Citizen in the Modern World

Though I have read relatively little of Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric so far, I can still tell that Rankine's book is one designed almost entirely as a criticism on race in modern American society.   Rankine starts the her book out by sharing what are, presumably, a few of her own experiences on the topics of racism and racial biases.  By doing this Rankine is able to draw the reader into her own personal experiences on race, regardless of the racial background of the reader himself.  The one moment in the Rankine's book, however, that I find the most thought-provoking and, in Perrine's definition, poetic is when Rankine is describing her experience at her old parochial school when a peer described her as having white characteristics.  The author states that she believed that her peer was trying to justify the fact that she had cheated off an African-American girl during her exam.  This statement may or may not be truthful, however Rankine's incorporation of her opinion in this section makes the reader think about the divide that existed between African-Americans and caucasians historically and how this divide still exists in someways today.