Enjoy this free preview Unlock all 24 pages of this Study Guide by subscribing today. A noteworthy paradox emerges in this moment, as the black people affected by Hurricane Katrina become “hypervisible” but are also forgotten about. (104.) Martin became an iconic figure in the aftermath of his death, which led to an outpouring of rage regarding hate crimes, racial profiling, and violence against the African American community. Trayvon Martin, James Craig Anderson, the Jena Six, and Hurricane Katrina are all treated powerfully in Citizen, but Rankine’s foregrounding of the more persistent noise of everyday racism is itself a protest against the demand placed on black artists to perform familiar forms of “commodified anger.” Struggling with distance learning? Claudia Rankine is the author of, among many other works, "Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric," "Citizen: An American Lyric" and "Just Us: An American Conversation," a … Summary. The killing of Mark Duggan was not caught on tape, and a male colleague asks the narrator if she will write about it. Download Save. ... Claudia Rankine ” Jenny @ Reading the End says: December 6, 2015 at 10:04 am. The fourth poem, "December 4, 2006 / Jena Six,” brings a boy into contact with many natural things, such as trees and grass, that now have connotations that he cannot escape. Key Figures. This section dips into figuration and abstraction, but readers might intuit that the speaker (who is most likely Trayvon Martin himself) is referring to the fact that the incident that unfolded between Trayvon Martin and the neighborhood watchman who killed him was picked up in the background of several telephone calls that neighbors placed to the police. However, her decision to sit next to him turns into something meaningful when he turns to look at her, making it clear that he sees her kindness as an act of solidarity, not one of pity. Citizen: An American Lyric study guide contains a biography of Claudia Rankine, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. This is the blue sky. The first poem contrasts the "fiction of facts" which "assumes randomness and indeterminacy" with the necessity of visual presence (73-75). In this script, an unidentified speaker (who appears to be a lawyer) tells a story about driving home from a client’s house one night, knowing he’ll be pulled over by the police. The man next to you finally turns toward you. Chapter 7. Another script for a “situation video”—this one entitled “Jena Six”—appears, presenting readers with an account of an unidentified character walking into a school yard and sitting beneath a tree. Note that Rankine refers to the Situation series as “video essays” on her website. Citizen An American Lyric (Book) : Rankine, Claudia : "Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. In the midst of emergency, nobody is to be found and it is hard to separate this occasion from the many that divide the haves and have-nots. An abstract painting, showing a black male made of bright gold and blue riveted metals, finishes this poem. Courtesy of the Artists. And sure enough, it does, an officer asking him to get out of the car and telling him to lie on the ground. Figure 1: Image of black teen against police lights from Rankine, Claudia, and John Lucas. Chapters 3-4. Citizen is the winner of numerous awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry, the Los Angeles TimesBook Prize in Poetry, and the PEN Open Book Award. That evening, a group of white boys strung up nooses on the tree. Claudia Rankine is an essayist, poet, playwright and the editor of several anthologies; she is currently the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University. The narrator focuses on words as the worst form of segregation, calling them "simple, naked, and unanswerable hatred" (109). As New Yorker writer Don Chiasson notes, Rankine has said that this is an attempt to "pull the lyric back into its realities." You look at the man’s reflection in the window, which is shrouded in darkness from the subway tunnel. Citizen switches between several speakers, although the reader may not be informed of these switches at all. One of the section headers also indicates that the section’s words are comprised of CNN quotes. strictly speaking form and content are inseperable. “Would not have made it through AP Literature without the printable PDFs. Yet, the narrator is well aware of the fact that "you can't drive yourself sane" (94, 96, 98). Whereas black responses were necessary, white ones were not. Once again, then, readers are faced with evidence of the overwhelming fact that racist violence is still very much a part of contemporary life. The poem is built up of paraphrases and quotations from Zinedine, Franz Fanon, William Shakespeare, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and many more. In her critique of racism and visibility, Rankine details the quotidian microaggressions African-Americans face, discusses controversial incidents such as backlashes against tennis player Serena Williams, and inquires about the ramifications of the shootings of Trayvon Martin and James Craig Anderson. The blank poems at the end can be seen as a protest to these events as well as an inability to respond. The protagonist sits next to the man on the train out of a sense of empathy, but she soon worries that this is a self-serving gesture. It's not a hoodlum driving the truck, either: it is "just teens," no gang, "just a teen," "with straggly blond hair," "a slight blond man" (84). Meanwhile, one speaker on CNN talks about the people who have been hit by this travesty, asking, “Have you seen their faces?” Another cobbled-together quote points out that the aftermath of this disaster reveals the significant disparities between rich people and poor people or between white people and black people. (including. Each was described as a script of a situation video. The narrator is told to stand naked after the charge of exhibiting speed is decided upon. This time, the protagonist focuses not on her own mistreatment, but on the glaring assumptions her fellow passengers have made about the man sitting next to the empty seat. Stop-and-frisk policing is a method of law enforcement that is prone to racial profiling, since it allows officers to stop civilians and search them for weapons or other illegal possessions without adequately justifying why. Chapters 5-6. "Citizen: An American Lyric Section VI Summary and Analysis". Like in the rest of Citizen, blackness is only mentioned where it is used through language. Like Serena Williams’s actions at the 2009 U.S. Open, Zinedine Zidane’s decision to headbutt Materazzi is an example of what it looks like to allow oneself to respond to injustice in real time—or, as Frederick Douglass might put it, what it might look like when somebody finally “resolve[s] to fight.”, A new script begins, this time for a so-called “Public Fiction” called “Making Room.” In this section, the. Claudia Rankine is an important voice asserting the fallacy of a postracial multicultural America, in which citizens of all physiognomies and histories are supposedly guaranteed equal access to resources, opportunities, and fair treatment in the eyes of the law. Claudia Rankine PoemTalk #114, Discussing Claudia Rankine's "Don't Let Me Be Lonely", feat. Rather, it often leads to little more than patronizing tokenization. -Graham S. In yet another script for a “situation video”—this one called “In Memory of. To keep with the trend of quoting, James Baldwin is frequently quoted in these passages as well. When somebody asks where FEMA or the other relief organizations are, another person answers by saying that she heard that the people who are supposed to help want to stay away. Rankine is a great poet, her manipulation of language is amazing and the blend of this with modern art throughout the book, makes the book to be both an amazing read, but beautiful as a physical object too. resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel. Claudia Rankine (/ ˈ r æ ŋ k ɪ n /; born September 15, 1963) is an American poet, essayist, playwright, and the editor of several anthologies.She is the author of five volumes of poetry, two plays, and various essays. ... 2006 / Jena Six,” brings a boy into contact with many natural things, such as trees and grass, that now have connotations that he cannot escape. Its reception is mixed, however. Again, readers encounter another abstract and poetic section. Rather than paying attention to the injustice of Duggan’s murder, many disparage London’s black community. And though this doesn’t necessarily excuse the Jena Six for resorting to violence, readers will perhaps sense that they are in the process of learning that outrage (and, indeed, violence) isn’t a productive way of responding to bigotry and injustice. A woman down the train asks a man to switch seats so she can sit with her daughter or son. The College of Education and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Sam Houston State University, with our partners from the Division of Student Affairs,… This “situation video” references the Jena Six, a group of six African American high school students who were arrested in 2006 for severely beating a white boy at a party. Each was described as a script of a situation video. The sixth poem, "August 4, 2011 / In Memory of Mark Duggan,” begins by taking up the issue of silence in a different light. In this context, though, the boys who make up the Jena Six are in the process of figuring out how they fit into their surrounding circumstances, and though the white boy they hurt is presumably also trying to come to terms with his cultural positioning, the speaker indicates that the struggle to orient oneself in society is significantly more difficult for black boys attempting to make sense of their place in a racist world. Both, however, acknowledge the impulse to fight back against racism, framing this emotional process as immediate and practically overwhelming. Among her numerous awards and honors, Rankine in the recipient of the Poets & Writers’ Jackson Poetry Prize and fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and the National Endowment of the Arts. I also found section VI on Katrina, Trayvon Martin, James Craig Anderson, the Jena Six, and New York’s stop and frisk policy especially powerful. Even where borders seem to have been broken down, the traces remain. His ethnicity, however, stems from a region of northern Algeria, whence many French people hail. Indeed, the person who makes a point of noting that the people impacted by the hurricane are “so black” renders them “hypervisible,” focusing first and foremost on the color of their skin. In this version, though, their bodies have been removed, and there is only darkness above. Baldwin seems cognizant of this dynamic, which is why he upholds that black people must at least try to find ways to keep themselves from “smash[ing]” the white people who treat them so poorly. It’s unclear who is speaking during this section, though it seems possible that the voice belongs to Trayvon Martin, a black teenager from Florida who was shot and killed by a member of a gated community’s neighborhood watch in 2012. By Holly Bass. This interaction might seem surprising in the context of the 2006 World Cup, but it’s unfortunately not all that astonishing, since anti-Muslim sentiments are still quite prominent in contemporary times and were perhaps especially pronounced in the 2000s, when there was so much international concentration on terrorism, which many people unfairly associated with all Muslims. The narrator begins to converse with a painting of a male novelist and herself. Two weeks after the failed insurrection saw the inauguration of President Biden. Discussion How point of view operates in conjunction with other craft elements in Claudia Rankine's Citizen? The unidentified speaker then suggests that “boys will be boys,” especially as they try to figure out “the position of positioning,” which everyone knows is only a problem for “one kind of boy.”. So, I didn’t realize what Serena Williams had been through in her career, and it was educational to be sure. At... Look at the first paragraph on page 24. And yet, the African American people dealing with the fallout of Hurricane Katrina still feel overlooked by society on the whole, having been left to fend for themselves. My students love how organized the handouts are and enjoy tracking the themes as a class.”. I also found section VI on Katrina, Trayvon Martin, James Craig Anderson, the Jena Six, and New York’s stop and frisk policy especially powerful. This is hardly the first time that the reader has confronted this tension. It isn’t particularly clear what, exactly, a “situation video” is, though readers will perhaps have a better sense if they visit Claudia Rankine’s website, where there are a number of conceptual videos accompanied by the text in this section. When the media frames the rioting and looting that takes place after Mark Duggan’s murder as “opportunism,” it becomes clear that the situation’s narrative has been distorted. In the frame-by-frame photographic progression, It’s worth remembering that the protagonist has wondered in the past what her “outburst” would look like if she allowed herself to show her anger. Although it’s never stated that this man is African American, the protagonist’s empathy suggests that the main reason nobody is sitting next to him is because he is a black man—and, of course, because they have preconceived and unfair ideas about what this means. In a series of “Scripts for Situation Videos” that Rankine created with her husband, John Lucas, she addresses Katrina, the murders of Trayvon Martin and James … What is "sellable anger"? This speaks to the unfortunate erasure that often takes place in American society, as many people refuse to acknowledge the ways in which the country’s history of racism and violence has made its way into contemporary times. You take this seat. Of course, the fact that he says it is necessary to. A police vehicle comes to a screeching halt and the narrator must get on the ground, despite the fact that he only fits a description and is not the criminal. Citizen: An American Lyric essays are academic essays for citation. The quotes Rankine draws from Fanon and Baldwin speak to how people who have been impacted by bigotry respond to such offenses. The eighth poem in this section is called "July 29-August 18, 2014 / Making Room.” A woman stands on the subway even though there is a seat available next to a man. Instant downloads of all 1408 LitChart PDFs These snippets were recorded and used during the trial of the man who killed Martin. In interviews, Rankine says that the stories are collected from a wide range of different people: black, white, male, and female. Another person comments on the situation by talking about getting chills while looking at the people who have been influenced by the hurricane, emphasizing that they are extremely poor and “so black.”  \. While trying to get away for a moment, the creaking stairs fill the sonic landscape; it is never silent. In this “situation video,” a lawyer who has done nothing wrong is not only treated like a criminal, but dehumanized and humiliated by the police officers who force him to strip naked before letting him go. A new seat opens up on the train and the woman who avoided the seat next to the man in question now sits down, prompting the. It encompasses the historical constructs surrounding citizens regardless of their seeming integration into a society. This is only a short answer space but I can make a general comment. The final two poems have no text. LitCharts Teacher Editions. In a script for a “situation video” about the 2006 soccer World Cup, a number of quotes appear by writers and thinkers like. Whereas this black boy's limbs are already criminalized, the other boys are just being boys. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of. Your body has spoken for you, attempting to fill in this silence where the empty seat once was. ... Claudia Rankine contemplates citizenship in a deeply divided society. Returning to the protagonist, readers are once more invited to consider the everyday manifestations of racism that people of color constantly experience. Themes. "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." Stop-and-frisk is a notoriously racist policy, one that has led to stereotyping and many unfair interactions between police officers and people of color. ‘Blood at the Root’ Draws Inspiration From the Jena Six Case in Louisiana. They are entitled "November 23, 2012 / In Memory of Jordan Russell Davis" and "February 15, 2014 / The Justice System.”. A man ponders what the water wanted, as if this tragedy were in the past and not the present. One of a series of “Situation” videos created by Jamaican-American poet Claudia Rankine in collaboration with her husband, the photographer John Lucas, for Rankine’s book Citizen: An American Lyric (2014). Thursday morning, Poet Claudia Rankine discussed her book of poetry, Citizen: An American Lyric, in the context of 2021. A half-burned black-and-white photo of black people in a crowd ushers in a segment entitled 'long form birth certificate' to complete this poem. Our. If you are asked to move, you will tell them that you are "traveling as a family" (114). Teachers and parents! They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!”, “This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. It moves out from the abstract world of the last two sections and into the nitty-gritty details of historical events. A replica with black men’s faces compliments the picture, but the windows and bars are replaced with fences, barbed wire, and trees. The fifth poem does not have a date; rather, it just bears the title, "Stop-and-Frisk." Copyright © 1999 - 2021 GradeSaver LLC. The police officer won't tell you why you are getting out of the car and getting on the ground, although you both agree that you were not speeding. Chapter Summaries & Analyses. Less than a block from his house, a house the officer could not likely afford, his voice finally uttered, "Go ahead hit me motherfucker" (96). Under the strain of water, houses begin to lean and separate from themselves. She lives in California and is the Aerol Arnold Chair in the University of Southern California English Department. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/books/review/claudia-rankines-citizen.html The next photos show a pattern of close-up shots of white men and bars on windows and generally being enclosed. After all, perhaps the man doesn’t need her reassurance that he is worth sitting next to—maybe he, unlike her, is able to discount what racist people think of him. A new script for a “situation video”—this one called “Stop-and-Frisk”—appears. LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in. Looking Back At Jena 6 (98) In this NPR interview broadcast 5 years after the Jena 6 events, Michel Martin speaks with Stanford Law School Professor Richard Ford from Stanford Law School who wrote a book about the case, and radio talk host Warren Ballentine who was one of the first to draw attention to the Jena 6. Citizen: An American Lyric Claudia Rankine. This section is broken into segments, beginning with one entitled "August 29, 2005 / Hurricane Katrina." Citizen An American Lyric (Book) : Rankine, Claudia : "Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. The Learning Network The aggregate of these quotations are the unmistakable difficulty of reproaching loaded words of racism with unimaginable equal force day in and day out. Consequently, these recordings document the last moments of Trayvon Martin’s life, meaning that they are “the call[s] of good-byes.” The picture included at the end of this “situation script” is also worth paying attention to, since it’s a famous photograph of a public lynching that took place in Indiana during the Jim Crow Era.