On page 25 of Citizen, Claudia Rankine references Zora Neale Hurston’s quote, “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background.” Hurston’s quote emphasizes the power of juxtaposition, and brings to mind moments from many of the texts we have read. For example, the invisible man drops black drops into white cans of paint at Liberty Paint Factory, and the imagery of a small black entity in a larger white system that swallows it is reminiscent of his experience working for white bosses in the factory and navigating the offices of wealthy white men who only give him false hopes. The invisible man feels most different and most marginalized when those in power are largely white and he is stepping into their pre-established spaces, disrupting the order and asking for a job.
This “sharp white background” can also be seen in The Bluest Eye; however, in Morrison’s novel it is more invisible. As Yancy notes in his Foucauldian reading of the novel’s protagonist, white power controls Pecola when she is reminded of the white ideals she does not embody. She is not Peola, nor is she Mary Jane, nor Shirley Temple. Although there are few white characters with dialogue in The Bluest Eye, Pecola still feels the pressure of the white beauty ideal. She drinks white milk from a Shirley Temple cup, as if the young, white American sweetheart will nurse her to be similarly beloved. She begs Soaphead Church for blue eyes because she believes this will make her more beautiful in other’s eyes. Like the surveilled workers in Foucault’s panopticon, Pecola is controlled by the white beauty ideal regardless of whether a specific person in her neighborhood exemplifies it.
Finally, Rankine’s piece recounts Serena Williams’s experience with microaggressions throughout her tennis career. Williams’s “sharp white background” is exemplified by her fellow tennis players, who are depicted as comparatively innocent, calm, and competent. Firstly, her 2004 opponent Jennifer Capriati failed to return Williams’s legal serves, and umpire Mariana Alves apparently could not believe Capriati was comparatively incompetent, choosing instead to claim Williams’s serves were out of bounds. Later, Williams was in the position to lose against Kim Clijsters, and the line judge called her out for a violation that is usually not noted at such a critical point in the match. Again, Clijsters was seen as the obvious winner, and enabled to just sit back as the win was decided for her.
Years later, when Williams did a celebratory dance in the middle of a majority-white stadium after winning a match, her celebration was reduced to the racist caricature of the “crip walk.” When Williams seemed to begin to contain her anger from microaggressions, she was compared to revered black tennis player Arthur Ashe, as if she has transformed from “savagery” and “black anger” to a member of the Talented Tenth. Williams is compared to black players who form the “background” because they “act white.” Williams’s “sharp white background” is not purely white; it can be white or black depending on who the media chooses to juxtapose her against, who the media paints as the calm to her storm.
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