Essays

Citizen Essay

Literary Analysis of Citizen: An American Lyric 

Claudia Rankine’s book, Citizen, talks about the serious issues in regards to racism and biases in today’s society. Rankine uses many pictures to insight imagery to the reader and deepen their understanding of what point she is trying to get across. Rankine uses clean prose style poems to address the bigotry in one’s everyday life and how most of society does not acknowledge the prejudice within itself. Rankine’s writing style is a perfect way to show the reader how difficult it is to be a black person in America and how psychologically demeaning it can be on one’s mental health. In Citizen, An American Lyric, Rankine’s use of lyric poetry, visual imagery, and second-person point of view to expose the reader to racism and microaggressions and how harmful they can be to the community. 

Claudia Rankine uses the second-person point of view in her writing, which helps the reader further understand how racism and microaggressions affect one’s body and mind. As a result of that, the reader is forced to imagine themselves in the situations the author describes in the book. For example, Rankine writes; “The world is wrong. You can’t put the past behind you. It’s buried in you; it’s turned your flesh into its own cupboard. Not everything remembered is useful but it all comes from the world to be stored in you. Who did what to whom on which day? Who said that? She said what? What did he just do? Did she really say that? He said what? What did she do? Did I hear what I think I heard? Did that just come out of my mouth, his mouth, your mouth? Do you remember when you sighed?” (Rankine, 63).  In this quote, Rankine shows the habitual thinking in disbelief that is going through the person’s head. This is a prime example of how much of a toll daily racism and microaggressions can take on a person’s mental health, having to constantly question if something someone said or did was racist. Also, because Rankine wrote this in the second-person point of view, it provokes emotion and anger within the reader, because it helps them truly understand the thought process of a black person in America. The use of the second point of view in this book was a truly brilliant decision, because it attempts to put the reader in the shoes of a person of color experiencing the emotions and reactions while encountering racism. 

In addition to using the second-point of view, Rankine also uses visual imagery to convey to the reader that microaggressions are damaging. An example of this is a photograph on page 6. It is a picture named “Jim Crow Rd.” and it is a picture of a street sign in a suburban neighborhood named Jim Crow Rd. This shows that racism is still prominent in today’s society. Although this picture can be seen as an innocent street sign, it is discriminative towards black people, because of it being named after the Jim Crow Laws which were laws that enforced racial segregation. This can be seen as a microaggression because it promotes an era in which people were hostile and derogatory towards black people. The use of visual imagery that Rankine provided was essential to deepen the readers’ comprehension of racial microaggressions and how much of an impact it can have on one’s mental health. 

In Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine narrates the microaggressions and systemic racism through pictures, poems, and stories. In conclusion, Claudia Rankine’s writing style contributed to getting the theme of bigotry and microaggressions and how they are harmful to people of color in many different ways.