Citizen: A Book Review

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine walks the thin line of prose and poetry, using a collection of different text types to tell an overarching story that is inherently American. Through seemingly trivial, everyday occurrences, Rankine develops an understanding of many Black experiences. Vignettes paired with epistolary sources clearly highlight these lived Black experiences, often using second person point of view, allowing readers to go through those experiences for themselves.

Scenes include the narrator visiting a new therapist and mistakenly entering the wrong door get approached angrily, with the homeowner perceiving the narrator as an intruder. You hear the remarks, “Get away from my house! What are you doing in my yard?” The speaker then informs the stranger, the therapist, that she was her new patient, and the therapist, realizing her mistake, says, “I am so sorry, so so sorry” (p115). While for many this may seem like a mistake and not racist, the book layers story after story like this to help readers realize that these types of experiences happen over and over again. It prompts readers to wonder: at what point does someone get tired of experiencing this?

This racism, the kind that so many Black Americans experience regularly, in addition to more violent forms, get addressed in this text.

While this book is often identified as poetry and sometimes has poetic elements, I mostly found it reading far more as prose than poetry, and not quite poetic prose usually either. It does break many boundaries however, both in form and topics, so it made it a very easy text for me to analyze under the scope of transgressive fiction creating social change.

Last year, I began researching the things that create social change and looked into books that have, historically, influenced social change. I started to synthesize these ideas, and began working on a formula that would allow books to do that. Citizen does many things that align with my research on creating change. Some notable things it does include using second person point of view, providing performance/unusual form (through vignettes, incorporating news articles, photographs, etc.), and introducing positive contact (McRaney (2022) and Dovidio et al. (2009)).

I haven't done a lot of talking on the blog yet about the research I did regarding transgressive fiction and social change, but I'll introduce some of it now. This book is definitely transgressive, in both the topic and the way it's written. It is uniquely crafted, and it includes elements my research says makes social change, so it made me wonder why it didn't become successful at doing that.

In David McRaney’s (2022) book, How Minds Change, McRaney compiles evidence for why minds make decisions based on group identity, why people keep the ideas that they do, and what finally changes their minds. He spends time discussing the process of deep canvasing to explore a method that has worked in getting people to change their minds on typically controversial topics. In deep canvasing, a volunteer speaks to people at their homes with the goal of shifting those people's minds. The three steps to deep canvasing include the volunteer building rapport, describing his or her own relation to the topic, and finally, the homeowner telling their own story. The volunteer reflects feelings and asks probing questions that prompt the individual to reflect. Reflection is incredibly important because, oftentimes, the homeowner has never thought about it before. This process helps them realize the origin of their belief and reconsiders it. Providing facts isn’t what prompts the reconsideration, which is where many people go wrong when trying to change other's minds. I'm wondering if Citizen didn't build rapport well enough at first, or include room for the readers to reflect on their own stories. While I understand that was not the point of Citizen, it seems it may be one of the reasons the book didn't pick up enough wind to change society. I imagine that most of the people who read the book are people who are already on the author's side.

Citizen is an enlightening text that really invites readers into an emotional experience. While it has won awards, it is not a household name and did not pick up enough steam to create national outcry or change. I do think though, if you haven't read it, that you absolutely should. Citizen is a very important read that really offers insight into the (tragic) human experience, specifically the American experience, for many. This book can help bridge gaps and create empathy (probably more so if you are someone open to that opportunity, as opposed to someone who immediately gets defensive and shuts down). Rankine offers an exceptional opportunity with this book, so read it and see for yourself.