"The Best Lack All Conviction, While the Worst Are Full of Passionate Intensity.”-W.B. Yeats

Claudia Rankine’s Citizen is both frightening and fearless. Seemingly colloquial and monotonous at first, elucidating the “quotidian struggles against dehumanization every brown or black person lives in”, Rankine presents the pages with such poetic diction setting her readers face to face with the strong truth of the micro-aggressions committed in this world everyday. It’s almost as if she forms her poetry with such purpose as to have her readers not pay too much attention to certain things or stumble through some of her words, to reinstate through diction, the message of everyday racism/objectification/aestheticization that enough are guilty of over-looking.

But perhaps it’s not the lack of recognition, but action?

More than just acknowledging these “uncomfortable truths”, I believe Rankine and activist alike, strive to inspire action. With that being said, the reality of surrounding racism, beatings and murders can be hard to digest. It can be intimidating and/or difficult at times to engage in the hot button debates in today’s society--and even in your AP Col. English class. I think that Rankine’s poetry in Citizen both directly and indirectly shows awareness of this. Along with broaching the “strong truth” within our society, Citizen is responsible for bringing up the same concerns/questions in a more introspective/personal way. Allowing the reader

My hopes are that this book really sparks something special w/people in both classes and doesn’t get pushed aside after the papers are turned in, and exams graded. Just based on already had classroom discussions, and my reading of many classmate’s blog posts, Claudia Rankine’s Citizen is an important work to be added into our collection of contemporary literature.