For Wednesday, 02/12--
Read up to page 103 then write a paragraph long question or comment.
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Created January 6, 2020
Community? Engagements? Arts? Well, for starters this is a class taught at Transylvania University in Lexington, KY by professors Kremena Todorova and Kurt Gohde. The goal of this class is to form a relationship with the community by engaging in artistic projects with the community. The outcome of this will manifest itself in many ways, some recognizable and others not so much.
CETA 2020: Our first 2 emojis (of hundreds)
Created January 6, 2020
Individual Tasks
Collect addresses, make & write thank-you cards, design pronoun buttons--Anna Davis
Blog Manager--Paige Wessling
Recorder/archivist for This I Believe essays--Sarah Metcalfe
Social Media--Lydia Baggett & Garrett LeVan
Photographic Inventory (3 people)--Yousef Alsdudi, Sarah Bennett, & Faith Boles
Space, raw material, & tool inventory manager AND order enforcer--Emily Neat
Quality Control & Class Ethicist--Alex Toney
Software Design Team (3 people)--Shelby Barker, Emily Cecil, & Abby Pearson
Fabrication Team (3 people)--Brooklyn Greer, Will Hemingway, & Marissa Price
Finishing Team (4 people)--Nannie Baze, Emon Daneshmand, Ally Frederick, & Madison Phillips
Additional photographic documentation--Kremena and Kurt
Working with production design at Kre8Now Makerspace--Kurt and Kremena
Publicity for the class--Kremena and Kurt
Securing materials needed--Kurt and Kremena
When I first read Citizen last year, I was pretty lost when it came to most of the discussion surrounding Serena Williams, since I was pretty much in the dark about tennis. I still do not claim to know everything about tennis, but I have watched several videos about how uniquely tennis it is to throw a tantrum after a bad call or a bad set. I remembered people talking about it during discussions, but now that I have seen it, I understand the hypocrisy Rankin is talking about.
ReplyDeleteSo many white tennis players throw huge fits when they are losing. I believe I even say a video where a white male player physically assaulted a referee. Yet, the sports media demonizes Williams for acting the same way her white counterparts do. All too often her critics defend themselves with a claim that she is in another level of aggression, but that other level is obviously based on their bias toward her race. I can't imagine how taxing it must be upon black women to tailor their every move to try and avoid being labeled an angry black woman. I saw that even when Williams was giving birth, she was disrespected as angry and overreacting, even though she knew her health concerns were valid and possibly life threatening. It is appalling and shocking to me that black women are treated so callously in our society for just existing in their own skin.
I read some excerpts of this novel in my Race, Ethnicity, and Social class course last semester. They were the ones in the from the beginning of the book. One was the example on the plane where the mom sits in the middle because she doesn't want the child to sit by the man in the window seat. I remember reading that and thinking how even the slightest of things can be so harmful to people. The first part of the book focused on that and I thought it was interesting to see. Also, I don't follow tennis, so I didn't know all the details of the Serena Williams matches. But I had heard of the discriminatory calls she was receiving and the backlash she got when she reacted.
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading, there are a couple of different quotes that really popped out to me. First, in the third portion of the book, there is a man who while sitting in an authors audience thinks "Only then do you realize you are among the others out in public and not among friends." This broke my heart to read because I think it clearly showed how so many people, even without maybe realizing they are doing it, isolate an entire group of people for nothing other than the tone of their skin. Prejudice and hatred are still so apparent today, even through the smallest action and I do not think people realize how long a hurtful comment, even if you didn't mean it to be hurtful, can stick in someone's head and mess with their entire being. Another situation that made me feel extremely angry was the woman in the drugstore who was cut in front of by a man because "he didn't see her." I think this extremely short passage speaks mountains about how the world glides over not only women, but specifically women of color. We all deserve equal representation and equal respect, but we are far from it.
ReplyDeleteOne of the recurring themes in these sections is microaggressions, indirect or subtle comments steeped in stereotypes against a marginalized group. Rankine gives many, many examples of this, such as an educated colleague saying she “didn’t know black women could get cancer”, or multiple people being surprised when they see a black face, or a cashier asking a black person if their card would work when they didn’t ask that question to the white person before them. These microaggressions may seem “micro”, but they are not. They are hurtful and hostile; no matter how insignificant they may seem at first, they are far from that.
ReplyDeleteMy youngest sister is mixed with the most beautiful curls you can imagine. However, after a long day of school and playing, it can get super tangled. My mom would often call her hair “nappy”. One evening, I found my five-year-old sister in the bathroom trying to untangle her own hair; she was crying and kept saying she wanted straight hair like me. After helping her with her hair and reassuring her that it was beautiful and unique, I had a talk with my mom. I had to explain why her comments against my little sister’s hair were hurtful and inherently racist, even though she had no intention of that. Thankfully, she understood and she hasn’t made any negative comments about the state of my sister’s hair since. My sister is now the very, very proud owner of a head full of curls.
Even when there is no intention of hostility in a comment, its results are hurtful and disparaging to the person who received them. When you witness microaggressions, don’t be silent, especially if you are white, male, or belong to a privileged group. Stand up and speak out for those who receive these microaggressions.
-Sarah Metcalfe
Every time I read Citizen, a word catches me off guard: manumission. It is used in relation to Serena Williams’ verbal explosion in the face of a lineswoman who makes an unfair call. Here is what the narrator says: “And her [Serena’s] punishment for this moment of manumission is the threatened point penalty resulting in the loss of the match” (30). Serena’s eruption is described as her release from slavery, a virtual freeing of her previously chained hands.
ReplyDeleteThat a 21st-century Black tennis player is compared to an enslaved person escaping bondage should not surprise us if we understand the ongoing legacy of slavery in US society. For, as Rankine writes later in her book, “You can’t put the past behind you. It’s buried in you. It’s turned your flesh into its own cupboard” (63). Slavery is indeed buried in all of us. Manumission is an ongoing process. This is what Citizen reminds me poignantly every time I read it.
Rankine zooms in on words’ ability to hurt from the opening pages of Citizen. The story of the cheating classmate whose name the narrator can’t remember culminates when the narrator concludes, “she is thanking you for letting her cheat and feels better cheating from an almost white person” (5). This point—that language can and does wound, whether it is intentional or not—is made over and over again. So I am left to wonder if the fragmented style of the narrative and the use of visual art in it are different ways Rankine sought to get away from orderly words and their potential for trauma. I especially like that the visual art is not explained away, nor is it used to illustrate the words. The artworks in Citizen tell their own stories.
ReplyDeleteRankine's words are a striking stream of consciousness. I don't doubt they are very profound, but it is hard for me to grasp the run on sentences--especially the ones about events with which I am unfamiliar. She leaves a lot for the reader to infer and figure out, which I which was cleared up.
ReplyDeleteThe beginning of the reading, though, was highly stimulating. I could hear her voice and visualize the settings. The experiences she describes are so foreign to me. I have never had the majority of them. Reading this, I could hear a distinct narrative on how being black impacts a person's personhood and pervades every aspect of life, even subconsciously. It is something very sad to think she has experienced headaches as a result of the way her environment makes her feel.
There are a lot of stories in Citizen that stunned me because I’d like to believe people are more aware of their words and actions and their effects on other people. For example, the reactions to Serena Williams and the stories of the narrator “not being seen” at the store check-out line, or “not sounding Black.” This is one of the things I like about Citizen-- it includes stories and examples of racism that can elicit visceral responses. It points them out to anyone with white privilege like myself and makes sure they are understood as hostility.
ReplyDeleteRankine also touches on the effects of racism when she mentions “John Henryism,” a term I’d never heard before, so I googled it mid-reading. I’m interested in how it correlates with depression and wonder if other sources of prejudice (sexism, xenophobia, etc.) have similar terms and how heavily they are studied in the psychiatric community
In this first chapter of the book, what I found incredibly startling and which brought me to the awareness of my own place in society, are the friends and close acquaintances of Rankine, who were just as ignorant in their comments as the blatantly racist characters are. The employer who comments that he is beeing made to hire a person of color, the women who joins her for lunch and complains of her white sons innability to gain scholarship money due to minorities, the neighbor that calls the cops on your black babysitter, the childhood friend that called Rankine the name of her black housekeeper, and the friend who innocently uses unacceptable slang towards Rankine in an attempt to be comedic. None of these characters are presented as being intentionally racist and hurtful as the ones who openly discriminate are. However, this does not remove the severity of their comments and the bigotry behind them. Rankine does an amazing job of demonstrating how thoughtless remarks are just as guilty of racism, and that every white person must be aware of their privilege.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started reading Citizen I found it hard to distinguish if the book was poetry or not but as I kept reading that question became insignificant to me. The book occupies its own space powerfully while also confronting the fact that racism has never fully gone away in America. The way she retells stories from recent news made me, as a white reader, more conscious about the unconscious racism that surrounds us. Chapter 3 really stood out to me as I grew up watching Serena Williams play tennis. At the end of the chapter Claudia Rankine leaves the reader to decide what they want to make of Wozniacki dressing up like Serena. Is it just a playful imitation of an opponent, as Novak Djokovic has become renowned for in Men's tennis? Or is it racially charged, as we see by the stuffing of the bra and the butt? Can the two be separated?
ReplyDeleteThere were many points in these chapters that I stopped and thought about my own life. The quote that made me spend a lot of time thinking was on page 54. “The man at the cash register wants to know if you think your card will work.” I thought back to the times when I worked register at the gas station. I at any point never thought to question someone’s ability to pay when they came to the counter. It’s saddening to think that people have preconceived notions about a persons ability to pay based on race or social class. This was just one of many micro aggressions in the book that stood out.
ReplyDeleteOn page 63 Rankine said, “Not everything remembered is useful but it all comes from the world to be stored in you.” This made me consider how many things that we internalize from the past and our surrounding environment. There are things that we try to let go, but in the end stick with us regardless of how much we try to not think about it.
The theme of Rankine's "Citizen" is racism. More specifically micro aggressions. From the beginning to page 103 there were constant experiences that people of color had where white people were ignorant and careless. One being that a child was too scarred to sit next to a white person on a plane so the mom sat in between them. Another being language like "nappy" when referring to someones hair. The list goes on. Books like this are books that will help people have a sense of awareness when it comes to understanding the microagressions that exist in the world.
ReplyDeleteAs I often found myself having "wow" moments. I have taken a class solely on racism, but I never realized the experiences that Serena Williams went through. When reading, I questioned whether it was actually a racial issue, or really a sexist issue. (they both are problematic). Hence, in a lot of sports men are allowed to show more emotion whereas women have consequences for showing emotion. Well, I soon realized that white women that played tennis were allowed to show emotion like men were able to. So, obviously it was a racial issue. Reading her experience was so compelling, and unforgettable. I had no idea she went through this. She is an inspiration.
I really enjoyed learning more about Serena Williams. She is one of the most popular tennis players of all time, but I did not know all of the trials she had to endure in the prime of her career. Reading about the unfair line judge and head official made me upset that a tennis player not only had to beat her opponent, but also had to battle against people outside the lines. She did nothing wrong, and was punished simply because of her skin.
ReplyDeleteI see this a lot in sports today. A player in the NFL, Odell Beckham Jr. is African American and is known for his “anger issues” and “temper tantrums” on the sidelines. I think it’s funny the national media portrays him in this way. A player who played for Duke named Grayson Allen, had more violent outbursts and would be known to trip opponents and cuss out his teammates was seen as “Just a kid who needs some guidance”. The only difference between the two? Grayson Allen is white. It is very eye opening that the national media continues to do this in a society that swears racism is dead. Racism is still a real problem in the world.
At first while reading, Citizen I was confused as to what the format was and the context, but as I continued to read I realized the recurring theme of racism. The experiences that I found the most painful to read were the experiences on the subway, and the trauma therapist. I found these two to be a sad representation of the culture we live in, with people being so blunt about intolerance. It is ridiculous and devastating to see intolerance over something that should never have been a problem in the first place.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading the first part of Citizen, the section that stuck out to me the most begins on page 82 as the author writes about Hurricane Katrina, which happened in 2005. The urgency the evacuators felt was obvious in this section, and I could feel the anxiety, fear, and uncertainty of what was to come from a few of the quotes. “He said, I don’t know what the water wanted. It wanted to show you no one would come” (Rankine 85). As the rest of the nation watched from their televisions, thousands of people waited for help that wouldn’t come to them no matter how desperate they were. The fact that individuals were given flashlights as they returned to their homes only to find their loved ones dead is sickening. While I’m not certain of the specifics regarding aid that FEMA and other organizations gave during this natural disaster, I know that when I visited New Orleans in 2013, 8 years after the hurricane, the destruction from Katrina was still all over the city. Buildings were left to cave in on themselves and cemeteries were left altered by the water damage. If the communities the hurricane affected were predominantly white instead of black, would they have been rebuilt with more help and urgency? I think I already know the answer, but it does not make it any easier to process.
ReplyDelete