BOOKS I READ: Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (2014). A novel-length poem detailing the erosion of one’s soul as hurtful racist quips drip, one after the other—in today’s parlance, micro-aggressions. Sometimes the reaction is a resigned, but befuddled, “come on, man.” Other times the reaction is anger, as in the Serena Williams’ and the Zinedine Zidane’s vignettes. These two occur on playing fields, keeping the explosion inside the bell jar.

Citizen: An American Lyric — Claudia Rankine

The philosopher, Judith Butler, answers her question, what makes language hurtful? “We suffer from the condition of being addressable.”

Who is the citizen? It is us, the readers, the Americans. At one point, we are given a warning and a challenge.

Hey you—

All our fevered history won’t instill insight,
won’t turn a body conscious,
won’t make that look
in the eyes say yes, though there is nothing

to solve

even as each moment is an answer.

Previous book from the reading log (or check out a list of all my recent reads):

BOOKS I READ: Wayward by Dana Spiotta (2021)

NB: Using Medium’s shortform posts to chain my reading log.