Initial Reaction of Citizen: Most Protruding Details

       Rankine's Citizen is an engaging piece of work that will make you think closely about the world of color, racism and the different contexts in which it appears. My initial impression of the piece was based on a few specific details outlined throughout the diverse style of the book.

       There were three distinct styles of writings I noticed, which alternate a complete cycle by the first half of the book. The first was a sequence of scenarios in which Rankine addresses the audience, (me) the reader, very directly in her segments that place the audience into certain situations by literally addressing the reader with the second person pronoun “you.” (These first occur in Section I and reappear throughout alternating with sections of verse; good examples include pages 12,13, 77). Next appeared the almost analytical essay about Youngman’s Art Thoughtz and Serena Williams which expressed a tone of outrage over the situation and over the ideas posed by Youngman in his distinction between a successful artist and a successful black artist (Section II). Next, Section IV transitions into a more obscure form of poetry. It is no longer clear prose, but full of metaphors and poetic devices.

   

           If you look at the book as a piece in terms of rhetoric, I believe that Rankine uses different mediums of writing to serve as different components of an argument. Her segments of scenarios in prose act as evidence, she does not explain them, but states them. As the reader placed into the scenario, she allows you to enter the scenario and judge the ongoing situation yourself or form you own opinion before the more poetic, metaphorical sections come in to act as a sort of analysis of these events. The scenario sections are merely stated as they are, Rankine’s thoughts about them are not mentioned, but in the poetry sequences, she gives us more of her own thoughts of the situations she posed for us. (75-6, 77) Personally, I think the explicatory sections, section II in particular, was most resembling of a protesting tone.  

            I noticed that a major theme in the sections is seeing or not seeing black, both of which can be a negative thing. On page 77, the man at the drug store says “No, no, no, I really didn’t see you.” On page 78, the man showing a picture says “She is [beautiful], beautiful and black, like you. It is the implicit invisibility of the person on page 77 and the explicit acknowledgement of the color on page 78 that carries this theme. However, as I was reading page 77, I could also imagine the invisible person to be non-colored because there was no specific description. Now, I wonder, does this book also play on our assumptions as readers? Did we all assume that the invisible person on page 77 is black? Is this a point made in Rankine’s writing, or am I simply out of bounds?

Note: I would also like to discuss the “I” topic on page 71

Works Cited

Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric. Minneapolis: Graywolf, 2014. Print.