyone that reads it. As readers we are taken through a journey from past to present events of racial incidents experienced by different genders and ages. Above all, Claudia provides a strong indication that racism is far from over.
Racism is a big part of this book. It shows the absurdity of what people thought back then, which is an important lesson. It is important for us to learn what people’s views used to be, and how important it is not to go back to that mindset.
Note: This essay intends to explain the differences in first and third person narratives, highlighting examples within the two stories “Let them call it Jazz” and “A sense of shame”, both of which deal with racism and its subcultures in a first and third person perspective, respectively. The arguments presented are limited to that of first and third person perspectives only.
In his book, Jenson reviews the history of racism in the United States and its evolution into a closeted mentality, which still holds a power over many non-white citizens. It is this subtle power relationship
One common theme throughout the reading is that “…systemic racist attitudes and negative depictions of people of colour by whites persist” (Feagin & Elias, 2013, p. 937). The historical trajectory of research methods are deeply rooted with systemic forms of racism, which is reflected in literature that was published centuries ago and can still be found in current literature today. Some of the articles that were assigned reference opinions and other forms of literature that state that white Americans believe that race and racism are a thing of the past, while others continue
Racism should also be closely examined as it is perceived as the acceptable norm in the society. The book shows that sometimes it may take ridiculous forms such as refusing to serve ice-cream to a Black family or suddenly dismissing a worker after learning that she was Black and not Hispanic. The author portraits the bigotry of the people who blindly follow the norms.
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.
Furthermore, language is one of the most pervasive agents of phenomenological conditioning. To illustrate, Fanon analyzes the language because he argues that it carries and reveals racism in culture. Interestingly, he uses as an example the symbolism of whiteness and blackness in the French culture, which is similar to the English linguistic habits. In addition, Fanon argues that one cannot learn and speak the language of the oppressor, which is racist and carries negative connotations about black people, without subconsciously accepting the cultural meanings embedded in equations of unity with whiteness and malevolence with blackness. In other words, to be white is to be good, and to be black is to be bad. Moreover, language is not only transparency
“Black Skin, White Masks,” by Frantz Fanon is a book that explains the psychology of racism. Fanon studied medicine in France. He specialized in psychiatry. The novel looks at the minds of blacks under white rule, and the effects race has on French society. Throughout the book Fanon discusses his experience with racism in 1950’s France. He discusses many concepts like language barriers, race, dependency complexes, and other controversies between blacks and whites. The book talks of events that were dated in the 1950’s, but these concepts can help us to understand racism in America today.
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.
“To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture,” said Fanon. When it comes to taking on a culture and mastering its proper language, this defines that, in this case, the black man has mastered the French language and has “measured up to the [French] culture.” With these factors in mind, it can be said that in both novels, it is inevitable that the majority of all cultures or families want the best for their future. That being said, if it were not for the colonization and a newly established code of behavior for every race to follow, the cultures who have improved in just a century after the European westernization, expanding the black’s opportunities for equality, and establishing a desire from the new code of behavior to actively participate in improving a
Franz Fanon is one of the many profound voices of black identity during the 1950s. His work in the field of psychology features an unfathomed approach to critical theory, post-colonial studies and Marxism. In Black Skin White Masks, Fanon dives into the Negro psyche through understanding its origin. In studying this, Fanon comes to the argument that the dehumanizing process of colonization renders both Blacks and Whites crazy. In analyzing Africans, specifically, Fanon determines that the “Negro [is] enslaved by his inferiority [and] the white man enslaved by his superiority” and that is why they are both mentally unbalanced. It is this neurotic orientation through which Fanon discusses the process through which Africans become second-class French people. In discussing the Negro neurosis, Fanon begins with this statement: The Negro “becomes whiter as he renounces his blackness.”