After introducing her by the host, Rankine started her meeting by reading a section from “Just Us” called “ethical loneliness” and she defined it. She said that it means “the isolation one feels when one as a violated person or as one member of a persecuted group has been abandoned by humanity or those who have power over one’s life possibilities”. After that, the conversation was open to the general audience for Q&A. One of the questions was if she thought of the audience when she was writing her book. She replied “this question keeps coming out and I think it surprises me a little bit, I feel like every book is for everybody if they’re into it. You don’t know who will find their way into a book. So, I don’t I’m writing for anybody, in particular, I’m writing to the person who is interested in this book and they will only know it if they keep reading past the first five pages. I think because it studies whiteness, people think oh this book is for white people. But that’s not true, the book is about the culture of whiteness which all of us are subject to. In order to look at the culture of whiteness, which everybody including white people is controlled by. I want to talk to some people, but I also talk to black people in the book, I also talk to Asian people, so everybody is there not just white people”. I think her answer was very smart and I agree with her because a book can be read by anyone interested in it. Another question that got stuck on my head was about how Rankine reconcile with white friends, and how she reconciles her personal friendship with their inability to understand racism structurally rather than as a character form. Rankine answered “that she thinks that people are complex and that friendships are complex. She thinks that if you value people in your life no matter who they are, as long as they’re not being disrespectful to you, I think you can have those conversations. I think that the ability to have those conversations is the first indication that the negotiation and management of these issues can happen. If I can have a conversation then I can manage the differences, I’m not trying to make people into me, I’m just trying to be able to have a process with them that allows me to be me and to broaden the knowing of what is between us ”. Her answer is like a lesson to me that I will always remember. It was an honor to attend this event because I learned a lot about Rankine as an author and as a person.

Claudia Rankine transcends her writing from just text with visual additions to her “situations”. What the videos do for these situations that Rankine is describing, is put us in the world that she is talking about, as if we are there experiencing these situations for ourselves. What these situations essentially seem to be are events that Rankine has chosen to put a spotlight on that can be connected to the overall theme of the modern racism and discrimination that black Americans face. These events are instances where Rankine can shine light on the reader’s previous perception of it and show it through the lens of the victims.

In the first situation of the text, (but the third of the videos), Rankine chooses to write about Hurricane Katrina. What drew me in about the text was how little I was when this hurricane actually happened, this made many of the alarming things Rankine talked about in the text completely new to me. She uses CNN’s coverage of the hurricane to give a sense of the confusion, the outrage, and the heartache that was being experienced as essentially thousands of people, a majority black and poor, were left with little emergency aid. Her decision to use words from a CNN coverage is interesting because she essentially creates a textual montage of the event as it happened. It also shows how these televised figures were aware of the blatant indifference of the federal government to those that were stranded as they speculate about how FEMA thought going to them “wasn’t safe”. It also shows the victims of the hurricane in their own words as they say that they were forgotten about.

The addition of the video to this text was a completely moving experience for me. The video is a montage like too, it layers a weather graphic of the hurricane with images of the hurricane victims. I think the video adds to the ideas that Rankine expresses in the text and it opened up my eyes to the line of thinking that Rankine goes through in the text. It starts with just the weather graphic of the hurricane as it going over New Orleans. This drew the question: what is the use of these weather graphics? Usually they are to predict the hurricane and its route and although it’s unclear of this graphic is before or as the hurricane was hitting, I think just the fact that these graphics are used for that already says something. It said to me the symbolism for it in the video could be that the hurricane, to some extent, was predictable in where it would land. I looked into this and actually found an article that solidified this idea, which talks about top weather agencies predicting, rather accurately, the potential catastrophic hurricane and its path that devastated New Orleans even though the federal government stated otherwise.

After coming to terms with that being the reason why the video chooses a weather graphic, the second element of it is the pictures of the devastation. Now that Rankine and Lucas tell us that this is something predictable, and the lack of emergency personnel preventable, they show us the people that Rankine is talking about. The countless photos of black Americans that were left stranded, walking through waist level waters, or on top of their roofs, waiting for some form of help. Looking at those photos, it’s hard to feel like you can imagine these photos taking place in a more white, and/or, rich neighborhood. This is where the video ties in the same conclusion that is Rankine’s text. She repeats multiple times the phrase “I don’t know what the water wanted”. The first time answering it with: “It wanted to show you no one would come”. I think that beautifully summarizes the message of this heart wrenching situation; it shows a federal government’s indifference to a poor, black neighborhood in an extreme time of need. It leaves you with, what I think is a main message of Citizen overall, which is the harsh reality of our modern, systematically racist society.

Nurhayati, Ari. “Intersecting Oppression of Gender and Race in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and God Help The Child.” Litera (Yogyakarta) 18.3 (2019): 382–400. Web.

-This article discusses white supremacy in America and its place and effect in the novel. It goes on to specifically discuss how women in America especially suffer from racism and their methods of coping and surviving through this hostility and negativity. All of this is related back to women and the oppression they face within the novel.

Koch, E. “Hollywood’s Terror Industry: Idealized Beauty and The Bluest Eye.” Sanglap : journal of literary and cultural inquiry 1.1 (2014): 147–. Print.

-Koch discusses and breaks down the cultural ideal of beauty that existed in a 1940s era America and how Toni Morrison’s novel accurately displays the suffering that many Americans, especially African Americans, had to go through so that they could conform to these ideals.

Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye; a Novel. [1st ed.]. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970. Print.

-This is the main novel that the essay will stem from. This novel contains the main plot and the other articles that are used all discuss the situations that take place within the main story.

Muhi, Ridha. “The Quest for an Ideal Beauty in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.” مجلة كلية التربية للبنات, vol. 21, no. 2, College of Education for Women, Feb. 2019.

-This text identifies how a white complexion being the standard of beauty at the time in America has affected the African American youth. The text also goes on to further dive into how this standard of beauty can destroy a person’s self-esteem and the love they have for themselves. It can also blind them from recognizing their own natural beauty.

Scott, Lynn. “Beauty, Virtue and Disciplinary Power: A Foucaldian Reading of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.” Midwestern miscellany 24 (1996): 9–. Print.

-The author identifies how Toni Morrison’s work is an example of a Foucauldian theory. They further explain this by discussing the power contained by European Americans and their control and influence on society. This power can also negatively impact other demographics such as African Americans.

I continued my search for reliable information amongst the vast amount of data present on the internet. I used the Hunter College Library website, JSTOR, and Researchgate to look for more articles. Although I had found some articles that could have possibly fit into my bibliography, I was already comfortable with the current selection I had and I personally found them to be more relevant to my essay and argument after picking through them. They seem to be satisfactory in the information they provide, but my incessant research may mean I can possibly come across better or more relevant information in the future, in which case may mean an updated bibliography.

Saunders, James. “Why Losing a Tooth Matters: Shirley Jackson’s The Tooth and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.” The Midwest quarterly (Pittsburg) 53.2 (2012): 193–. Print.-This article compares Shirley Jackson’s novel and Toni Morrison’s novel. They specifically discuss beauty and how our body plays a major role in portraying our “outer beauty.” They also discuss Pauline Breedlove and how the loss of her tooth has affected her self esteem and personal outlook.

        Works Cited Page 

Djawoto, Olivia. “Poetry in the Post-Truth Era: Formal Structures in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric.” Forum (Edinburgh) 25.25 (2017): n. pag. Print.

• Olivia Djawoto discusses the impact that the poetry in “Citizen: An American Lyric “ has on the overall narrative piece itself as well as the impact on the reader. This argument is fully developed throughout the piece as the writer speaks about how the book speaks about the importance of “truth” about the racial inequities in America. She dives into how the title holds an underlying meaning in the message that Rankine is spreading, that “citizenship” is not given to everyone. This is one of the many things discussed in the article and we see more topics discussed such as how Rankine’s use of the second person affects the reader’s perspective on the injustices in the book. Overall the article makes the reader think about the “truth” of the “post-racial” world we live in today. 

Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. New York: Vintage International, 1995. Print.

• This is the literary piece that will be used to compare/contrast. The paper centers around this piece.

Frisina, Kyle. “From Performativity to Performance: Claudia Rankine’s Citizen and Autotheory.” The Arizona quarterly 76.1 (2020): 141–166. Web.

• Kyle C. Frisina continues the conversation of how the use of “you” affects the piece as well as the reader. In this case of the arguments used here is how the usage of “you” comforts the reader and allows the reader to share their own microaggressions by forming a connection to the narrator in the book. The article focuses on how these connections allow for a “performance” from both the reader and the narrator.

  Hartung, Burke. “Taking Perspective: Personal Pronouns Affect Experiential Aspects of Literary Reading.” PloS one 11.5 (2016): e0154732–e0154732. Web.

• Burke Hartung explains the usage of pronouns in literature and how they change the literature in which they are being used. This article explains and discusses the first, second, and third-person perspectives in literature and how they affect the reader. He takes a psychological approach as we see how these different usages can provide different outcomes for individuals who are reading the literature.

Larkin, Lesley. “Close Reading “You”: Ralph Ellison.” In Race and the Literary Encounter: Black Literature from James Weldon Johnson to Percival Everett, 92-123. Indiana University Press, 2015. Accessed November 10, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt17t75c3.7.

• Lesley Larkin in this chapter of the textbook discusses the use of the second person throughout the novel. She analyzes and investigates its impact on the novel and how this different perspective can perhaps change the meaning of the novel or add a new meaning to it.

Rankine, Claudia, 1963- author. Citizen : An American Lyric. Minneapolis, Minnesota :Graywolf Press, 2014.

• This is the literary piece that will be used to compare/contrast. The paper centers around this piece.

Simecek, Karen. “Cultivating Intimacy: The Use of the Second Person in Lyric Poetry.” Philosophy and Literature 43.2 (2019): 501–518. Web.

• Karen Simecek focuses entirely on the use of the second person in “Citizen: An American Lyric” and how this use encaptures the reader. She also discusses how the use of the second person makes an “intimate” connection with the reader and the narrator of the work. This concept is further discussed throughout the article as examples are given to further explain it.

When looking for these articles I proceeded to use the Hunter College Library Database. I used JStor, Onesearch, and Gale Literature at first to look for research articles. I then proceeded to use terms such as “third person, pronouns, you, perspective, impact, and literature” to narrow down searches for my research paper. This helped out as at first I was not getting many articles relevant to my topic but as I made my terms more to the point, I found more sources. I also ensured that the articles were  “peer-reviewed” so that they were reliable sources. I also read it to make sure it would support my argument and also see if it would expand my own knowledge so that I could incorporate it into my paper. The research did take me a while to find as Rankine wrote Citizen in 2014 but narrowing it down helped to find articles that were relevant to my topic.

Claudia Rankine and John Lucas’ video and accompanying text describing Zinedine Zidane’s infamous World Cup headbutt explores the ways in which it may be called a “situation.” The most obvious is in the literal situation in which Zidane was placed, one where he was forced to choose between keeping up a facade of calm in the face of racist verbal abuse or to respond, which he chose to do, physically. This is in line with Rankine’s explorations of media misrepresentation of famous Black figures but, somewhat surprisingly, it also evokes the repeating theme of a Black man forced into a violent confrontation and being demonized for his choices after the fact. The immediacy of Zidane’s dilemma led to his arguably rash decision, his headbutt being borne entirely of the situation. This, however, was not reflected in greater reporting on the incident. Another meaning of “situation” appears here, especially when one looks at the still frames in Citizen from which the video is created. The way in which the white-clad Zidane is situated differently to the blue-clad racist opponent in each frame tells a non-verbal story in of itself, but Rankine’s addition of various quotes adds layers of context. The evolution of Zidane’s quotes alone as the frames progress- from discussing his national pride to asking rhetorically if one thought he “wanted to do that,” to his description of the racist phrases having “’touched the deepest part of [him]’”- shed light on how the two men were societally situated to each other, and in which direction the power flowed (Zidane qtd. in Rankine, 102, 103). This greater societal situating is backed up by Rankine’s choices of Fanon and Baldwin to provide the bulk of the other quotes accompanying the images. With the greater context, Zidane is no longer a sports trivia fact, but a victim of hate with an understandable response.

Rankine’s choice to create a film-based version of her “situation,” as well as to place it in her book, demands that closer attention be paid to what could be thought of as one small passage in a large text. The film version of Rankine’s analysis of Zidane is almost painfully slow, his body moving alongside his racist opponent in slow, sudden jerks that feel almost painful with the accompanying words. What can be read somewhat quickly in text form, the film strip of images on the page easy to stop and take in, is turned into a challenging experience. The text’s repetition of BLACK-BLANC-BEUR, between long lines, add an almost official atmosphere to the text. The video, by contrast, is accompanied by an unsettling droning noise. Another highly significant difference is the stripping away of quote attribution in the video. What is, in Citizen, a textual analysis that almost rises to an annotation of a misunderstood moment, becomes a collage of incisive and inherently personal statements that may all be either attributed to or discussing the blurry Zidane. With this forced frame-by-frame perspective and the sound choices that direct one’s attention and emotion, Rankine makes more prominent than at any point in the text the theme of experiencing. This is as close as we can come to being inside Zidane’s head in that pivotal moment, with Rankine’s curated words helping us to more fully empathize and understand.