Name: Citizen
Rating: 4.317460317460317 (63 reviews)
ISBN: 9781555976903

An American Lyric

Citizen

Greg Talbot

"A large part of our attitude toward things is conditioned by opinions and emotions which we unconsciously absorb as children from our environment. In other words, it is tradition — besides inherited aptitudes and qualities — which makes us what we are. We but rarely reflect how relatively small as compared with the powerful influence of tradition is the influence of our conscious thought upon our conduct and convictions." - Albert Einstein, (<a target="_blank" href="https://onbeing.org/blog/albert-einsteins-essay-on-racial-bias-in-1946/" rel="nofollow noopener">https://onbeing.org/blog/albert-einst...</a>) "Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'jump at the sun.' We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground." - Zora Neale Hurston Another Hurston quote comes up multiple times in this multi-media poetic reflections, "I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background". In this collection of poems, Rankine writes from a perspective of a disembodied "you" Distanced reflections on dining interactions, sports events, sports-yard fights and police interactions are given here. Rankine's poetry fills in a sense of the ordinariness of moving through the world embodied in a black body. She contrasts blackness and whiteness, memorializes these passages to young black men whose names are known from police shootings, and offers unsteady branches to our political and thought leaders like Baldwin with an uneasiness that America's great promise is still unrealized. I have to admire my own outsiderness to this art. Mostly because my own ability and patience with poetry is limited as a reader...and I find myself lost with some of the messages Rankine is looking to deliver here. However, with that said, Rankine's work here is thought-provoking. I felt provoked by some of the feelings she describes from anger to isolation to dread. Some of these perspectives on a match with Serena Williams...and a perceived injustice in a match Williams would never be allowed to win..it gave me a haunted feeling about the hidden injustice of prejudice. There is a level of my own privilege that I have to confront when reading/reviewing Rankine's work. An uncomfortable truth that maybe my own life is not entrenched in these daily injustice's the way some of my friends and coworkers are. And it gives me pause, and hope to be more aware and living with a sense of empathy.

Joycelyn Ghansah

Selective and challenging. It made me think of my struggles and how I got to the place I'm in

Cindy Lieberman

The accumulated stresses of racial slights, slurs, and offenses are the core of this slim volume of heavy import. While uneven, this work includes some beautifully wrought pieces that trigger an emotional response in a way that general reportage cannot.

Stephanie Ridiculous

Jenna

“Perhaps this is how racism feels no matter the context—randomly the rules everyone else gets to play by no longer apply to you, and to call this out by calling out “I swear to God!” is to be called insane, crass, crazy. Bad sportsmanship.”

It’s been quite a long time since I sat down and just read an entire book, but that’s what I did a couple of nights ago, with Citizen, and I’m not even a big poetry person, but it was entirely urgent and readable and too stunning for me to look away.

In Citizen, Claudia Rankine shares experiences of racism, especially in the form of microaggressions, but overt racism, too. It combines essays with lyrical prose. It’s smart and sharp, too - I’m sure I will get more out of this one with every re-read (which I almost never do, but I will do with this one). I highly recommend this one.

Citizen An American Lyric

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