Sharp White Background

Claudia Rankine has constructed a masterpiece that conveys her experience very well. It reads like a journal, one that makes readers feel, if not at times, understand the struggles Rankine has gone through. I think that this follows the established definition of poetry really well. Throughout Citizen, many lines stand out to instill emotion within the reader.

One of the lines that stood out to me was not one that Rankine herself had said, but the quote by Zora Neale Hurston that Citizen speaks on. ¨I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background" (25). I think that this line is true and describes Serena's and her sister, Venus's, experience in tennis quite well. Additionally, this quote made me think of the spatial layout of the book. Most of the pages contain a large amount of open space, or whiteness. This excess of whiteness on the page only serves to accentuate the black font of the African American experience Rankine constructs on each page.