In her book Citizen, Claudia Rankine reveals that acts of racism are not things of the past or anomalies that are exaggerated through the media but rather events in everybody’s life. Rankine begins her book will snippets of daily acts of racism (the airplane scene, the lunch with the woman at college, the neighbor calling the police, etc). In these cases, the offender is unaware of the pain that their actions inflict. Some say sorry while others do not.
People who apologize for saying racist things think that once they have apologized everything is okay. They are wrong. Unlike physical punches, words can seldom be dodged. When someone is told a racist comment, that comment sinks into them, leaving them to ponder about it and find either fault or truth in it. When these comments are a part of one’s everyday life, the false truth begins to outweigh the real truth. Thus, these fallacies eventually consume people, forcing them to see themselves not in their own eyes but others who look down on them. A simple “sorry” cannot stop this cycle. Sorry does not take pain away from bad actions.
When the neighbor called the police on the narrator’s friend, sorry did not help. Sorry did not take back the fact that four cop cars were called on an innocent person of color, because they were interpreted to be, “casing” homes. The neighbor is sorry, but did they ever consider that maybe the person outside was not doing anything wrong? Anyways, the friend was just standing outside minding their own business. Similar to what happened to Serena, did the friend’s skin color hinder the neighbor from seeing that they were causing no trouble?
I think that the power of the word sorry is more symbolic than it is meaningful. People say sorry all the time, but are they really sorry? I don’t think that people know how much their actions hurt others. When they do realize the pain their words inflict, saying sorry acts more to relive one of their own guilt rather than help the other person. Rankine delineates this in her book because when people apologize for their blatant acts of racism, their sorry at the end seems microscopic and void in comparison to their actions.
I really liked what you wrote specifically about people assuming a light apology fixes everything. It is very overlooked how serious what some people may see as a harmless comment can be. When reading the poem about the man who said I didn't expect you to be black and then apologized like it was nothing it became even more apparent to me how little people considered how their words may make someone feel. I liked what you wrote a lot and think you did a good job of using strong examples from the text
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point, as well as the comment above. Thinking that a simple, often fake 'sorry' is enough to make up for a deeply hurtful and racist action proves that the apologizer is either ignorant, in denial, or indifferent towards their bigotry. The fact that they can then go about their day without seriously reflecting on their actions while the receiver of the racist remarks is left to process them is very telling.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with you. You can't just simply apologize for being racist and act like it never happened. That just continues to further the problem. If you don't do something about it people will just continue to say racist things. Also your bring up another good point. People say sorry all the time but that doesn't mean that they meant it. Actions speak louder than words.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point about racist comments. A lot of people to think that they can get away with racist words by apologizing, or that apologizing makes it ok somehow. You also make a good point about the word sorry, very interesting and something I hadn't really considered before.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with this interpretation of the word "sorry" in Citizen. In my summer reading book, Americanah, the main charecter, a woman from Nigeria is forced to face race in the US that she did not have to back home. One of the things she notices most about the US is that white Americans often say "sorry". She notices that the word "sorry" looses it's meaning as it is overused.
ReplyDeleteWow, I had not thought about this it all. I totally agree. I think the solution to ending the "cycle" goes far beyond sorry. Although it sounds obvious now, there are still a lot of people out there who feel sorry is enough.
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