Theme Of Racism In Claudia Rankine's Citizen

One of the main themes in Citizen by Claudia Rankine is racism. This theme starts on the very first page with a story about how a white girl cheated off of Rankine’s paper. Throughout the rest of the book miniature stories that contain blatant racism are thrown at the reader. It becomes clear that Rankine’s intent is to convey the feelings of someone experiencing racism through the use of second person storytelling. This becomes a powerful tool because as the reader it makes it easier to feel the same emotions Rankine was feeling in the moment she describes. This theme is important because it is the very thing that carries the book and seems to be Rankie’s reason for writing. There are many instances where this theme occurs throughout the book. Another example is when Rankine is

This person tells her he has to “hire a person of color when there are so many great writers out there.” This blatantly racist comment leaves Rankine wondering, “Why do you feel comfortable saying this to me?” (10).

Another theme that occurs throughout the book is anger. Rankine sets up two different types of anger through describing a youtuber. This youtuber's name is Hennessy Youngman and he believes that there is “sellable anger” and “actual anger”. The youtuber doesn’t discuss these angers in detail so Rankine does it for us. She tells the reader that “actual anger” is “the anger built up through experience” and “the struggles against dehumanization of every brown or black person lives because of skin color” (24). She tells us that this anger also doesn’t produce anything besides loneliness. Rankine shows us a perfect example of these two angers on the following pages. She uses Serena Williams’ story to really show the difference between the two. Her example of actual anger is when Serena Williams swears at the umpire because she continually made bad calls against her. Serena,