Claudia Rankine Response

Claudia Rankine is a very accomplished writer who was raised in Jamaica and New York. Some of her work includes Citizen, The End of the Alphabet, and Plot. Rankine went through a lot of revising and other process’ to make a great work like Citizen. Citizen: An American Lyric is titled this because Rankine believes that her poetry addresses real American problems. Some formatting she used is that the book is in chronological order of experiences she dealt with personally and what others experienced. Rankine also intended the book to be written in first person, but eventually changed it to second person. Citizen became a hit with critics and also ended up as a top seller. Not many books about poetry end up as a best seller so that is a big accomplishment for Rankine.   

It is interesting to know that a person who has grown up and lived in such diverse places is still surprised about the personal racist views in America. Even though Rankine has written phenomenal poetry about race, she mentioned at her poetry reading event that she still goes on walks and thinks about her own race. Rankine then advised everyone to the same sometime, but for some reason I can’t see myself doing that. I feel like I already understand my race, but maybe I don’t and that could be the reason why Rankine asks us to do this. Rankine realizes that people may think they know everything about race, but the truth is we probably haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of what our own race means to us. If somebody like Rankine still has to think about her own race then I guess that means I have to also. We may think we know everything about our race, but there is probably something we are missing that we can learn. Another stand out moment in the poetry reading was when Rankine described her relationship with her husband and white friends. Rankine is married to a white man and still feels people can’t believe it. One experience she had is that waiters would ask them if they wanted separate checks at dinner. Rankine has had these types of uncomfortable moments with her husband and also her friends. She explained that even though she has uncomfortable moments with her friends they become better friends when they fix it head on and get through it. It is ok to be uncomfortable when dealing with other races because it means we have a conscious and are aware of what we are doing. Being conscious can also mean being conscious about our own race.  

We go through certain situations that make us question whether it was meant to be racist or not. One passage that stood out to me in Citizen that Rankine read out during the event that dealt with uncomfortable situations is on page 18. It involves the speaker going to her therapist’s house, who she has only talked to on the phone, and being yelled in front of the house by the therapist. The speaker is confused because she has an appointment and wonders why the therapist would yell if they had an appointment. Is it because the speaker is black assuming it is Rankine going to her therapists house. Would the therapist yell if it were a white person she never met that came to the door? It is baffling that even though the speaker rang the doorbell and waited outside that the therapist would yell at the speaker immediately to leave and question angrily why the speaker is there. I think it’s safe to say that racism is literally at the front door of the American people.

My whole life I went to Catholic school where everything we learn about issues of racism are limited and simplified for us to just understand that racism is bad. Where, here at the University of Redlands I have broaden my horizon on the race issue. Already this year I have learned a lot about racism through Citizen and also my race and ethnic class. It is funny that both my English class and race class are in the same class right after another and I sit in the same seat. Sometimes I forget what class I’m in because the information we learn occasionally intertwines with both classes. I feel if I were to share the information about race to my past self from two years ago I would be shell-shocked. On a final note I would like to say this semester so far has opened my thoughts about race and I look forward to expanding them even further.