The Relevance of Citizen

I've never been one to care that much for poetry. Of course I can appreciate when a piece is well written or when language has cool double meaning, but I'll never go out of my way to find poetry. Yet so far I have really enjoyed Citizen, especially compared to other books we've read this year. The book is divided up in a way that helps the reader know what's going on and makes it easier to read. Also, the subject matter of the book is so relevant and important in a way that the other books we've read, although they too delve into racial matters, can't quite reach.

The police violence and profiling talked about in Citizen is a problem fresh in all our minds; whereas the slavery talked about in a book like Beloved, although also very important and powerful subject-matter, simply isn't something that we can all really understand. That is is no way devaluing people's horrific experiences in the past with slavery, but I really like how when we read a line like, "Your neighbor tells you he is standing at his window watching a menacing black guy casing both your homes," (15) it's actually recognizable, because you read a similar story in the paper last week. It may be a fictional guy being stereotyped in a fictional story, but it's realistic and we can't distance ourselves from it like we may any other book, because we know that it happens.

I also love reading the parts about Serena Williams. She already has my respect for other reasons, but in reading Citizen and seeing how she's not afraid to let people know when she's pissed off (for completely valid reasons!) is just awesome. Get pissed off! Make a scene! Then maybe enough people will see it so that it forces the people in charge of the big tennis events she's attending to realize that they can't make bogus calls or try and pull anything on her, because she will call them out on it.