Rankine demonstrates how “microaggressions” play out in the everyday lives of Black Americans.Why does this still ring true today? Does the current debate about policing and race in America feel different in any way than it did six years ago? “Because white men can’t police their imagination black people are dying,” Rankine wrote in 2014.WARNING: Spoiler alert on questions further down Rankine will answer reader questions about “Citizen” on the PBS NewsHour at the end of the month. You can also submit your own questions for Claudia Rankine on our Google form. Learn more about the book club here.īelow are questions to help guide your discussions as you read the book over the next month. Rankine describes an incident in which a white friend refers to the subject by the wrong name: “Haven’t you said this to a close friend who early in your friendship, when distracted would call you by the name of her black housekeeper? You assumed you two were the only black people in her life” (7).Our July 2020 pick for the PBS NewsHour-New York Times book club is Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen.” Become a member of the Now Read This book club by joining our Facebook group, or by signing up to our newsletter. The subject takes an inventory of their physical sensations after experiencing a racist encounter. Moving away from the memory of the two girls, Rankine describes a more embodied feeling: “Certain moments send adrenaline to the heart, dry out the tongue, and clog the lungs” (7). The subject recalls these two little girls, thinking with muted sadness about how the little white girl cheated without punishment. The white girl cheats from the black girl’s schoolwork.
The subject is then a young black girl at Catholic school who has an encounter with a white girl. Philip and James School on White Plains Road and the girl sitting in the seat behind you asks you to lean to the right during exams so she can copy what you have written” (5). Rankine describes the subject’s experience in Catholic school when they were twelve years old: “You are twelve attending Sts.
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