Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia RankineMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I don't think anything I write here will adequately convey the torrent of feelings and thoughts that are stirring inside me. This is art. This is truth. This is pain.
Rankine quotes James Baldwin: "The purpose of art...is to lay bare the questions hidden by the answers." (115) Indeed, this is an essay about answers. Answers fueled by imagination. And while that sounds grand and we usually consider imagination a positive trait, consider these three lines:
because white men can't
police their imagination
black people are dying
If that bothers you, don't read this book. No, on the other hand, read this book. Read about what it is to be invisible. To be unheard. It is an essaypoem on past, present, and future...understanding that the triumvirate we use to keep time manageable is really just a construct that fails to acknowledge our own responsibility to those three aspects of our existence.
"Memory is a tough place," Rankine writes. "You were there. If this is not the truth, it is also not a lie." (64)
Speaking truth to power is what Rankine does here. A colleague described this as a "quick read." It is not. It is a book that deserves deep attention to every word--not just the words themselves, but to see how Rankine has crafted her thoughts and bared them for all to see. This is an honest and important essay that casts our condition as citizens into high relief. It isn't pretty, but the song needs to be heard and the story needs to be told, until we all learn how to listen.
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