Booth, W. James. “The Color of Memory: Reading Race with Ralph Ellison.” Political Theory, vol. 36, no. 5, 2008, pp. 683–707. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20452661.

Ralph Ellison’s writings in the “Invisible Man” emphasized how negative imagery can affect individuals and how it obstructs the realization of identity. Booth explores the relationship between the visibility of race and color and how it affects the memory of injustice and the American identity.

Hersi, Asli, Hersi. Rethinking Racism in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric (2016). Web.

Hersi uses Rankine’s Citizen to describe and elaborate the effects of microaggressions and its severity considering it an act of racism, then evenly matching it to macroaggression on the same degree.

Sen, Sharmilla. Not Quite Not White: Losing and Finding Race in America. 2018. Print.

Sharmilla offers a distinct edge to the existing debate on race and immigration, whilst asking questions about whiteness and what it means for whiteness to retain the power of invisibility whilst other colors are made hypervisible.

Kamal Al- Solaylee, Brown: What Being Brown In The World Today Means (To Everyone). 2016. Print.

Al- Solaylee questions “Brownness” What it means to be racialized as a brown person in the developed world. He attempts to help understand how we perpetuate colorism and the favouring of lighter skin tones.

Reddy, Maureen T. “Invisibility/Hypervisibility: The Paradox of Normative Whiteness.” Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy, vol. 9, no. 2, 1998, pp. 55–64. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43587107.

Reddy responds to what is considered “whiteness” and elaborates on the effects it has on those that are born white and what it means for those that aren’t born white, breaking down the expectations of how they respond to it

Gillan, Jennifer. “Focusing on the Wrong Front: Historical Displacement, the Maginot Line, and ‘The Bluest Eye.’” African American Review, vol. 36, no. 2, 2002, pp. 283–298. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1512261

Booth, W. James. “The Color of Memory: Reading Race with Ralph Ellison.” Political Theory, vol. 36, no. 5, 2008, pp. 683–707. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20452661

Greer, Jenna Rey. Deconstructing Whiteness Using Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. 2010.

Reddy, Maureen T. “Invisibility/Hypervisibility: The Paradox of Normative Whiteness.” Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy, vol. 9, no. 2, 1998, pp. 55–64. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43587107.

Hersi, Asli, Hersi. Rethinking Racism in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric (2016). Web.

Sen, Sharmila. Not Quite Not White: Losing and Finding Race in America. 2018.

I used a combination of Hunter’s One search, Google scholar, Jstor and Muse to find sources relating to my topic of hypervisibility/invisibility. I found out after repeatedly hitting a dead end that it would be difficult to solely search keywords whilst using just the author’s name or the title of the books. I can across a few blogs that were simple criticism of the books but nothing extensive or thorough enough for my research. I then headed back to the above listed sites and tried a different approach, which then led me in the right direction using broader keywords about Morrison’s Bluest Eye, Ellison’s Invisible Man and Rankine’s Citizen.

How is racism defined or created within the narrated experiences of invisibility and hypervisibility in Citizen and why would Rankine deem it important to write in second person?

Rankine writes in a half prose, half free form format, where she explores the delicate topic of racism and prejudice that’s widespread and pretty common in the so-called post racial America. She explores the long-term patterns of racism and its historical context. In a way that makes it different but not “new” in a way whereby she seems not to be trying too hard instead using a new form in a way that is easily decipherable. She outlines the inconsistency between aggressions and microaggressions, invisibility and hypervisibility, these factors that blacks continue to face which therefore continuously categories them as the “other” regardless. Rankine shines light on the fact that racism persisted and still persists, she addresses this same topic that several other writers have explored but in a slightly different way that makes one curious. The use of the second person “you” in the novel is noteworthy as she uses that to allow the reader to feel a personal connection and I’ll believe to ultimately understand the psychological toll of black citizenship in a country that’s built upon historical exploitation of blacks.

Rankine makes it clear that this unfairness is relentless and takes places even in organizations that are meant to present hope in the face of racial ignorance e.g. places of higher education. This book is a carefully put together documentation of modern history of everyday violence’s that is easily overlooked as its against black Americans, instances of racism such as Trayvon Martin’s death etc. She forces the reader to learn the names of these victims and if the reader is unaware be forced to look it up and understand the depth of the racial violence. These societal issues are very relatable and Rankine certainly proves that there isn’t just one way to channel or express the trauma. The causal uses of some of the phrases disclose the cruel and hopeless ways blacks are treated in USA. For instance, the stop and frisk policing is typically used in a way that’s misleading. “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” (105) This is scary, imagine the fear and panic people face just to explain they aren’t the one they are looking for and that same panic is what gets them killed.

The message in this novel is profound and tragic as it shows what’s happening in the society but in reality, this is the nightmare some people face daily.

Toni Morrison delivered this powerful novel in a slight sensitive manner, the use of symbolism to convey a delicate message whilst using various simple themes and a fluent switch of tense.

Simple in the sense of the symbolism relating to the Dick and Jane examples which were very apparent of her idealized world, Pecola’s last name, and certainly relating to the title of the novel, the color blue which Pecola is obsessed with, as she aims to have the bluest eyes anyone has ever had. Toni Morrison cleverly writes about the psychological and visible effects of acceptance, the need to conform to the thriving standard of beauty and the myth that surrounds the social system of beauty. Pecola for instance is portrayed as a young black girl that believes that having blue eyes and the more she looks like a white girl the more beautiful she would be and that is her route to acceptance. Digging deep into Pecola’s life, her troubles can be associated with her father’s Cholly Breedlove who feels weakened by his traumatic experience whilst growing up transfers his shame and pain to his daughter Pecola, as expected this led to Pecola’s pain of not wanting to be seen and her imagination of disappearing. It hit deep to finally have the courage to speak up about the pain and not having anyone to believe the story or being told it’s all a lie… Crushing! By the end of the novel she seems to have lost the plot which I would believe is kind of to be expected as it would have been extremely difficult to be completely ignored by everyone especially those you call family, particularly her mother, her intra family dynamics were off which then led to her having to exist in a complex fantasy where she feels hopeless but aches to feel appreciated and wanted. The novel is really a sad reality that often affects individuals, yes, it’s from an eleven-year old’s narrative however it dwells on the depth and trauma relating to the failures of recognition and acceptance. Pecola was completely damaged and stuck on the standard of the white world, for instance the acceptance in the narration of the land by implying that the soil itself might have been barren and linking that to Pecola’s struggle further suggesting that since the land made it impossible for anything to grow, so did the social and circumstantial result make Pecola’s growth impractical.