"She says nothing. You want her to say something-both as witness and as a friend. She is not you; her silence says so. Because you are watching all this take place even as you participate in it, you say nothing as well. Come over here with me, your eyes say. Why on earth would she?"
Reading Citizen, I have noticed that many of Claudia Rankine's stories involve a form of silence. This silence lingers throughout the lyric. I feel that silence is usually a " go to" when racism occurs. If we are silent then it didn't happen right? Wrong. Silence only adds to the problem.I feel that Rankine added these subtle notes on silence so that the reader could notice how often it happens in real life. During junior year I had a discussion with one of my classes on racism since someone in my class had noticed it was going on. We all went around the circle and everyone noted that they didn't even notice the racism. I found it weird since there had to be one person since it was reported by a student. That student had felt the need to remain silent due to the majority of the class stating that they saw nothing. I could hear the silence.
Really well said, I totally agree that silence is a huge part of racism, and that it helps racists thrive. Even in a seemingly social justice oriented society, when people like Trump are so loudly racist, people don't know how to respond to it. If we practiced being outspoken about racism in our day-to-day lives, maybe people would understand why Trump's comments are so disgusting.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that silence is a major issue in our society. We tell people that there opinions and voices matter, yet tend to ignore their words when they are given the opportunity to talk.
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