Microaggressions In Citizen: An American Lyric

232 Words1 Page

In the book Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine, it demonstrates a lot of microaggressions going on. Not only does it have to do with your skin color but there are so many perspectives that just make you wonder why or how can a person be so cruel. The famous tennis player went through so much that it's unbelievable. “ One commentator said he hoped he wasn't being unkind when he stated, “Capriati wins it with the help of the umpires and the line judges.”(Williams 27) My reaction to something like that wouldn't be good because whether it's true or not, there will always be something that will want to prevent you from winning or succeeding. This piece from the book Citizen not only shows that people are judged by how they look or their

Show More
Related

  • Poem Analysis: The Case By Tim Seibles

    1038 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Tim Seibles' poem, The Case, he reviews the problematic situations of how white people are naturally born with an unfair privilege. Throughout the poem, he goes into detail about how colored people become uncomfortable when they realize that their skin color is different. Not only does it affect them in an everyday aspect, but also in emotional ways as well. He starts off with stating how white people are beautiful and continues on with how people enjoy their presence. Then he transitions into how people of color actually feel when they encounter a white person. After, he ends with the accusation of the white people in today's world that are still racist and hateful towards people of color.

    Read More

  • Of Lyricism In Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric?

    1022 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Claudia Rankine’s 2014 book, Citizen: An American Lyric, she promotes the idea of a “post-race” society, captivating the reader into a position of self-reflection. The lyricism of her prose explores the definition of the titular ‘citizen’, thereby encouraging and promoting change. Her incentive is not to change the minds of readers, only broaden scope of the world they already have, honing on the undeniable reality of the world. She invites her reader to emotions of grief and outrage, which leads the reader toward self-awareness. Citizen seeks to inspire her audience through the presentation of identity politics in the modern-day. It is a work premised on self-awareness to unconscious thoughts and actions. Her use of the second person,

    Read More

  • Comparison of “Just Walk on By” by Brent Staples and “Complexion” by Richard Rodriguez

    1007 Words  | 3 Pages

    Brent Staples and Richard Rodriguez’s autobiographical essays both start out with a problem, but they deal with it in different ways. Brent Staples’ “Just Walk on By” deals with the issue of racism and social judgment he faces because he is African-American, while Rodriguez’s essay “Complexion,” details the self-hatred and shame he felt in his childhood because of his skin color. Both of these essays deal with race, appearance, and self-acceptance, but the authors write about them in different ways. When looking at the similarities and differences together, the points of these essays have a much stronger message about how to deal with discrimination.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of White Privilege Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack

    852 Words  | 2 Pages

    Peggy McIntosh wrote this article to identify how her white privilege effects her life. Each statement is written as a privilege that Ms. McIntosh does not need to consider or fear as a white woman. From financial credibility to national heritage, this article makes a valid point regarding the way white people can be arrogant and naïve when the same treatment is not being given to their neighbors, coworkers, and peers. There can be two responses when reading this. The first would be a person of color. They will appreciate the attempt at realization of what white people take for granted. The second would be the reality that smacks the white people in the face when they realize how true all 50 statements are. Once this begins to sink in, many will start to broaden their competence realizing the unfair treatment of the people in this world. Moving down the timeline, we can see how the acknowledgement can mend broken relationships. Owning the reality and doing something to change it can give the people of different races the treatment they deserve (McIntosh,

    Read More

  • Arrogant Attitude of Griffin's Black Like Me

    765 Words  | 2 Pages

    John Howard Griffin’s chronicled experiences as a black man in his book, “Black Like Me” is an arrogant if well meaning book. It is arrogant because a 28 day experiment does not compare to the years (especially when learning right from wrong) of prolonged discrimination and racism suffered by African-Americans in the southern United States during the 1950’s.

    Read More

  • Racism In Claudia Rankine's 'Citizens: An American Lyric'

    760 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “Citizens: An American Lyric” by Claudia Rankine the audience is placed in a world where racism strongly affects the daily American cultural and social life. In this world we are put as the eyewitnesses and victims, the bystanders and the participants of racial encounters that happen in our daily lives and in the media, yet we have managed to ignore them for the mere fact that we are accustomed to them. Some of these encounters may be accidental slips, things that we didn’t intend to say and that we didn’t mean yet they’ve managed to make it to the surface. On the other hand we have the encounters that are intentionally offensive, things said that are

    Read More

  • Essay On Microaggressions

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    However, this general knowledge is not apparent to White people. Similar to microaggressions, John F. Dovidio discusses the concept of aversion racism, “a subtle, often unintentional form of bias that characterizes many White Americans who possess strong egalitarian values and who believe that they are nonprejudiced” (90). Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Sue both demonstrate from their research that Whites do not comprehend the impact of their unconscious biases. These biases towards students of colour in a white-based post-secondary school environment can result in stress and weak interracial relationships. This is an issue since the significance of these everyday actions are not fully recognized and acknowledged. I will elaborate on a variety of examples, specifically the influence of the peers, and

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of The Implicit Association Test (IAT)

    1057 Words  | 3 Pages

    Both authors have taken the deliberative to uncover the unconscious phenomenon that controls and affects how people interact, make perceptions, assumptions and even decisions in life. Most of these biases that people tend to have against other races are shaped and reinforced by one’s surroundings and experiences. It is therefore important expose these biases so as to grow as a society and extinguish the white privileges. Unless America is ready to face the truth about the existing biases, racial tensions and incidences will continue to

    Read More

  • The House Behind the Cedars by Charles W. Chesnutt

    991 Words  | 2 Pages

    For example, when Mrs. Tryon heard Rena was coloured, she was disappointed. “The lady, who had been studying her as closely as good manners would permit, sighed regretfully.” (161) There, Mrs. Tryon might have a good plan for Rena, but the racial society would not accept; since Rena was a mulatto, Mrs. Tryon could not do anything to help Rena in white social life. The racial circumstance does not only apply to mulattos, but it also expresses the suffering of black people.

    Read More

  • Anne Moody Civil Rights Movement

    1380 Words  | 3 Pages

    Prejudice begins with justifying something as being different based on personal experience and how one was raised. During Moody’s childhood in Coming of Age in Mississippi, she highlights how people were taught to hate each other by judging the difference in skin color. Upon arriving at the movie theatre, Moody and her siblings followed their white friends into an area prohibited to blacks. They were not allowed to return to the movie theatre after getting caught by their mother and her white friends stopped playing in front of Moody’s house. The author states, “Now all of a sudden they were white, and their whiteness made them better me. I now realized that not only were they better than me because they were white, but everything they owned and everything connected with them was better than what was available to me” (34). Moody’s siblings and white friends did not know that they were different based on their skin color until that moment. Her autobiography demonstrates that one is not born to hate someone, it is a learned

    Read More

  • Microaggressions and Racism

    1742 Words  | 4 Pages

    Microaggressions are everyday verbal, visual, or environmental hostilities, slights, insults, and invalidations or mistreatment that occur due to an individual’s race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc. i.e. a citizen of the citizen. The concept of racial microaggressions has been around since the 1970s, but much of the current research is rooted in the work of two professors, Jack Dovidio, Ph.D. (Yale University) and Samuel Gaertner, Ph.D. (University of Delaware), and their explanations of aversive racism. Their research has its foundation in the idea that many well-intentioned Whites consciously believe in and profess equality, but unconsciously act in a racist manner, particularly in ambiguous situations (CITE). In keeping with that foundation, racial microaggressions can be defined as the brief and everyday slights, insults, indignities and denigrating messages sent to people of color by well-intentioned White people who are unaware of the hidden messages being communicated (CITE).

    Read More

  • White Racial Identity

    3116 Words  | 7 Pages

    Prior to beginning my readings on white racial identity, I did not pay much attention to my white race. If someone had asked me to describe my appearance I would have said short blond hair, blue eyes, average stature, etc. One of the last things I would have noted was the color of my skin. Growing up in overwhelmingly white communities, I never thought to use the color of my skin to differentiate myself from others. Over the course of this dialogue I have learned that my white racial identity is one of the most defining aspects of my appearance in this society. There is a certain level of privilege that I am afforded based solely on the color of my skin. According to Peggy McIntosh, “White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, assurances, tools, maps, guides, codebooks, passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear, and blank checks” (71). All these objects listed by McIntosh are things I have access to and certainly take for granted. Due to a history of non-white racial oppression, which transformed into decades of racial discrimination that still lingers today, the white race has dominated our society in terms of resources and prosperity. The ideas of wealth, higher-level education and ambition to succeed are all traits commonly linked to people of the white race that collectively define privilege. The aspect of privilege can also produce disadvantages for people of the white race as well. In the book Promoting Diversity and Justice, the author D. Goodman notes that people of advantage groups develop a sense of superiority, which will sometimes lead them to wonder if, “their achievements were based on privilege or merit” (107). Along with a diminished sense of accomplishment, the cost ...

    Read More

  • Discrimination in Of Mice and Men

    873 Words  | 2 Pages

    Overall discrimination is an awful thing. It is like a STD, it can be passed from parent to child, or someone can become infected if you don’t watch out. Discrimination is also like the plague. It sweeps over a large amount of people, infecting most, and most don’t survive. Though today much of the discrimination is gone, just like the plague, but it is still there. Unfortunately for some people, they have to deal with people discrimination from others. Whether it be discrimination of one’s race, age, disability, or gender. Discrimination has numerous damaging effects to someone’s life. In Of Mice and Men the unlucky victims of discrimination also suffer from the same effects. They allow for people to have control of them and walk all over them. Discrimination is like a fire... It hurts.

    Read More

  • Fences Against Freedom

    1265 Words  | 3 Pages

    Racism affects everyone on Earth since people are all different. Leslie Marmon Silko wrote an essay called Fences Against Freedom. She was a person of mixed-ancestry who has faced racism very closely from childhood to adulthood. Early on She recalls being rejected from some school pictures, later as an adult, she was pulled over by Border Patrol officers all because of her ancestry. Leslie Marmon Silko points out that there is no race, but human race and; hence, racism should not exist. Silko was raised in her hometown where racism did not exist at all; people judged others by behavior and not by skin color, religion or origin. Nevertheless, coming out of her hometown environment racism was evident. People’s interactions were driven by attending to skin color, creed, ancestry and other biases. Racism affects everyone in the United States from foreigners to natives, as presented by Leslie Marmon Silko’s feelings of pride, disappointment, sympathy and anger as she confronts racism in the United States.

    Read More

  • The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll, And The Brown

    1565 Words  | 4 Pages

    The opinions we form about others are highly influenced by their outward physical appearance. Although everyone is told not to judge a book by its cover, our minds make snap judgements as part of human nature. That being said, what we assume about someone’s appearance has been influenced by years of racial stereotyping and persecution. Because of this prejudice people of color are often treated differently than whites. The novel Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson and the song “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” by Bob Dylan discuss the inequality of the law based on the color of one’s skin. Stevenson argues that people of color and poverty often receive harsher treatment than white people for the same crime,

    Read More

More about Microaggressions In Citizen: An American Lyric

Open Document