metaphors in citizen by claudia rankine

This metaphor becomes even more complex when analyzing the way Rankine describes the stopping-and-frisking of Black people by the police. Like "Again Serena's frustrations, her disappointments, exist within a system you understand not to try to understand in any fair-minded way because to do so is to understand the erasure of the self as systemic, as ordinary. Rankine challenges this norm in more than one way. Look at the cover. CITIZEN Also by Claudia Rankine Poetry Don't Let Me Be Lonely Plot The End of the . Rankine repeats: flashes, a siren, the stretched-out-roar (105, 106, 107) three times. I repeat what Bill Kerwin reminded me of in his review of this book: At a Trump rally, there is a woman sitting behind him reading a book while he speaks. The route is often . 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. Graywolf Press, 2014. Her gripping accounts of racism, through prose and poetry, moved me deeply. Biss, Eula. In response, the protagonist turns the question back around, asking why he doesnt write about it. The text becomes a metaphor for the way racism in America (content) is embedded in the existing social structures of systemic racism (form). We categorize such moments just as we categorize the incongruous things that people say and who said them. Another stop that. Lyric Reading Revisited: Passion, Address, and Form in Citizen. American Literary History, vol. In the photograph, there are no black bodies hanging, just the space where the two black bodies once were (Chan 158). You take to wearing sunglasses inside. Coates, Ta-Nehisi. These structures which imprison Black people are referenced in Rankines poetics and seen in the visual motifs of frames, or cells, referenced in the three photographs of Radcliffe Baileys Cerebral Caverns(Rankine 119), John Lucas Male II & I(96-97), and in Carrie Mae Weems Black Blue Boy (102-103), which frame and imprison the black body: My brothers are notorious. Rankine will answer . Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. 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. Referring to Serena Williams, Rankine states, Yes, and the body has memory. Teaching Citizen by Claudia Rankine is a perfect text for such spaces. Rankine moves on to present situation video[s] commemorating the deaths of a number of black men who were killed because of the color of their skin, including Trayvon Martin and James Craig Anderson. At one point, she attends a reading by a humorist who implies that its common for white people to laugh at racist jokes in private, adding that most people wouldnt laugh at this kind of joke if they were out in public where black people might overhear them. 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. They are black property (Rankine 34), black subjects (70), or black objects (93) who do not own anything, not even themselves (146). 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). In particular, the narrator considers what her own voice sounds like. Eventually, the friend stops calling the protagonist by the wrong name, but the protagonist doesnt forget this. "Yes, of course, you say" (20). Instant PDF downloads. Refine any search. They have not been to prison. 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. It just often makes that friendship painful. Little Girl, courtesy of Kate Clark and Kate Clark Studio, New York. 1 It is quite unusual in this age . What did he say? It was timely fifty years ago. With the sophistication of its dialectical movement, the gravitas of its ethical appeal, and the mercy of its psychological rigor, Claudia Rankine's Citizen combines traditional poetic strains in a new way and passes them on to the reader with replenished vitality. Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in 21st century daily life and in the media. 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. Rankine believes that Black people are not sick, / [they] are injured (143). Citizen: An American Lyric Summary. 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. Rankine writes: we are drowning here / still in the difficultythe water show[ed] [us] no one would come (85). The door is locked so you go to the front door where you are met with a fierce shout. She's published several collections of poetry and also plays. Teacher Editions with classroom activities for all 1699 titles we cover. 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. In context, the author is referring to the weight of memory, the racial insults, the slights, and the mistreatment by other players. We live in a culture as full of microaggressions as breaking new headlines, and Citizen brings it home. Her achievement is to have created a bold work that occupies its own space powerfully, an . 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). This odd and disturbing choice of imagery, which blends a human face with a deer, acts as a visual representation for the dehumanization that Black people are subjected to in America. Many of the interactions also involve an implicit invitation to take part in these microaggressive acts. Black people are being physically erased, through lynching and racist ideology (Rankine 135). In the book Citizen, Claudia Rankine speaks on these particular subjects of stereotyping deeply. Suddenly you smell good again, like in Catholic school. 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. By utilizing form, visual imagery, and poetry, Rankine enables us to see the systemic oppression of Black people by the state. The mess is collecting within Rankine's unnamed citizen even as her body rejects it. Anyway, I read this is a single sitting in bed and recommend it to everyone. Rankine transitions to an examination of how the protagonist and other people of color respond to a constant barrage of racism. 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. Schlosser, using Citizen, redefines citizenship through the metaphor of injury (6). Citizen: An American Lyric. "I am so sorry, so, so sorry" is her response (23). Claudia Rankine is an absolute master of the written word. By examining the ways the themes are created in the intersection of art and language, Rankine illuminates the constructed nature of racism in her politically charged, highly stylized and subversive Citizen. Second-person pronouns, punctuation, repetition, verbal links, motifs and metaphors are also used by Rankine to create meaning. In the same year that Michael Brown and Eric Garner's murders at the hands of the police sparked national protest, Claudia Rankine published her book Citizen: An American Lyric.Originally published in 2014, Citizen consists of poems, monologues, lyrical essays, artwork, and photographs, all of which explore microaggressions and their broader relationship to systemic racism. For Serena, the daily diminishment is a low flame, a . Some of them, though, arent actually all that micro. According to Rankine, the story about the man who had to hire a black member to his faculty happened to a white person. At a glance, the interactions seem to be simple misunderstandings - friends mistaken for strangers, frustrations incorrectly categorized as racial, or just honest mistakes. 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). Rankine writes, You cant put the past behind you. A nuanced reflection on race, trauma, and belonging that brings together text and image in unsettling, powerful ways. Rankine does more than just allude to the erasureshe also emphasizes it through her usage of white space. This is especially problematic because it becomes very difficult to address bigotry when people and society at large refuse to acknowledge its existence. Claudia Rankine's Citizen opens with a sequence of anecdotes, a catalog of racist micro-aggressions and "moments [that] send adrenaline to the heart, dry out the tongue, and clog the lungs." Our, "Sooo much more helpful thanSparkNotes. Rankine continues to examine the protagonists gravitation toward numbness before abruptly switching to first-person narration on the books final page to recount an interaction she has while lying in bed with her partner. Considering Schiller and Arnold Through Claudia Rankine's Citizen Reading Between Lines of Citizen Their impact is the result, in part, of their . 134, no. The artwork which is featured on the coverDavid Hammons In the Hood depicts a black hood floating in a white space. Many of the interactions deal with a type of racism that is harder to detect than derogatory slurs. Claudia Rankine zeros in on the microaggressions experienced by non-white people, particularly black females, in the United States. You (Rankine 142). 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. Rather than her book being one whole lyric, it can be Hoping he was well-intentioned, the woman answered . Suduiko, Aaron ed. The narrator assures her: "The world is wrong. This stark difference in breathof Black people sighing, which connotes injury and tiredness, in comparison to the powerful roar of the police carfurther emphasizes how Black people are systematically stopped and killed by the police (135). Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. Another sigh. Definitions and examples of 136 literary terms and devices. There is, in other words, no way of avoiding the initial pain. The protagonist knows that her friend makes this mistake because the housekeeper is the only other black person in her life, but neither of them mention this. 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. While Rankine recognizes that sighing is natural and almost inevitable, it is not the iteration of a free being [for] what else to liken yourself to but an animal, the ruminant kind? (60). She joined me at The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College in New York City. Instead of following the woman to ask why she did this, the protagonist took her tennis racket and went to the court. These two different examples illustrate various scales of erasure. 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. Rankine describes these everyday events of erasure in small blocks of black text, each on its own white page. Microaggressions exist within and without black communities, among people of color and people of privilege. Claudia Rankine is the author of Citizen: An American Lyric and four previous books, including Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. In this poem, which is the only poem inCitizen to have no commas, Rankine begins in the school yard and ends with life imprisoned (101). This structure becomes physical in Radcliffe Baileys Cerebral Caverns(Rankine 119), which displays 32 plastered heads kept in a cupboard made of wood and glass (Rankine 165) (Figure 4). You'll also get updates on new titles we publish and the ability to save highlights and notes. "Citizen" begins by recounting, in the second person, a string of racist incidents experienced by Rankine and friends of hers, the kind of insidious did-that-really-just-happen affronts that. 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