RESPONSE: Citizen by Claudia Rankine 1

Craft Response:
Citizen, by Claudia Rankine

Julianne Henderson
University of San Francisco
Seminar: Further Forms
Professor Soma Mei Sheng Frazier
September 9, 2017
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In her captivating lyric essay, Citizen, Claudia Rankine exposes the inane logic

that perpetuates racial injustice in our daily lives. Through a series of colorful vignettes,

poetic ruminations, and insightful expositions, Rankine displays how the persistence of

racism in human social interaction, politics, and the media diminishes black identity with

the effect of nearly rendering it invisible. Whether she is describing a hypothetical

encounter with a racist white man at your local Starbucks or lamenting the distortion of

Mark Duggan’s death, Rankine fully implicates you, the reader, in every racist assault on

humanity that is taking place. In this reflection, I examine the narrative structure, themes,

and accessibility of Rankine’s work. I also address the degree to which this text can be

used as a tool to facilitate critical dialogue about matters of race, implicit bias, and the

conventions and social scripts that serve to divide us.

The narrative structure of Rankine’s text is integrative in that it utilizes poetic

verse, prose, graphic design, and photographs to weave the stories and reflections

together. The text is nonlinear, moving from one vignette or exposition to the next in

accordance with lyrical expression and theme rather than chronological order. This tactic

works in Rankine’s favor in that it actually enhances the flow between the seemingly

disjointed images and ideas she presents. The visual images and graphic design

renderings serve the same purpose, at least in part. However, their true purpose seems to

be to disrupt the storyline progression even further and add an element of surprise. One of

the most powerful strategies that Rankine uses in Citizen is to address the reader directly,

which creates a kind of living, hypothetical storyline that allows the reader to co-write the

text. Even in moments when “you” or “your” describe the speaker, the reader is still

somehow implicated and involved in the telling of the story. Narrative structure aside, the
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themes that Rankine tackles in Citizen also deserve attention.

Three major themes that Rankine addresses in this text are the visibility of black

identity, control, and memory. Rankine beautifully exposes the irony of black visibility

when she explains that the racist language that was once perceived as being used to

“denigrate and erase” the black community is the very instrument by which the black

community is validated. She notes that, “Language that is hurtful is intended to exploit all

the ways that you are present” (Rankine, 2014). In other moments, Rankine illustrates the

invisibility of black identity, such as when “you are not the guy and still you fit the

description because there is only one guy who is always the guy fitting the description”

(Rankine, 2014). This shameful homogenization of black identities diminishes black

visibility by reducing and confining the black community to limited stereotypes. With

regard to the theme of control, Rankine illustrates how there are times when neither the

cause of our suffering nor our reaction to it is within our power to change. Speaking on

the topic of racial injustice and the heavy sighs we let out to decompress, Rankine says,

“truth be told, you could no more control those sighs than that which brings the sighs

about” (Rankine, 2014). In other words, something that is so deeply ingrained in

humanity’s collective consciousness acts like an involuntary reflex that sadly plagues

society and is a force beyond our control. Finally, Rankine addresses memory, especially

the memory of ancient, stored pain. Rankine explains, “Yes, and the body has memory.

The physical carriage hauls more than its weight,” after which she goes on to describe

how no determination to achieve inclusion or recognition in society’s charmed circle

could never “erase the moments lived through” (Rankine, 2014). Here, she is describing

moments of pain, isolation, ostracization, and discrimination—moments of enduring

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hatred and bigotry and shame for being oneself inside of a black body. Her remedy for

this ancient, stored pain is to simply release oneself from it. “Move forward,” she says,

“Let it go. Come on. Come on. Come on” (Rankine, 2014). The text as a whole seems to

ask of the reader that he or she agree to move on and transcend the conditioning that has

given rise to flagrant racism in human social interaction. With these themes in mind, it is

important to discuss the degree to which Citizen is accessible to readers.

Rankine’s text is arguably accessible to a vast audience that spans young and old

generations as well as people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic

backgrounds, and academic backgrounds. Her writing is timely and topical in that it

addresses pop culture/sports icons like Serena Williams, cultural martyrs like Travyon

Martin, and relatable manifestations of racism in action within the classroom, the

workplace, one’s own home, the media, one’s friendships, and so on. Although the

language that she uses is at times formal and elevated, it is mostly colloquial, which is

especially true of her poetry entries. This has the effect of inviting readers into the space

that Rankine sets up with each segment of the text so that they can safely examine the

underlying force that sustains racial injustice. Despite the fact that she points to white

(male) privilege and dominance as being the primary culprits, I would argue that Rankine

does not isolate or alienate her white readers. Her approach to the themes and ideas she

presents in Citizen more contemplative than it is on the attack. She effectively creates a

space within which each of us can explore our own socialization process and

conditioning and make the conscious decision to change our orientation to—and

understanding of—race.

During the fall semester of my first year in USF’s Writing MFA program, I took a
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poetry seminar titled, “Outrage” with Professor Doug Powell. In addition to assigning us

Rankine’s text, Doug helped our class organize a kind of political “happening” that took

place at the 24th and Mission Street Bart station here in San Francisco a few days before

the 2016 presidential election. One component of our organized action involved inviting

passersby to read sections of Citizen aloud to an audience that had congregated on the

corner in front of the staircase leading to the station. I was shocked by how many people,

despite having just gotten off of work and being exhausted from the daily grind, opted to

participate in our live reading of Rankine’s text. Even more shocking was the number of

people—both women and men—who cried after reading their chosen passage out loud. I

realized that Rankine’s text is a powerful tool with which to generate crucial discussion

about the dangers of racial injustice, implicit bias, and our divisive social scripts. Each

person who read Rankine’s work aloud was fundamentally changed by the experience.

Her words elicit more than just anger—they evoke a sense of responsibility and

determination to change the course of humanity’s evolution.

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References

Rankine, C. (2014). Citizen. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press.