Citizen Discussion

My first reaction to Citizen by Claudia Rankine was how moving and profound the text is. The use of the word “you” throughout the book was the first thing that stood out to me. I found it interesting how the word you would function differently depending on the reader. The experiences of racial discrimination throughout Citizen are individual, yet the use of the word “you” unites African American readers with similar experiences. For white readers the use of the word “you” brings them in to the text and forces the reader to view the experiences as a daily reality. If the speaker was using the word “I” the stories would be viewed through a lens, but the use of the word you breaks the barrier between the speaker and the reader. What was also most intriguing to me was the use of space inside the text. Having the personal experiences of racial discrimination on separate pages seems to give them a definite beginning and end. However these experiences do not end, they continue to happen throughout the speaker’s lifetime. I found it interesting how the use of space put each experience in its own time frame, while still connecting them together. Although viewing the text as a work of protest, the use of poetry plays a major role in this. The dramatic shift in chapter six to feature the “Script for Situation” pieces completely changes the text, and I did not understand what the intended purpose was. Being unfamiliar with poetry Citizen became very hard for me to comprehend. A particular passage that I was unable to decipher was the poem on pages 112-113, being given no context initially I found this poem extremely confusing. The words “long form birth certificate” (Rankine, 112-113) written across the back of the page immediately stood out to me yet I could not understand their meaning. This technique was also used in another section with the words “black-blanc-beur” (120-129), and I was again puzzled by the meaning of these words. A question I had while reading was how is the average reader meant to view such vastly different forms of writing inside of a singular text? The use of images was another point of confusion I had in the text. While some images were jarring I was unable to decipher their meaning in the text. Citizen is a rather challenging text to read however the message for African American rights comes across clearly as a work of protest.

Works Cited:

Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2014. Print.