Just Getting Along Shouldn't be an Ambition

While reading Citizen, this passage stood out to me.


"Another friend tells you you have to learn not to absorb the world. She says sometimes she can hear her own voice saying silently to whomever- you are saying this thing and I am not going to accept it. Your friend refuses to carry what doesn't belong to her.


You take in things you don't want all the time. The second you hear some ordinary moment, all its intended targets, all the meanings behind the retreating seconds, as far as you are able to see, come into focus. Hold up, did you just hear, did you just say, did you just see, did you just do that? Then the voice in your head silently tells you to take your foot off your throat because just getting along shouldn't be an ambition."


It seems to address how one might react to the unsavory parts of the world in the context of the micro-aggressions and prejudices that have been discussed in the book thus far. Do you choose to live your life passively? Not retaining anything that you don't find worthwhile or relevant to you? Or should you be actively responding to the good and the bad that the world has to offer? Claudia Rankine seems to be unnerved by her friend's refusal to "carry what doesn't belong to her". It seems to be a passive acceptance of the status quo, an acceptance of the futility of change. If we aren't challenging these aggressions, whatever their degree may be, they claim a permanent residence our culture. The last line stood out as a defiant rejection of defeat. Rankin believes we should always be striving to better the world around us, even if it involves confrontation with uncomfortable subjects.