The STING: Claudia Rankine’s CITIZEN

“When you are alone and too tired even to turn on any of your devices, you let yourself linger in a past stacked among your pillows.” Claudia Rankine

The STING: Claudia Rankine’s CITIZEN – A Review

The STING: Claudia Rankine’s CITIZEN – A Review

The man at the cash register wants to know if you think your card will work. If this is his routine, he didn’t use it on the friend who went before you. As she picks up her bag, she looks to see what you will say. She says nothing. You want her to say something – both as witness and as a friend. She is not you; her silence says so. Because you are watching all this take place even as you participate in it, you say nothing as well. Come over here with me, your eyes say. Why on earth would she?p54

The world is wrong. You can’t put the past behind you. It’s buried in you; it’s turned your flesh into its own cupboard. Not everything remembered is useful but it all comes from the world to be stored in you. Who did what to whom on which day? Who said that? She said what? What did he just do? Did she really just say that? He said what? What did she do? Did I hear what I think I heard? Did that just come out of my mouth, his mouth, your mouth? Do you remember when you sighed?p63

Franz Kafka said, “we ought to read only books that bite and sting us.” What’s the last thing you read that bit and stung you?  Claudia Rankine’s latest award winning book, CITIZEN: An American Lyric, bit so hard, it left me speechless. Claudia is a Jamaican born, NY raised author, poet, professor and social observer. Her book is a mix of poetry and prose pieces that share the many ways; covert and overt, that racism is expressed in every day exchanges with friends and strangers. The pieces highlight incidents of micro-aggressions that inform the fabric of daily racial exchanges in American life. These incidents, while appearing innocuous to the un-initiated, build over time into ripened sores of unintended slights and resentments. Sadly, the typical response of those who don’t want to admit that these insults exist is … to be silent.  Above and below, I have added snippets or vignettes from Claudia’s book to help us understand what these exchanges sound and look like.

“You never really speak except for the time she makes her request and later when she tells you you smell good and have features more like a white person, You assume she thinks she is thanking you for letting her cheat and feels better cheating from an almost white person.p5” Claudia Rankine

The STING: Claudia Rankine’s CITIZEN

You are in the dark, in the car, watching the black-tarred street being swallowed by speed; he tells you his dean is making him hire a person of color when there are so many great writers out there . . . .
As usual you drive straight through the moment with the expected backing off of what was previously said. It is not only that confrontation is headache-producing; it is also that you have a destination that doesn’t include acting like this moment isn’t inhabitable, hasn’t happened before, and before isn’t part of the now as the night darkens and the time shortens between where we are and where we are going.p10

Sitting there staring at the closed garage door you are reminded that a friend once told you there exists the medical term — John Henryism — for people exposed to stresses stemming from racism. They achieve themselves to death trying to dodge the buildup of erasure. p11

When I read the book, I was reminded of similar exchanges I have had, over the years, with people who have expressed some version of the language in Claudia’s pieces while talking to me. As a new student in a prestigious America college, my accent meant that I was classified as ” You’re different, not like them!” The intended compliment was not received as such because I understood the underlying message was insulting. At the time, I didn’t have a term like “micro-aggressions” to define it and I sought the advice of close friends to make sense of it all. In case you’re wondering, Harvard professor Chester Pierce coined the term in 1970 to describe the unconscious insults non-black Americans hurled at black people. Over the years, I’ve come to grasp the cultural and historical legacy that perpetuates this kind of thinking and it is wrong … all of it. Like Claudia, I sigh a lot when one of these unintended racist remarks slip out and sometimes I address it. It is not an easy subject and often creates rancor on all sides.

“After it happened, I was at a loss for words. Haven’t you said this yourself? Haven’t you said this to a close friend who early in your friendship, when distracted, would call you by the name of her black housekeeper? You assumed you two were the only black people in her life.p7” Claudia Rankine

The STING: Claudia Rankine’s CITIZEN

Because of your elite status from a year’s worth of travel, you have already settled into your window seat … the girl and her mother arrive at your row. The girl, looking over at you, tells her mother, these are our seats, but this is not what I expected. the mother’s response is barely audible — I see, she says. I’ll sit in the middle. p12

The serves and returns Alves called out were landing, stunningly unreturned by Capriati, inside the lines, no discerning eyesight needed. Commentators, spectators, television viewers, line judges, everyone could see the balls were good, everyone, apparently, except Alves. No one could understand what was happening. Serena, in her denim skirt, black sneaker boots, and dark mascara, began wagging her finger and saying, “no, no, no,” as if by negating the moment she could propel us back into a legible world.p27

Unfortunately, many of the prevailing attitudes around race relations begin in the home. When parents expose their children to ugly, racist remarks and constantly fill their heads with demeaning comments about minorities, immigrants and others who don’t look like them, they perpetuate the condition and the hatreds grow. The child on the plane above didn’t find the black passenger offensive by accident, She had been exposed to negative ways of viewing and treating people of color. Serena Williams’ experiences on the tennis court bring these attitudes to bear. Whether she was being ducked points for her serves or accused of doing a gangster jig or called racial slurs, the world of Tennis is simply a microcosm of the larger, biased world we inhabit. Any form of discrimination diminishes both the oppressor and the oppressed, and that legacy of hatred is passed on to all of our children. We must STOP the lies, the hatreds, and the ugly behavior and it must start with US.

More Below

“Baldwin says skin color cannot be more important than the human being. And was the pickup constructing or exploding whiteness out of you? You are so sorry. You are angry, an explosive anger, an effective one: I ran that n***#@r over.”p94 (In Memory of James Craig Anderson) Claudia Rankine

The STING: Claudia Rankine’s CITIZEN – A Review

The STING: Claudia Rankine’s CITIZEN – A Review

A man knocked over her son in the subway. You feel your own body wince. he’s okay, but the son of a bitch kept walking. She says she grabbed the stranger’s arm and told him to apologize: I told him to look at the boy and apologize. Yes, and you want it to stop, you want the child pushed to the ground to be seen, to be helped to his feet, to be brushed off by the person that did not see him, has never seen him, has perhaps never seen anyone who is not a reflection of himself. The beautiful thing is that a group of men began to stand behind me like a fleet of bodyguards, she says, like newly found uncles and brothers.P17

Get on the ground. Get on the ground now. I must have been speeding. No, you weren’t speeding. Wasn’t speeding? You didn’t do anything wrong. Then why are you pulling me over? Why am I pulled over? Put your hands where they can be seen. Put your hands in the air. Put your hands up.pg106

Yesterday, I begin, I was waiting in the car for time to pass. A woman pulled in and started to park her car facing mine. Our eyes met and what passed passed as quickly as the look away. She backed up and parked on the other side of the lot. I could have followed her to worry my question but I had to go, I was expected on court, I grabbed my racket.p159

In the snippets above, Claudia introduces a few more familiar subjects… of being invisible and of irrational fear. While every meeting doesn’t have this outcome, it is frequent and disturbing. Every year, on March 21, we celebrate the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. While it is a noble cause and raises awareness about discriminatory acts globally, it alone cannot eradicate the problem. One thing I know for sure is that we cannot legislate people’s beliefs and thinking. We can choose to educate our children differently and expose them to the rich diversity that exists in this world. We can teach our children to treat others with dignity and respect and, as the late Dr. Martin Luther King often said, judge others by the content of their character not by the color of their skin. Until we build bridges to racial harmony, we will continue the legacy of racism and oppression. Be the Change. Our children deserve better! On a final note, I’d recommend reading Claudia Rankine’s Citizen, and the following articles to read and learn more from other book reviews and perspectives on the subject.
READ: ‘The Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning’ by Claudia Rankine NYTimes
Color Codes by Dan Chiasson New Yorker Magazine
A New Way of Writing About Race by Nick Laird (NYTimes Books)

My fellow bloggers were equally creative with their selections. Check out how others interpreted the theme – That Stings! – below.

This post was inspired by a prompt from WP Daily Post: That Stings! – Franz Kafka said, “we ought to read only books that bite and sting us.” What’s the last thing you read that bit and stung you?

Positive Motivation Tip: Racism diminishes our collective humanity… Be the Change!

PHOTO CREDITS/ATTRIBUTIONS: John Henry , J.M.W. Turner’s The Slave Ship , The Chios massacre, Ksenophontov Noah, via Wikipedia and from my Personal Collection.

Until Next Time…
Ask. Believe. Receive. ©
Elizabeth Obih-Frank
Mirth and Motivation
Positive Kismet