Citizen, a book written by Claudia Rankine shows different themes throughout the book. The one I’m going to be explaining is anger and Emotional. In citizen, Rankine shows how emotional difficulties of processing racism. She explains how anger affects an individual by telling stories in the second person. On the first page of the chapter, she starts with some years there exists a wanting to escape you, floating above your certain ACHE still the ache coexists. She illustrates the frustrating problem many people of color experience when they encounter small problems of discrimination. In the Book Rankine supports, that people of “Color” should simply move on from their anger, meaning to let racist remarks slide and to get along with society. Because of this, she says many black people have found different ways just to avoid conformation with others by just processing their anger within themselves. Rankine shows the problem with this “problem solver” by pointing out that even if the person can process racism, there is no way you can avoid the fact that each moment must be experienced before it can be processed. This means, even if people of color find a way within themselves to help them endure racism, they are still dealing with the pain from the moment it happens. There might be a problem with this problem solver if someone is keeping their anger in, they might eventually have an outburst and the outburst might only put them in a deeper hole. This problem of just putting it behind them is a bad way to go about in life and it shows us how poorly people of color are being treated. Rankine begins showing us how emotionally fatiguing it is to face constant racism and prejudice. In her life she is familiar with what it feels like for somebody to say something unkind or discriminatory, it doesn’t get any easier for her to process such exchanges. This is because people won’t know what racism is until they are the victims. Because there is seemingly no avoiding the pain that comes with racist remarks or actions, Rankine turns her attention to the anger that arises in response to this kind of mistreatment.
In chapter seven Rankine shows a different side of the book she describes events that happened to her and how she was a victim of racism. Rankine stated “Yesterday, I began, I was waiting in the car for time to pass. A woman pulled in and started to park her car facing mine. Our eyes met and what passed as quickly as the looked away. She backed up and parked on the other side of the lot. I could have followed her to worry about my question, but I had to go, I was expected on the court, and I grabbed my racket (169). To be able to know what the other person is thinking of you because you are a person of color. Rankine knew by just her actions that the person across from her was uncomfortable being in her presence. The women’s actions in front of Rankine were not right and showed us how people could look at people of color and just think of bad things because they are a different color. Also, Rankine showed us how she wanted to say something to that lady but just avoided her and picked up on her racket, and left, she showed us how people of color just avoid confrontation when it happens. While the woman leaving after she made eye contact made Rankine feel like she didn’t belong. Rankine also experiences that as she stated, “The worst injury is feeling you don’t belong so much” (156). Rankine shows us in chapter 7 the ways that she dealt with it, and you can only feel the pain if you are the victim.
In the section “July 13, 2013,” the protagonist thinks about numbness. One of her friends has written about numbness. One of her friends has shown us how humming numbs him to certain things, and this reminds her of the way she often sighs. She realized that when she does sigh it becomes quoter than it used to be. This is because she thinks she is getting older and is getting used to the “Ache” she constantly feels. That morning she is driving with her partner when they hear a man in a neighboring car say something racist while listening to a radio broadcast about Martin. The protagonist’s partner jumps out of the car, wanting to yell at the man, but the protagonist tells him to stop. She ushers him back into the car senses that his actions could put her in danger. The reason why the section is July 13, 2013 (162) was that on this day Trayvon Martins’s killer was acquitted, as a jury ultimately found him not guilty. The decision of not guilty made united stated separated, as shown when the partner loses his temper when he hears a racist comment about Martin. Knowing that anger often leads to more harm than good, the protagonist urged him to calm down, having committed herself to go numb to a state of being that has apparently become a part of her. This is why it’s a bad thing to just get over it a build-up because something like this can happen and we can have an outburst.
Rankine also connected her stories with some of the pictures she gave us in the book. The interesting picture is on page (157). This picture is weirdly shaped, but it can also be a part of the quote that I stated before “the worse injury is feeling like you don’t belong.” As we can see from the picture is that there are hands that are grabbing the throat of a different person. Rankine shows that not owning your own self is one of the worse injuries. As she stated “When you lay your body in the body entered as if skin and bone were public places. When you lay your body in the body entered as if you’re the ground you walk on, you know no memory should live in these memories becoming the body of you”. I felt like this paragraph shows how it’s important to find yourself and connect with your body and if you don’t you will just feel like you don’t belong.
Discussion questions
- Do you think the quote “The worse injury is feeling like you don’t belong” must deal with the picture on 157? If so, how?
- What does Rankine mean when she says, “come on. Let it go. Move on”? (151)
- Discuss the closing of this book and the closing line “It wasn’t a match. It was a lesson”.
Works Cited
LitCharts. “Anger and Emotional Processing Theme Analysis.” LitCharts,https://www.litcharts.com/lit/citizen-an-american-lyric/themes/anger-and-emotional-processing.
Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric. Minneapolis, Minnesota, Graywolf Press, 2014.
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