The fifth situation from Section VI of Claudia Rankine’s Citizen is dedicated specifically to the memory of Trayvon Martin. The very basic definition of “situation” is “a set of circumstances in which one finds oneself; a state of affairs.” The reason why Rankine calls these texts “situations” is because of how she writes about her subjects. What they go through is not, by any means, their fault. Rather, they are thrown into these circumstances that are beyond their control simply because of the racism and profiling they face because they are black. It is clear that the main character of this particular situation, Trayvon Martin, therefore “found himself” in the circumstances that ultimately ended with his death.
However, the text could (unfortunately) also apply to many other black men who were unjustly discriminated upon, as she calls upon her “brothers” from the many eras America has gone through, ranging from “the years of passage, plantation, migration, of Jim Crow segregation, of poverty, inner cities, profiling” – all eras where black men have suffered, both physically and mentally, through the same racism that Trayvon Martin faced. This shows that racism has not changed even as the times did. Rankine depicts how black boys learn about the differences in treatment that they will face through her film. Throughout the entire video, a black man is staring out the window of a moving car and is watching what is going on outside. When Rankine talks about the childhood of a black boy in the beginning, she refers to it as “steep steps into a collapsing mind,” as the black man watches a seemingly happy childhood play out in front of him, where a black boy, perhaps himself, is playing on the beach with his father. This implies that the naive bliss this black boy is feeling is about to go away soon, as he descends down the steps of what Rankine calls a “collapsing mind.” This gives a strong visual of how the black mind is, essentially, broken over time.
This brokenness is slowly beginning to show as the black man’s views out his window quickly change and he now finds himself looking at scenes like police brutality, Malcolm X, and a noose hanging from a tree. This is a stark difference from when he was looking at a boy living a happy childhood. Now, the audience can assume that this boy has grown older and is now becoming more aware of his skin color and how he is treated differently and unfairly because of it. In other words, his mind is slowly starting to collapse, as Rankine had put it.
The text “reads” differently when viewing it as a film rather than reading it as just a book. When I first read Rankine’s passage, it did not really make sense to me. However, the scene I mentioned is what brought her message together. The video combined with the text allows the audience to literally see what is going on from the point of view of a black man. The audience is directly able to see this walk from point A, where a black boy is innocent and happy, to point B, where he grows up and witnesses acts of racism that forces him to quickly learn the injustices that come with being black. I was able to see someone grow up and watch racism through someone else’s perspective – from Trayvon Martin’s perspective.
