Forced to Reflect

When reading Citizen I have been forced to reflect on my relationship with being African American, In a way unlike any other piece of literature in the past has made me. It is easy for me to attribute racism to things we learn about in school like slavery, or to events like the shooting of Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown.

But it is hard for me to connect these events to my own life even though it is clear that they inadvertently have effected me. I have only ever had positive relationships with Police in my life, so I have to think hard and tell myself that Police Brutality is a real problem. But the thing that is much easier for me to understand are the "micro-agressions" Claudia Rankine litters her book with. It is these stories that resonate with me the most because on so many levels I am able to connect with the narrator and their experience. It is when the people we are closest to or the people you would never expect that are the ones who will at times do things you would have never expected. Often times I take these microagressions personally, but end up sweeping them under the rug.

I think every black person in the united states has been a victim of microagressions by a white person because not only do these things go unnoticed by white people, but sometimes they can happen without a black person realizing that they are actually being the subject of racism because they don't expect it or can not/do not want to believe it. It is this kind of racism that hurts America the most, because regardless of optimism for a future where systematic oppression is gone; much of the culture in the United States still revolves around this "everyday" racism that is almost intrinsic.