Going against the Current

In Claudia Rankine's, Citizen, the passage about Serena Williams and her incident during the U.S. Open really struck me. She starts off by saying that Serena showed "explosive behavior" that she had been "taught to hold at a distance for your own good"(25). This resonated with me because it really show the binary and double standard that African Americans are held too. Yes, Serena Williams did decide to participate in a sport that was predominantly played by whites, but that doesn't mean that she should be held to a different standard than everyone else because of her skin color. Yet, she is.

In our society, African Americans have to act a certain way and be a certain person to be accepted in our society. The anger shown by Serena Williams was out of pure frustration and the rest of American perceived it as "black anger". America thinks that anger shown by African Americans is different than the anger whites show and that their anger is something more. Rankine frequently talks about African Americans as "animals". Because of the anger shown by African Americans and the standard that they are held to, people in our society perceive as something less than human. This view of African Americans as lower than animals has been going on throughout history and continues to happen today.

Later on Rankine says that, "code for being black in America is being governed not by the tennis match she is participating in but by a collapsed relationship that promised to play by the rules"(30). This relationship that Rankine is talking about is the relationship between whites and blacks in our society. The code for being black in our society is being governed by whites. They are the ones who determine the rules and hold African Americans to a higher standard. Later on she talks about how, "she finally felt American' and that she had been "waiting her whole life for a moment and here it is"(31". This line in particular really resonated with me because sometimes African Americans sometimes do not feel as if they are being accepted by America. America is supposed to be this great country with equal opportunities yet racism and discrimination have taken over the country.