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Compare and contrast claudia rankine citizen
Compare and contrast claudia rankine citizen
Compare and contrast claudia rankine citizen
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It is incorporated in our quotidian life. We willingly pursue the worn out, false stereotypes. It is second nature and we are smothered by it. Racism, the hatred or intolerance of another race or other races, embodies our lives while harming African Americans. In the novel, Citizen, Claudia Rankine depicts the stereotypes of black lives while providing insight on the way society treats them. Within the text, Rankine expresses a series of events based on racist acts. Within Rankines text, she shows that as decades have passed, and black lives have overcome society a great deal, racism most definitely is still alive. We use it within our daily lives, and yet we are so oblivious to it. It is within our daily language, actions and our subconscious …show more content…
thoughts. We live with it, we are use to it, and we don't do a single thing about it. Whether it is behind closed doors or in the public eye, society always finds a way to make racism thrive. Rankine's use of short narratives throughout the novel provide emphasis that today, racism is alive and society does not fight to put an end to it. Within the text, Rankine tells of a stroy where a young girl is mistreated due to her race. Rankine says, “You never really speak except for the time she makes her request and later when she tells you you smell good and have features more like a white person.” This quotation shows that African Americans are only used when they are beneficial for something. The white girl forces her to share answers, as she is unsure of herself, because she knows that the black girl will give her answers without argument. She proceeds to tell her that she has features of a caucasian, as if that is significant. The next story tells of an African man doing a favor for his white friend. “You clumsily tell your friend that the next time he wants to talk on the phone he should just go in the backyard. He looks at you a long minute before saying he can speak on the phone wherever he wants. Yes, of course, you say. Yes, of course.” Moments before this racist occurrence, flickers of red and blue flashed in the black man's eyes. As he was doing his acquaintance a favor, the white neighbor saw this black man casually speaking on the phone. Of course the stereotypical view on African Americans scanned his thoughts. Immediately he assumed this man was dangerous due to the color of his skin. Different versions of this story happen more often than not. Society assumes that even the most casual black is suspicious, and this stereotype is detrimental to their well-being. Finally, Rankine ends the text with one major illustration of a publicly racist occurrence. She says, “Compton's girl first stepped on court. Wozniacki(though there are a number of ways to interpret her actions-playful mocking of a peer, imitation of the mimicking antics of the tennis player known as the joker, Novak Djokovic) finally gives the people what they have wanted all along by embodying Serena’s attributes while leaving Serena’s “angry nigger exterior” behind.” Within this memoir, Rankine tells of Serena Williams, professional tennis icon. Her opponent, Wozniacki continuously mocks her for her skin color. Earlier is the text, Rankine says, “They win sometimes, they lose sometimes, they've been injured, they've been happy, they've been sad, ignored, booed mightily, they've been cheered, and through it all and evident to all were those people who are enraged that they are there at all-graphite against a sharp white background.” Tennis, a dominantly white sport is suddenly in uproar when accompanied by black competition. As the whites deal with this, they use racist comments to make Williams feel as if she is less, humiliating her publicly. Though Wozniacki made these incredibly harmful comments and gestures, not a single thing was done to punish her, allowing her to believe what she did was acceptable. That's the thing about racism, when is happens it is second nature, we do not get judged for it nor face the consequences for it because African Americans are taking the fall instead. It is in our daily language, our actions and subconscious thoughts yet we are so oblivious to it.
Today, phrases such as “nigga” “eenie, meeny, miny, moe”, and “African’t” are used so loosely. Racial slurs are not intended to be harmful nor pertain to a racist joke. The language we use it so deeply rooted within these slurs that they have become ordinary and expected. Rankine familiarizes the use of these innuendos through the first excerpt. She says, Within the first anecdote, she exemplifies that even at a young age, you are susceptible to racism. As Rankine says, “Certain moments send adrenaline to the heart, dry out the tongue, and clog the lungs. Like thunder they drown you in sound, no, like lightning they strike you across the larynx. Cough. After it happened I was at a loss for words. Haven't you said this to yourself? Haven't you said this to a close friend who early in your friendship, when distracted, would call you by the name of her black housekeeper?” This quote displays just the beginning of racist occurrences. The little girl within is being summoned by her “friends” maids name. Is it because she is black, just as the housekeeper or rather that African Americans do not amount to much other than these low class occupations? At such a young age, racism should not be a common thought instilled within you. You should not have to worry if you get treated negatively due to the color of your skin, yet you do and you do not understand it. When her friend so …show more content…
carelessly refers to her as her maids name, she is identifying her with her black maid, because she is black herself. Whether the young girl understood this reference or not, racist comments such as these are used daily and we use them as casual puns. Racism is accounted for in our actions as well. In the next narrative a man is considered suspicious, when he is doing nothing out of the ordinary, which depicts a typical occurrence where society assumes African Americans are dangerous. The man who made the 911 call figured since the man was black he was up to no good. This happens too often today. Trayvon Martin, a 17 year old African American boy made a stop by the local 7 Eleven, and began his walk back to his father's fiancee's house. Zimmerman a neighborhood watchman claimed he was up to no good. Moments later, 911 received a panicked phone call relaying that there were gunshots, Trayvon Martin was pronounced dead. Zimmerman claimed that Trayvon attacked him and he had no other choice but to act upon this, so he ended his life with a shot to his chest. This occurrence just goes to show that our stereotypes of blacks consume our actions. If Zimmerman would have minded his own business and did not assume that Martin was dangerous due to his skin color, a young boy would still be alive.This case relates back to the narratives in Rankines text. She shows how we assume that black people are dangerous, and stereotype them before they even have a chance to speak. Lastly, with actions come our subconscious thoughts. In both Rankine's excerpt as well as the Trayvon Martin case, both men assumed the African Americans were threatening due to typical stereotypes. Whether we agree with it or not, our thoughts consume the mind. We can not fight it, they are there and we are encompassed by them. Assumptions can be powerful and it is society that instils them and makes unfavorable. Though the civil war released African Americans of their slave days, today they are still practically enslaved by the racism we turn our backs to.
Rankine proves through her mini narratives that we are completely oblivious to how we disrespect black lives. Whether we call them by our maids names, stereotype them as perilous or mock them we drive them to self doubt and feeling as if they are unequal. Today, humanity believes racism has practically vanished. We went from slavery, where white people had unjust authority over black lives, to black people not being able to have equal rights with the caucasians. This included the right to vote, schooling, employment, and the right to enter certain public places. Basically everything they did was limited and controlled, as if they were animals. Finally slavery was abolished, changing black lives forever. After the civil rights struggles of the 1950’s and 1960’s, black people slowly started gaining the same rights as white people were already accustomed to. This was all a huge stepping stone for America. Today we have organizations and laws that work against discrimination of people of color. Though it appears that from all of this, racism was put to an end, it is still very much alive. Our community makes comments, stereotypes, and acts upon preconceived thoughts. Rankine depicts this within her mini narratives. She shows that our comments are detrimental to African Americans feelings. She depicts that our stereotypes surround
them and that they are constantly subjected to them. Rankine also shows how we act upon our preconceived thoughts and how it is African Americans that take the fall for them, not us. This is the basis of racism today and it’s something we are so blind to. When we think about how far we have come within the rights of African Americans we assume that racism has vanished solely because of how it. It is still here, and it will likely always be because culture is addicted to and we don't even recognize it. In the book ,Citizen, Rankine provides short detailed stories to prove that America has grown so used to the mistreatment of African Americans, we don't even realize that it is considered racism. Not only has our language but our actions and stereotypes towards African Americans become an epidemic to the American society. Typical stereotypes are so pre consumed that it is second nature to act upon situations with African Americans unfairly. As a nation, we have become so used to racism we don’t see that is it developing into our quotidian life. Rankine’s text provides examples of modern racism through personal short stories as well as a more well known incidents, proving that America has accepted and adapted to the mistreatment of African Americans.
In the article, “A Letter My Son,” Ta-Nehisi Coates utilizes both ethical and pathetic appeal to address his audience in a personable manner. The purpose of this article is to enlighten the audience, and in particular his son, on what it looks like, feels like, and means to be encompassed in his black body through a series of personal anecdotes and self-reflection on what it means to be black. In comparison, Coates goes a step further and analyzes how a black body moves and is perceived in a world that is centered on whiteness. This is established in the first half of the text when the author states that,“white America’s progress, or rather the progress of those Americans who believe that they are white, was built on looting and violence,”
In the novel ‘Deadly Unna?’ various discourses about racism are portrayed, exemplifying the individual’s belief, attitudes and the values of the characters. The reader is positioned to view Blacky as having no knowledge of how racist his friends are through the racist comments that are made amongst them and Blacky's going along with it. At the start Blacky may not have been aware of the racism around him as he previously laughed and even told racist jokes. The statement “And the priest says I got the black bastard with the door. And they all laughed all the regulars. Especially Slogsy. But I didn’t. I don’t know why, I’d laughed at the joke bef...
The novel covered so much that high school history textbooks never went into why America has never fully recovered from slavery and why systems of oppression still exists. After reading this novel, I understand why African Americans are still racially profiled and face prejudice that does not compare to any race living in America. The novel left a mixture of frustration and anger because it is difficult to comprehend how heartless people can be. This book has increased my interests in politics as well and increased my interest to care about what will affect my generation around the world. Even today, inmates in Texas prisons are still forced to work without compensation because peonage is only illegal for convicts. Blackmon successfully emerged the audience in the book by sharing what the book will be like in the introduction. It was a strange method since most would have expected for this novel to be a narrative, but nevertheless, the topic of post Civil War slavery has never been discussed before. The false façade of America being the land of the free and not confronting their errors is what leads to the American people to question their integrity of their own
Ranikine’s addresses the light upon the failed judicial systems, micro aggressions, pain and agony faced by the black people, white privilege, and all the racial and institutional discrimination as well as the police brutality and injustice against the blacks; The book exposes that, even after the abolition of slavery, how the racism still existed and felt by the colored community in the form of recently emerged ‘Micro aggressions in this modern world’. Claudia Rankine’s Citizen explores the daily life situations between blacks and whites and reveals how little offensive denigrating conversations in the form of micro-aggressions were intentionally conveyed to the black people by the whites and how these racial comments fuel the frustrations and anger among the blacks. She gathered the various incidents, where the black people suffered this pain. This shows the white’s extraordinary powers to oppress the black community and the failure of the legal system Rankine also shares the horrible tragedy of Hurricane Katrina experienced by the black community, where they struggled for their survival before and post the hurricane catastrophes.
Ever since the abolition of slavery in the United States, America has been an ever-evolving nation, but it cannot permanently erase the imprint prejudice has left. The realities of a ‘post-race world’ include the acts of everyday racism – those off-handed remarks, glances, implied judgments –which flourish in a place where explicit acts of discrimination have been outlawed. It has become a wound that leaves a scar on every generation, where all have felt what Rankine had showcased the words in Ligon’s art, “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background” (53). Furthermore, her book works in constant concert with itself as seen in the setting of the drugstore as a man cuts in front of the speaker saying, “Oh my god, I didn’t see you./ You must be in a hurry, you offer./ No, no, no, I really didn’t see you” (77). Particularly troublesome to the reader, as the man’s initial alarm, containing an assumed sense of fear, immediately changing tone to overtly insistent over what should be an accidental mistake. It is in these moments that meaning becomes complex and attention is heightened, illuminating everyday prejudice. Thus, her use of the second person instigates curiosity, ultimately reaching its motive of self-reflections, when juxtaposed with the other pieces in
For as long as I can remember, racial injustice has been the topic of discussion amongst the American nation. A nation commercializing itself as being free and having equality for all, however, one questions how this is true when every other day on the news we hear about the injustices and discriminations of one race over another. Eula Biss published an essay called “White Debt” which unveils her thoughts on discrimination and what she believes white Americans owe, the debt they owe, to a dark past that essentially provided what is out there today. Ta-Nehisi Coates published “Between the World and Me,” offering his perspective about “the Dream” that Americans want, the fear that he faced being black growing up and that black bodies are what
These details help many who may have trouble understanding his hardships, be able to relate. The use of real world examples from his life and history are very convincing and supportive of his theory on blacks lives. Coates talks about how “black blood was spilled in the North colonies, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War [...] and most of all during segregation and the time of JIm Crow Laws. [...] Why is it still being spilt today over the same reasons?” Coates use of history relates to the issues today. It represents how serious the problems were back then, and how serious they still are in the modern society. History is factual, this creates and accurate support to his claim and also allows reader to relate to the past and compare it to today 's society. The rhetorical question causes the audience to think and catches eye. Asking this question emphasizes the issue because it still is a problem that does not have a solution even still today. The author also uses statistics to support the unfair lives of black people. “60 percent of all young black people who drop out of high school will go to jail.” This claim is factual and convincing to his claim about the rigged schooling system in many black communities. The communities are shoved in corner and neglected. This problem results in the thousands of dropouts that later result in jailing. If our schooling systems were
Within the Black Community there are a myriad of stigmas. In Mary Mebane’s essay, “Shades of Black”, she explores her experiences with and opinions of intraracial discrimination, namely the stigmas attached to women, darker skinned women, and blacks of the working class. From her experiences Mebane asserts that the younger generation, those that flourished under and after the Civil Rights Movement, would be free from discriminating attitudes that ruled the earlier generations. Mebane’s opinion of a younger generation was based on the attitudes of many college students during the 1960’s (pars.22), a time where embracing the African culture and promoting the equality of all people were popular ideals among many young people. However, intraracial discrimination has not completely vanished. Many Blacks do not identify the subtle discriminatory undertones attached to the stigmas associated with certain types of Black people, such as poor black people, lighter/darker complexion black people, and the “stereotypical” black man/woman. For many black Americans aged eighteen to twenty-five, discrimination based on skin color, social class, and gender can be blatant.
DuBois understands part of the problem. Blacks and whites have become intertwined in a vicious cycle. Slavery itself did not create, but enhanced negative attitudes towards blacks. In quite the same way, the institution of slavery greatly enhanced the way blacks felt about whites. White landowners were responsible for disenfranchisin...
Racism in itself is not difficult to recognize in its extreme forms. However, everyday racism is much more subtle and requires attention. It requires the recipient to be aware of the situation as to what is being said and how it is being said. One of these seemingly subtle incidents of everyday racism, Rankine uses the pronoun “you” by stating, “[b]ecause of your elite status from a year’s worth of travel, you have already settled into your window seat on United Airlines, when the girl and her mother arrive at your row. The girl, looking over at you, tells her mother, these are our seats, but this is not what I expected. The mother’s response is barely audible—I see, she says. I’ll sit in the middle,” (p.12). Here, Rankine uses the pronoun “you,” in hopes to put her reader in the shoes of the victim of this microaggression. If the reader is white, and is able to replace the victim with themselves, they would be able to see the incident as entirely unjust because they have never experienced being stereotyped. She doesn’t mention race but the minute a white reader recognizes that the victim is a black person (Rankine
Racism is not only a crime against humanity, but a daily burden that weighs down many shoulders. Racism has haunted America ever since the founding of the United States, and has eerily followed us to this very day. As an intimidating looking black man living in a country composed of mostly white people, Brent Staples is a classic victim of prejudice. The typical effect of racism on an African American man such as Staples, is a growing feeling of alienation and inferiority; the typical effect of racism on a white person is fear and a feeling of superiority. While Brent Staples could be seen as a victim of prejudice because of the discrimination he suffers, he claims that the victim and the perpetrator are both harmed in the vicious cycle that is racism. Staples employs his reader to recognize the value of his thesis through his stylistic use of anecdotes, repetition and the contrast of his characterization.
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
Some African Americans view their race as inferior to the white race. Even though the author may not hold this same opinion, it is still important that he or she understands that part of his or her audience does, especially when writing about racial identity. Zora Neale Hurston understood
I was late for school, and my father had to walk me in to class so that my teacher would know the reason for my tardiness. My dad opened the door to my classroom, and there was a hush of silence. Everyone's eyes were fixed on my father and me. He told the teacher why I was late, gave me a kiss goodbye and left for work. As I sat down at my seat, all of my so-called friends called me names and teased me. The students teased me not because I was late, but because my father was black. They were too young to understand. All of this time, they thought that I was white, because I had fare skin like them, therefore I had to be white. Growing up having a white mother and a black father was tough. To some people, being black and white is a contradiction in itself. People thought that I had to be one or the other, but not both. I thought that I was fine the way I was. But like myself, Shelby Steele was stuck in between two opposite forces of his double bind. He was black and middle class, both having significant roles in his life. "Race, he insisted, blurred class distinctions among blacks. If you were black, you were just black and that was that" (Steele 211).
Racism is based on the belief that one’s culture is superior to that of others, and this racial superiority provides justification for discrimination. Racism begins with categorising by race, and therefore stereotyping particular cultures. A simple definition of prejudice given by St Thomas Aquinas states prejudice as “thinking ill of others without sufficient cause” (1. pg 21). Racism is a major issue in today’s society, affecting a large number of the world’s population and causing political and social turmoil. To evaluate the true meaning, effects and views concerning racism in today’s world, a number of literature sources were researched including novel, films, short stories, poetry, song lyrics, textbooks and magazine articles.