Citizen An American Lyric Analysis

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine is a hybrid and communal text constructed out of varying poetic form accompanied by contrasting imagery, and historical events. Rankine, although the author of this text is not necessarily its narrator. She plays with prospective, switching the fundamental meaning of “you” and pulls from the personal experiences of her friends, colleagues, and surrounding community. Rankine is able to incorporate “an emphasis on impressionism and subjectivity in [her] writing”, blur the line between various genres, and “[reject] … elaborate formal aesthetics in favor of minimalist design”, which are the pillars of postmodern works (Klages). She utilizes historical and modern events such as the Jim Crow laws, affirmative

Although many affirmative action programs include the members of other racial and ethnic groups”. Rankine is able to pull together the underlying implications of affirmative action on page 13 (Section 1) where the narrator is describing an interaction between (presumably) two women who attended the same college. The other woman (who is white) states that “she, her father, her grandfather, and you, all attended the same college”, here we as readers are given an immediate understanding of the reason for this conversation (Rankine 13). The white woman set a trap, disguising the lunch meeting as a friendly conversation whose form and perspective immediately change with the introduction of college admissions into the conversation. The narrator then goes on to explain that “She wanted her son to go there as well, but because of affirmative action or minority something–she is not sure what they are calling it these days … her son wasn’t accepted” (Rankine 13). At this point the conversation takes a turn into the darker side of humanity, the woman is making an accusation that the only reason she got into that particular “prestigious” school was because of her race and maybe not because of her academic achievement. She also makes the accusation more personal when she alludes to the fact that the narrator took her sons spot in the

In this section Rankine describes the “angry black woman” stereotype with Serena Williams. Historically tennis was a sport that was dominated by white people. However, with the advent of Serena Williams arriving on the tennis scene (and doing exceptionally well) there were “those who [were] enraged that [she] was there at all–graphite against a sharp white background” (Rankine 26). Again, we are given insight into the underlying racism that is present in modern society. Serena in light of the bad calls against her in matches mentioned throughout the section, displayed outrage in the form of throwing her racket and yelling. When there was a bad call against Serena she stated on page 27 that: “I’m very angry and bitter right now. I feel cheated. Shall I go on? I just feel robbed” (Rankine 27). Her outrage was also demonstrated on page 29 where she yelled: “I swear to God I’m fucking going to take this fucking ball and shove it down your fucking throat, you hear that? I swear to God” (Rankine 29). Here the “angry black woman” stereotype is fully realized with the actions by Serena. Although she had a justifiable right to be angry, one must remember that her actions are being amplified simply because of her race which doesn’t fit the historical form of the sport. Keeping to the flow and progression of the story Rankine