The beginning story in the article by Rankie reminds me of some moments in the book we read by Toni Morrison as well as the book we read by Ralph Emmerson. Rankie Talks about a moment in school where a girl is asking her to show her tests answers so she can cheat. At this moment the author is thinking about her identity. She wonders why the teacher hasn’t noticed the cheating or that their answers were exactly the same. She thinks that maybe the teacher is oblivious to this or that she is invisible to the teacher. 

The beginning moment in the article really reminds me of The Invisible Man. she talks about how maybe the teacher didn’t even notice her at all. This is similar to how the invisible man feels. Throughout the book he is going through life feeling like he is invisible to the world. He wants to make himself known and feel recognized by others. This also reminds me of The Bluest Eye because the main characters in the book never really see representations of themselves in society. They are always surrounded by whiteness. Morrison describes a scene where one of the girls gets a white doll for Christmas but she tears it apart. She didn’t like the doll because it represented someone in society who was seen as more beautiful and the ideal person. Back in the day there was this idea that people who were born with blonde hair and blue eyes were more perfect or portrayed that way. This doll showed this representation but it didn’t represent all groups of people. 

In the book Citizen there is another moment where Rankie talks about identity and invisibility. She says “Yes, and you want it to stop, you want the child pushed to the ground to be seen, to be helped to his feet, to be brushed off by the person that did not see him, has never seen him, has perhaps never seen anyone who is not a reflection of himself” (Pg. 25). This reminds of the scene with the elderly couple in the book The Invisible Man. The couple is being kicked out of their apartment for who they are and the color of their skin. The invisible man wants this couple to be able to go back and live in their apartment. He realizes the importance of these people and what this eviction stands for. He see’s this white city officials kicking them out and leaving them on the street with no good reason. This relates to the quote because these city officials said that they didn’t want to do this and they could have stopped but they didn’t. Instead they threw these old couples possessions onto the streets like it was nothing and they didn’t care. This is part of Rankie point about being seen and wanting to be recognized and not forgotten. This old couple was being treated like they didn’t exist and their life didn’t matter. This also connects to the character Pecola in Morrison’s book. Pecola feels like she is not important or beautiful because of what society has told her and because  of what people have said or done to her. Pecola along with the invisible man and this couple feel like they’re hidden from the world. They feel this way because people treat them this way and just walk over them without a care.

Rankine uses the inclusion of images to further illustrate the text. Before even opening the book, we are greeted with the image of a dark hood, cut from a regular every day hooded sweatshirt. This image has become a relevant symbol of the inequalities and atrocities against black people, where they have been described as dangerous simply for having a hoodie on. Like in the case of Trayvon Martin, who was gunned down 2 years prior to publication, the hood on the book cover is Rankine’s way of labeling the novel “dangerous” for the white population, as it brings to light the discrimination to the black community typically disguised as microagressions. In the first chapter, we are shown the image of a suburban street. The focus of the photograph is the name of the road, Jim Crowe. The relevance of Jim Crowe and black history is of severe importance, as it legalized racial segregation.We see this image when Rankine is describing a situation with a friend who continuously and “accidentally “called the narrator by the name of her black servant. The image and the anecdote, act harmoniously in portraying the ugliness of white privilege. The author includes it to highlight, yet again, microagressions that are blatantly racist.

Rankine’s images are not always photographs, however. She also includes a small excerpt of Zora Neale Hurston’s “How it Feels to be Colored Me”.  The first page of the image repeats the line “I do not always feel colored”, while the second page patterns the words “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background”. The words are pictured in big, bold letters that bleed into the ends of the pages. These lines, by themselves are extremely powerful. However, by depicting them in this manner, Rankine is drawing exceptional attention to them, projecting a sense of urgency in hopes that its reader can understand its importance. The lines chosen for this illustration also coincide with the ideas Rankine discusses throughout the book and connects to situations described, like Serena Williams being thrown against a white background in tennis. Because the words become harder to understand throughout the pages, it can also represent the misunderstandings of them. How no matter how many times it is said or proved, the understanding is never fully grasped. Either interpretation lends itself to the work as a whole.

The text can be read as captions for these powerful images because they employ an idea and Rankine elaborates on that idea with real life occurrences. This illustrations can be interpreted as a still, or a point in time, and the text surrounding it, serving as its caption, describes its relevance. I think there is an emphasis placed on the visual aspects of the book, although labeled a lyric, due to the repetition of its claims. Lyrics to any song are typically repetitious, especially in its chorus. This allows artists to emphasize the key points of the song. The same applies here. The images work with the text to emphasize the point thank Rankine aims to make. The images provide that extra attention that drives the concept of racism home. 

I thought to include this image of a black woman, Vanessa Willoughby, reading Citizen: An American Lyric during a Trump rally in 2015. This image caused a stir. It is powerful and I believe Rankine, if she has seen this, loves it and would include it in her future work, as it works to make a statement.

The first image seen in Citizen is a street sign that says: “Jim Crow Road”, and a lot can be told about the way that Rankine uses images in text just from that very first image. Using images in text is a very tactical thing for a writer to do, I know as a reader when I flip a page and see an image my eyes look at immediately at that image first before I continue to read the text. When realizing this, I searched up some reasonings on why this is the case for me and in that I saw there is evidence to believe this is a case for a majority of readers. There is a study that is cited by numerous articles about how we perceive vision in text that states the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text and 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual. Rankine cleverly uses images throughout her text because as readers we are drawn to it first and we process that image before we even read her text. The images in many cases are indicative of the theme or message of what she is talking about, a great example being in the case of the street sign, therefore aiding to make her message in the text clear. 

The sign is a huge indicator of what she talks about in the whole first section of the text because of the significance of it. Rankine talks about many instances in her life as a black woman where she has seen what modern racism looks like, and felt it in ways that echo the words of Hurston and Ellision. She wonders if her teacher “ever actually saw her” at the end of the first page which echoes the theme of invisibility shown throughout Ellison’s Invisible Man. The second instance she talks about is she feels “confused” or conflicted when a close friend confuses her for their black housekeeper: “You never called her on it (why not?) and yet you don’t forget.” That line is important in the text because it shows this gesture actually hurts the narrator and sticks with it, even though to the close friend it is nothing to even address. I think this is indicative of modern racism in 21st century society, where many white people are convinced that there is no such thing as racism anymore. Many people think we’ve moved on, they don’t think to address these acts that might still indicate that there is racism ingrained on a subconscious level and that racism is still seen throughout our society, albeit maybe only showing through more “subtle” ways. I say “subtle” because from white society’s perspective they may appear subtle, but to the other side, to black people who live in this modern society, acts like this are more blatantly seen in their perspective.This brings me back to the image that is seen right before we read about these stories, that image is a representation of the racism that still lingers in society. It’s a sign that is a blatant reminder to the Jim Crow era of history, and it stands regularly in this town. The first thought that occurred to me while looking at that sign was it must be seen as something blatantly disrespectful to any black person that sees it while not even given a second thought by the rest of the white people that use that street every day. Which directly correlates to the stories of the text, proving that Rankine used this image to foreshadow this message. 

I believe that using images as a way to solidify her ideas is not the only reason why Rankine chose to do this, though. This is because using images also creates a multimedia text that feels relevant to modern day society. This furthers her point that she is speaking about racism in the 21st century. She is making it clear, to those that may not see it, that this is racism that is occurring today. In an age of social media, Rankine used those to draw our attention to her message, to place herself in our modern world filled with visual stimulus, and as a way to directly address a society that is increasingly acting blind to the mere existence of racism.

Claudia Rankine’s Citizen an American lyric is a quintessential example of the power of mixed media art forms. Rankine initially introduces the idea of a lyric in her title which reminds readers of music and poetry which offers an escape from the pressures and expectations involved in being a black American citizen. However, she decided to shift focus from words and sounds associated with lyrics to visual images by inserting illustrations in her novel that seem to provide the reader with a better understanding of the emotions Rankine is writing about. Rankine uses the images to replace the photos procured in people’s minds while reading the novel and insert her own emotions and visuals to their understanding of her narrative. These images however are so nuanced and require a lot of thought that the text seems to explain the image as if it was a caption in a picture book. One of the emotions described by an image were those the protagonist felt when she rang the bell of her therapist’s office and “when the door finally opens, the woman standing there yells at the top of her lungs, Get away from my house! What are you doing in my yard?” (Rankine, 18). At that moment the protagonist felt meek in front of the woman like a “wounded Doberman pinscher or a German shepherd” (Rankine,18) and had to muster up all her courage to say she had an appointment. Rankine uses a wounded dog to describe her feelings at that moment because a dog is always reliant on others to sustain them. Dogs are the epitome of obedience because they have no other choice than to be subservient to their masters if they want to survive. However, the dog illustrated along with this story seems to have the face of a human which puts an image in the reader’s mind of how the protagonist is seen by the woman. The protagonist is not viewed as a complete human being rather a stray dog she quite literally tried to shoo from her property. The woman’s immediate instinct when seeing the protagonist is fear which represents how society views black people. But because the protagonist paints herself as a measly dog laying down on the ground in such a relaxed position Rankine is able to undermine the fear the woman experiences and paint it as completely unfounded. Despite the harmless display of the dog, the protagonist is still at the mercy of the women due to an irrational fear similar to that fear many experiences in relation to dogs. The protagonist is also disregarded immediately like a dog. This continues the narrative of being unseen by society that began with Sister Evelyn who “never actually saw you sitting there” (Rankine,6) all throughout school. The protagonist is vulnerable to what society thinks of her and must prove herself to get the decency she deserves. When she finally tells the woman she has an appointment the woman pauses and says “oh, yes, that’s right. I am sorry. I am so sorry, so, so sorry.” (Rankine,18). However, right after this apology comes the image of the wounded dog which proves that the apology did no good because the protagonist still feels like an abandoned dog who is at the mercy of the world. Rather than being viewed as the black American citizen, the protagonist is the black American dog who is meek in society, spoken down to and disregarded.