According to the Oxford dictionary situation is defined as: a set of circumstances in which one finds oneself. It can also mean location. Claudia Rankine uses this word to define the events she discusses because they are snippets of time, but mostly because they describe black men and women finding themselves in an unwarranted set of circumstances and/or a location of injustice. Rankine situates the speaker by using a first person narrative and giving the reader insight in terms of setting and the events that are occurring. The text and the moving images are not a pairing I would have expected. In the video we see about 4 black, male teens in a clothing store talking and trying on clothing. Whilst the text describes cop cars and being pulled over and cuffed unprovoked. Although the images and text were not a pairing I expected, the video worked in a different, almost indirect way. Notably in the video, the young men are trying on various hoodies, which has become a symbol for racial injustice in the black community. The innocence of the boys going about their day while Rankine’s voice repeatedly utters in the background “and you are not the guy and still you fit the description because there is only one guy who is always the guy fitting the description” creates a powerful statement and gives the audience a perspective they may not have seen otherwise in an encounter like that.
In the short 6 minute video, I grew attached to the subjects. As Rankine’s words described a horrifying experience, and police siren lights blared over the innocent group, I found myself wanting to protect them. When things happen, even stop and frisks, outsiders tend to see just that–what is happening in the moment, and sadly many would place unwarranted blame and suspicion on the subjects of such matters. However, by showing the boys in a normal, everyday situation while foreshadowing what’s to come, Rankine humanizes them to those outsiders. I think her goal in including this video was to do just that because they are normal boys doing normal things, but because of their race they will be told they fit a description of a criminal. It is also subtly (but accurately) implied that police officers who perform stop and frisks do not take into account any other features of an actual description once the race is revealed. she highlights the systematic oppression of black people and the cops as puppet masters in a prison system that serves as modern day slavery.
The topic of this video is stop and frisk. It relates to the work as a whole because the majority (if not all) of stop and frisk subjects are black men. Solely because they are black. This ties into Rankine’s point to uncover what is right in front of us via microagressions or social injustices such as this. It relates to her ideas that the system is highly biased, like the tennis population with Serena Williams.
