How Rankine’s Ideas in “Citizen” are Presented in the Podcast "Serial"

Throughout Claudia Rankine’s novel, “Citizen: and American Lyric”, she presents the reader with everyday microaggressions that she faces as a black individual in America. The podcast Serial presents these same microaggressions and the effects of them in terms of a larger system: The criminal courts of America.

Sara Koenig explores the deep-seeded racial prejudice in our judicial system, from judges, to lawyers, to defendants. The “code-switching” that Claudia Rankine speaks on in her novel is reflected through the language of judge Gaul in the podcast. Gaul regularly refers to, “baby-daddys”  and assumes a fatherless past of many of the defendants that enter his court. His rulings reflect his views and he consistently makes suggestions of punishments that are blatantly unconstitutional. He often employs the threat of jail if the defendant decides to have another child, assuming that the defendant will leave the child eventually. He then puts them under probation, securing an omnipresent white gaze over their black body.

Rankine explores other ways in which black people are defined by the white spaces that they often inhabit. This takes form in the criminal justice building in the podcast Serial, and the way that prosecutorial staffs operate in the building. Prosecutors often employ certain tactics to prevent a change in the system. Specific charges that prosecutors pursue discourage defendants from suing the state if they believe that they have been wrongfully convicted, but instead encourages taking a plea deal. The podcast details how taking a plea is seen as a victory in the courts even if the defendant did not commit the crime in question. The prosecutors also employ racially charged language that raises specific racial perceptions of African Americans to try and influence a jury. Phrases such as, “reached towards his waistband” reinforce ideas about African Americans being dangerous and threatening officers, therefore justifying the police officer’s actions of force that are presented in the show.

Both the novel and the podcast then continue the conversation about race through art. Rankine has a series of art pieces throughout the book that support the ideas written about in the text. Similarly, the podcast uses art to redefine the spaces that are spoken about throughout the show. On their website, www.serialpodcast.org, they digitally recreate the spaces in the show with art added onto the building, redefining the spaces. Often times these were spaces that were largely defined by a white presence, but through the addition of art, the spaces are transformed into critiques of the spaces and beautiful representations of injustice in our country.

Claudia Rankine’s depictions of microaggressions provide a close-up view of daily life for many African-Americans. Though these experiences can seem small and contained to the individual, Serial provides examples of how these microaggressions can sneak their way into our institutions, and result in macro consequences.