Question: Rankine (the author) addresses "you" throughout the book. Where do you recognize yourself in the encounters described in Citizen, if at all? What perspectives or angles of experience were you surprised to inhabit, and why?
Rankine gives the reader a full emotional and physical involvement of the Citizen using a second-person point of view. The book gives "you", the reader, an inside scoop on what it would be like in someone else's shoes.
Social norms, expectations, remarks, racism, and prejudgments.
Rankine's book Citizen: An American Lyric, throws you into those types of positions by saying "you". Personally, I see myself as both the victims and the bystanders in the book.
Its rarely-used perspective creates a unique relationship with the reader and the speaker, or narrator. I Inhabited many experiences told in Citizen, and I remember two that left me baffled.
As The Victim
As I read the first few sections of the book, I was caught off guard by the excessive amounts of blatant racial comments made by plenty of people to the speaker.
One of the most notable quotes in the first section was this:
"Your friend is speaking to your neighbor when you arrive home. The four police cars are gone. your neighbor has apologized to your friend and is now apologizing to you" (Rankine, Section I).
The speaker has a partner, a child, and a friend. The couple went out to watch a movie and calls in their friend to watch their baby at home. Their next-door neighbor calls the speaker to tell her that there is a "menacing black guy" walking back and forth on their lawn.
The neighbor hastily called the police. In the quote, we see that the menacing-looking person was just the speaker's friend and the neighbor apologized profusely for the misunderstanding.
I would feel upset, confused, and a little annoyed if I was the friend. However, I hate confrontation so I would also apologize to the neighbor for no other reason other than I don't want them to hate me or see me any differently.
Being presented with this situation, I realized that I would be horrified if I heard police sirens and knew that they would come after me.
As The Bystander
In modern times, we seem to forget we have the power to act from outside of a difficult social situation. Such as a crowd seeing an incident take place before their eyes, but not truly taking part in it or helping to stop it.
Bitterly, I would see myself in those crowds. I would want to do something useful but not know what that would be.
"In line at the drugstore it's finally your turn, and then it's not as he walks in front of you and puts his things on the counter. the cashier says, Sir, she was next. Oh my God, I didn't see you. You must be in a hurry, you offer. No, no, no, I really didn't see you." (Rankine, Section V).
In this quote, the man behind the speaker went in front of you and when the cashier points it out, he was surprised to see someone there.
This text makes it sound like he does not see black bodies, almost as if the speaker was invisible.
If I saw that happen, I'd feel sympathetic to the speaker but there was nothing I could have said to make her feel any better from that small microaggression.
Surprising Encounters
One of these encounters told in the book felt personal to me, but on a smaller scale.
"a close friend... would call you by the name of her black housekeeper? you assumed you two were the only black people in her life. Eventually, she stopped doing this though she never acknowledged her slippage" (Rankine, Section I).
This resurfaces an interaction I had with a classmate in 3rd grade. He also called me a different Asian name and blatantly said we looked the same from our "features" to wearing some thick, black glasses.
"...she looks to see what you will say. she says nothing. you want her to say something--both as a witness and a friend. She is not you; her silence says so. ...even as you participate in it, you say nothing as well" (Rankine, Section III).
The speaker felt like a victim and a bystander because she actively participated in the event yet she could not say she was uncomfortable. She wanted her friend to speak for her but she also did not say anything.
When I read this paragraph, I felt targeted for my racial features, and someone who saw it didn't even try to help me. It felt infuriating to see it unfold before my eyes.
Final Words
In summary, I was surprised to get a headache from reading and being part of the situations Rankine throws you into. It gets very poetic and tiny interactions to seem so much larger in meaning.
Leave a comment, and share your experience if you've read Citizen or felt like a victim of microaggression.
This is a safe place to share and if you want to share it privately, email me here: alessandra.gorospe.111@csun.edu
I would love to hear your stories or insight!
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