Rankine Citizen

How do you make visible the things people don’t want to see?

Making Visible:

Ethics of source-based poetry on Claudia Rankine

Citizen: An American Lyric.

FLORES Margot

Introduction

• Citizen is a hybrid text (poetry, prose, and visual art).
• Focuses on racial microaggressions and systemic racism.
• Source-based poetry, drawing from personal and public incidents.

“How does Citizen make visible the often hidden experiences of racial microaggressions and systemic racism ?”

• Part 1: Making the Invisible Visible
• Part 2: The Ethical Challenge of Witnessing
• Part 3: Visual and Poetic Forms as Ethical Tools

Part 1. Making the Invisible Visible

1.1 Using personal testimonies

1.2 Using public experiences

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1

Part 2. The Ethical Challenge of Witnessing

2.1 Second-Person Narration and Reader's Involvement

2.2 Witnessing Historical Events

1

2

1

Part 3. Visual and Poetic Forms as Ethical Tools

3.1 Use of White Space and Silence

3.2 Use of Visual Arts

1

1

Conclusion

Key Points:

• Rankine makes the invisible visible
• Challenges the reader to witness and take responsibility
• Citizen exposes everyday and systemic racism, urging reflection and action

• Tension between identification and accountability
• Directly involves the reader
• Ethical responsibility of the reader as a witness

Use of "you"

Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric (English Edition) (p. 105).

“And you are not the guy and still you fit the description because there is only one guy who is always the guy fitting the description.”

“the book’s relentless use of ‘you’ hovers between particularity and generality, accusation and identification.”

Artforum, 1 Feb. 2015.

• Instances of Microaggressions
• Subtle moments of racial bias are made visible

Extract 1

Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric (English Edition) (p. 44).

• Photoshopped lynching photograph (focus on white spectators)
• Erasure of the Black body, focus on whiteness
• Society engages with racism differently when Black suffering is removed

Visual Arts

Hulton Archivers, Title: Public Lynching Date: August 30, 1930 Credit: Getty Images (Image alteration with permission: John Lucas)

Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric (English Edition) (p. 134 & 93).

Extracts 2

“Serena in HD before your eyes becomes overcome by a rage you recognize and have been taught to hold at a distance for your own good. [ … ] Oh my God, she’s gone crazy, you say to no one.”

“For years you attribute to Serena Williams a kind of resilience appropriate only to those who exist in celluloid.”

“Perhaps this is how racism feels no matter the context—randomly the rules everyone else gets to play by no longer apply to you, and to call this out by calling out “I swear to God!” is to be called insane, crass, crazy. Bad sportsmanship.”

Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric (English Edition) (p. 25-26). Penguin Books Ltd.

• 2011 killing of James Craig Anderson, a Black man run over by a white teen in a pickup truck
• physical and moral darkness of the violence being committed
• No room for emotional distance

Witnessing Violent Events

Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric (English Edition) (p. 93- 94). Penguin Books Ltd. Édition du Kindle.

• List of names
• Victims of systemic racism

Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric (English Edition) (p. 134). Penguin Books Ltd. Édition du Kindle.