Former Attorney General Eric Holder said that despite advances, the United States remains “a nation of cowards” on issues involving race. “Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial.” That the nation “still had not come to grips with its racial past, nor has it been willing to contemplate, in a truly meaningful way, the diverse future it is fated to have.”
This blunt assessment of race relations in the United States, is uniquely expressed in Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen: An American Lyric. Ms. Rankine addresses race in a book long poem that she has called an attempt to “pull the lyric back into its realities.” Those realities include the acts of everyday racism; remarks, glances, implied judgments that flourish in an environment where more explicit acts of racism have been outlawed but not always enforced.
In her attempt to “pull the lyric back into its reality”, is to bring the “historical self” in …show more content…
Rankine writes about the American battle between the “historical self” and the “self self”. How does an African identity survive in a European context. How do you stay true to yourself, your family, history and advance in their world. This is the essence of that conflict. If I am Black and proud, will I retire with a pension and watch my grandchildren grow. Does Colin Kaepernick have a job? How we as a people have to bob and weave to attain the crumbs that this society affords us, pulls us away from our true selves, our “historical self” and forces us to lie with our “self self”. The “self self” is an essential tool for Africans. We have to in many cases live in the “self self”. It is dependant to the situation, the place, the time, the company of people. It is a lie that is exhausting and stressful. It is one of the shackles that keeps us in mental
This blunt assessment of race relations in the United States, is uniquely expressed in Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen: An American Lyric. Ms. Rankine addresses race in a book long poem that she has called an attempt to “pull the lyric back into its realities.” Those realities include the acts of everyday racism; remarks, glances, implied judgments that flourish in an environment where more explicit acts of racism have been outlawed but not always enforced.
In her attempt to “pull the lyric back into its reality”, is to bring the “historical self” in …show more content…
Rankine writes about the American battle between the “historical self” and the “self self”. How does an African identity survive in a European context. How do you stay true to yourself, your family, history and advance in their world. This is the essence of that conflict. If I am Black and proud, will I retire with a pension and watch my grandchildren grow. Does Colin Kaepernick have a job? How we as a people have to bob and weave to attain the crumbs that this society affords us, pulls us away from our true selves, our “historical self” and forces us to lie with our “self self”. The “self self” is an essential tool for Africans. We have to in many cases live in the “self self”. It is dependant to the situation, the place, the time, the company of people. It is a lie that is exhausting and stressful. It is one of the shackles that keeps us in mental