"Citizen: An American Lyric" and the Toll of Black Citizenship

 

Source: Columbia University

 

"Citizen: An American Lyric" is a rumination on the psychic and physical toll of anti-black racism in the U.S. It illuminates the emotional second-guessing black people have become accustomed to in an effort to make sense of the insanity of racism. The heartbreaking implications of casting black people as the 'Other' are at the heart of "Citizen." The reader is asked to bear witness to what black Americans experience daily- casual slights; the assumptions of inferiority; the bizarre, schizophrenic duality of hyper visibility and benign invisibility. 

The poems reveal to the unaware reader that black people are told in thousands of ways their lives do not matter. For the reader who has lived the daily humiliating terrors of racism, "Citizen" gives voice to a reality often too painful to be spoken.

The black citizen is a social construct. The black citizen is a mythical creature both magical and monstrous. The black citizen is the fool and the hustler, the whore, the pimp and the entertainer. The black citizen is anything but a child of God. The black citizen lives without grace, but always grants forgiveness. The black citizen is an enigma. 

Read an excerpt from “Citizen: An American Lyric."

Claudia Rankine in conversation with Bim Adewunmi of BuzzFeed.