Sam Franks

Citizen Response

February 9, 2016

Citizen

            One thing that I really appreciated about Claudia Rankine’s novel, Citizen: An American Lyric, was that it appears to be very “timely.” I can think of endless news media stories portraying police brutality against minorities and many other news coverage outlets talking about another black teen who was shot by a white man who thought the African-American was “thug, ghetto, dangerous, or threatening.” What spoke to me at first was the cover of the book. At first I was unsure of what it could mean, the torn black hoodie certainly looked foreboding, and I immediately thought of Trayvon Martin, the black teenager who was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in February 2012.  I honestly had no idea that there was such an aggression towards people of color, and Rankine’s poetic novel really made me sad; how can it be, that even in 2016 we still have so much racism and hostility towards one another?

            She really made a great point when she seemingly mentioned how what passes as news for “white people,” is simply a daily experience for people of color. She uses her poems to make racism relevant in the eyes of a reader, and she makes us question if maybe we are racist as well. She does this by first making it quite obvious that the “you” is black, and “he/she” is always white. As the book continues, it becomes harder to tell if the pronouns and personas are black or white, so it makes you question: am I perhaps racist? When I got to around page 60 I found myself saying “oh that poor black boy, or oh a black kid did that;” but by having this type of mindset you are already setting prejudices without even knowing the full story or the facts. I like to consider myself a very accepting person who is an advocate for racial equality, but maybe I have still held on to some racist stereotypes or thoughts. It was really good food for thought and I enjoyed that this book made me reflect on how I treat others in my own personal life.

            When I got to page 83, Claudia Rankine’s poem made me extremely gloomy. It was from the 2005 CNN coverage of hurricane Katrina, and it stated how after the hurricane, people were trapped and drowning, and someone asked: “Where is help? This is an emergency!” The response to that was “it was the classic binary between the rich and the poor…between the whites and blacks” (Rankine, Pages 82-83).  This quote was so awful but so true. The government during the hurricane did not send help to the poor, mostly black parts of New Orleans. And for many African-Americans who took shelter in the Superdome, they found insufficient toilets and no air conditioning. Even though New Orleans had hurricane and flood resources and plans in place, no one seemed to care about devising a plan to evacuate the city’s poorest and most infirm residents. This book was an amazing read that got me thinking about who I want to be as an accepting person. It unfortunately has also made me realize that the rest of the world does not think this way. Positive social change is always on the horizon, so I am able to hold onto hope that things will change.