"They're All the Same"

There are a lot stories in Citizen about mis-identification. In the beginning of the book she tells us about when her childhood friend called her by the name of her housekeeper who was also of color. In this instance her friend did not acknowledge her mistake, and Rankine attributed it to an “all black people look the same moment” (7). Later in her life, a colleague calls her by the name of another black woman she works with. The author and the other black woman laugh out loud at this Cliche, remarking that she had a “fifty-fifty chance of getting it right.” However, unlike the first slip in her childhood, this is not the end of the story. This colleague mails her an apology referring to the slip as “our mistake” which makes the author feel as if the colleague is saying that Rankine’s “own visibility is the real problem causing her [colleague's] confusion”(43).

Although they are both stories of mis-identifying a black person for another black person, the responses to the errors show the problem of black identity in two different ways. By not correcting her mistake, the young girl who confused Rankine for her housekeeper represents the people who do not know or care about the racial disparity of identity. The second, who addresses the mistake, yet does not take full responsibility, represents those who believe that black lack-of-identity is the fault of black people. By extension, she represents the people who believe that not just identity, but that the fault of all the issues faced by black people in society -- violence, mass incarceration, achievement gap -- should be blamed on black people themselves.