Claudia Rankine Citizen Essay

Citizen, by Claudia Rankine, is a compilation of poems and writings explaining the problems with society's complacency towards racism. Rankine also points out instances where underlying racism hurts more than flat out racist remarks. The novel is riddled with images symbolizing the discrimination towards African Americans, which contribute to the overall theme of racism becoming naturalized. Citizen works to debunk these natural assumptions and feelings of the common stereotypes of African Americans. Rankine does so most convincingly by using the theme of “being thrown against a sharp white background” (pages 52-53), an idea first introduced by Zora Neale Hurston in How It Feels To Be Colored Me. This overall theme connects the book completely.
Arriving to an appointment with her new therapist,the narrator waits at the front door patiently. The greeting the narrator receives is, “Get away from my house! What are you doing in my yard?” (Page 18), presumably because she is Black. The underlying racism in the mind of a White person can be shocking and scary to look at when on paper as it is throughout Citizen. Although the reader can assume that the therapist knew she had a patient visiting, she lost all control and screamed at her patient just because of the color of her skin upset her. In fact, the patient rang the bell of the therapist’s house, which should be assuring that the patient was not looking to do anything wrong, yet still, the therapist yells like, “a wounded Doberman pinscher or a German shepherd has gained the power of speech” (Page 18). The reader can also assume that the narrator would not be treated this way if the color of her skin was different. This is particularly disturbing because of it being the therapist’s first instinct to think the patient is doing something wrong and does not belong where she is standing. This proves the idea of white Americans becoming complacent and being blind to the issues that don't impact them