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Citizen An American Lyric Summary

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Thank you for thinking of me. I have just finished reading Citizen: An American Lyric. Reading it I realized that no matter how liberal our mindset on race, we white people have a great deal to learn about racism. It has made me realize that I had never truly understood the experience of the everyday racism that is experienced by people of color in this country. It made me realize that the extent of my racial consciousness comes in responding to major horrible events that capture major attention (Ferguson, Trayvon Martin, ect.). I was mostly ignorant of the way that a life spent dealing with racial prejudice can damage someone and even cause basic aspects of everyday life to be painful.

I found it especially impactful reading this book during the time period that I did, with Donald Trump’s successful campaign for the presidency and the ongoing controversy regarding police shootings acting as daily reminders that the virus of racism is still alive, well, and not even that hidden in American society. The most meaningful thing about this book to me was how you were able to link seemingly minor incidents of everyday racism to the historical treatment of people of …show more content…

It asks us to read the image, as Elizabeth Alexander wants us to, not simply as an image of something that has happened, but also the history that led to the incident being captured. The text that accompanies the images seem to be trying to give us a way to talk about these people and incidents and how race, while a construct, still has real effects in the daily lives of so many. Alexander asks what people do with their histories of horror? Citizen answers back that “You can’t put the past behind you. It’s buried in you..” The use of second-person narration throughout the book has the effect of putting you, personally, in the shoes of the people being talked about and helps you in feeling the pain and insecurity that is the result of these regular

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The book was very informative of life when racism was more apparent. I think that books like this show that standing up to racism is an option. It shows that even children of a younger age were involved in the situation.

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Reflection Precis 3, The Invisibility of Racism (February 27-March 1, 2018) 108788 Part I: In these two lecture sessions, Dr. Jendian talked about the invisibility of racism in the United States and how we have not been trained to recognize racism. To give an example of this, Dr. Jendian showed us a few minutes of the movie Dumbo. Although this movie seems to be innocent, it shows racism against black people.

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2034 Words | 9 Pages

From the book I have learned the history of the KKK, other knight groups, their way of living, and their way of thinking. I have also learned how somebody can be a regular old citizen in our community, but is a part of a hate group and believes that Blacks, Latinos, Asians, people from the LGBT community, and Jews are the enemy. Not only are these groups are more than relevant all over the country, but there are young children who will keep these groups alive. The children will be corrupted into thinking that racial hate is normal way to think and will follow the footsteps into their parents. This book very much shows how the Neo-Nazis, racist skinheads, white nationalist, and other groups want a white dominated nation.

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538 Words | 3 Pages

Observing each character, the book draws attention to the inner dialogue and struggles they

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285 Words | 2 Pages

The effect of a third person narration gives us a chance to really see the character from multiple views know what their past experiences thing were that they did and what not. The Narrator cannot be relied upon because the narrator won`t give us a full scenario of thinks that happened he`s only going to give his side of the story and add bits and pieces from the others. He lives a lot big chunks of the others stories so that his stories will the best sounding and the most impressive to readers. So we can`t get a full understanding of the novel because he hides to much from us about to other characters like how about they felt when they got drafted or how the war was from the since everyone takes things differently since we majority only have

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331 Words | 2 Pages

These were some of my favorite readings so far that we had been required to read through. They were very enlightening and provided many great perspectives and stories from white and minority people alike. The three readings I enjoyed the most are Defining Racism: “Can We Talk?” by Beverly Daniel Tatum, Color-Blind Racism by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, and Smells Like Racism by Rita Chaudhry Sethi. What I liked about Bonilla-Silva’s piece is the quotes taken from the white privilege.

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940 Words | 4 Pages

On one summer day in the small town of Winona as I leave my house to walk a street over to my grandparents. I started looking at my community that was branded with the nickname “White City.” Then started to thinking about when I was growing up and how first black fire chief of Winona, an executive member of the Bank of Winona, Civil Right leaders, Coaches, Teachers, Alderman, Police Officers, a doctor, nurses, preachers, entrepreneurs, businessmen and women, blue and white collars, or people who work nine to five job that made up this community was give a White Citizen look at for being black and successful. While others look at us for being black and boujee. They were the days that when you have death in the family it was by natural causes,

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1381 Words | 6 Pages

The book challenges Americans and how they treat American Values. The book exposed the truth of the white race and how they treated the black race. Throughout the novel white Americans did not value equality or progress and change. In Black Like Me whites did not believe in having a society the ideally treats everyone equally. When John Howard Griffin gets a ride from a white hunter, he tells him “I’ll tell you how it is here.

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Claudia Rankine a renown poet, uses her novel “Citizen: An American Lyric” to discuss issues of race and imagination. Claudia Rankine is an absolute master of poetry and uses her gripping accounts of racism, through poetry to share a deep message. Claudia Rankine uses poetry to correlate directly to accounts of racism making Citizen a profound experience to read. Not only is this poetic novel a vision of her world through her eyes, Rankine uses the experiences of Americans whose color has rendered them invisible to the many who are privileged enough to be blind and not note racism as a large issue in America. Claudia Rankine articulates the use of you and further emphasizes the larger meaning of the title Citizen and recognizing that word through societal issues.

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442 Words | 2 Pages

But after taking this class as representing race, I know the main concepts and themes behind the book and how they faced all things which are not appropriate for any kind of race or color. The videos we saw in class are full of violence and full of discriminative words that I can’t even imagine. I found that the purpose of the book isn't to give itemized techniques to "illuminate" this emergency, yet the narrator

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1878 Words | 8 Pages

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

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562 Words | 3 Pages

Slavery is over therefore how can racism still exist? This has been a question posed countlessly in discussions about race. What has proven most difficult is adequately demonstrating how racism continues to thrive and how forms of oppression have manifested. Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, argues that slavery has not vanished; it instead has taken new forms that allowed it to flourish in modern society. These forms include mass incarceration and perpetuation of racist policies and societal attitudes that are disguised as color-blindness that ultimately allow the system of oppression to continue.

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685 Words | 3 Pages

The celebrated book Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine examines the idea of citizenship in the United States. Rankine explores how citizenship has been conceptualized and how it relates to racism and gender through her poetry. She examines how misogyny, racism, and other forms of discrimination have influenced how citizenship has been perceived and how it has been applied to oppress particular groups. The idea of citizenship has been abused to oppress certain groups, deny some people the opportunity to participate in society, and deny them access to rights and benefits, according to Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric. It also looks at how citizenship has influenced the society of the United States today.

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958 Words | 4 Pages

Civil Rights Leader, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., in his speech, “Give Us the Ballot”, emphasizes the importance of African American suffrage and urges many groups of people to do what they can to help this cause. King’s purpose is to inspire the black community to fight for their right to vote through nonviolent protest. He adopts a tone of urgency in order to encourage action from the African American audience, as well as from politicians, white northern liberals, and moderate southerners. Martin Luther King Jr. begins his speech by vilifying the institutions which disobey the Supreme Court’s decision to allow black people to vote and by expounding how the newly enfranchised African American community will vote to make changes in the

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The story represents the culmination of Wright’s passionate desire to observe and reflect upon the racist world around him. Racism is so insidious that it prevents Richard from interacting normally, even with the whites who do treat him with a semblance of respect or with fellow blacks. For Richard, the true problem of racism is not simply that it exists, but that its roots in American culture are so deep it is doubtful whether these roots can be destroyed without destroying the culture itself. “It might have been that my tardiness in learning to sense white people as "white" people came from the fact that many of my relatives were "white"-looking people. My grandmother, who was white as any "white" person, had never looked "white" to me” (Wright 23).

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