More Than Just Black and White

The various examples of microaggressions in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen do not specify the race of the aggressors. They are assumed to be white. The discussions of the themes in the text rely on the whiteness of the racist person. Though most of the situations do involve a white person, there is a complete disregard of the possibility of racism from other people of color. Limiting the conversation of racism solely to racism perpetrated by white people grants permission to overlook instances of racism and colorism committed by people of color.

Much like the short stories of Citizen, the accounts of racism from the media are black-white narratives. The one name that stands out from the inexhaustible number of hate crimes is that of Annie Dookhan. Sentenced to three to five years in prison and two years probation for falsifying evidence, the Dookhan case seemed to be an anomaly. The crime itself, though unfortunately not inconceivable, was different because Dookhan is asian. A former chemist of a Massachusetts crime lab, Dookhan was on a supposed upwards path in her career when she was caught. Much of the evidence she falsified put wrongly convicted black people in jail. The Dookhan case initially sparked conversations about racism from POC, but as time passed, the questioning dwindled and the discussion eventually died out. These situations, though often to a lesser degree, will come about again and again until society as a whole comes to realize how imminent the problem is.