Citizen: An American Lyric

Citizen is written largely in the second-person point of view. Often, this “you,” is a proxy for Rankine—an accomplished black woman of the professional class—other times the subject-position is less clear or shifts in regard to the particulars of its identity. For example, in many of the vignettes, the “you” is not always black and the referent of “she” or “he” is not always white. Rankine muddies the personas and pronouns, forcing the reader to engage with these identities a little more intimately while at the same time asking the reader to question what the meaning and experience of race in American today. This technique reaches its apex at the conclusion of Citizen, in which the pronouns meld together: “I they he she we you turn / only to discover / the encounter / to be alien to this place” (140). This technique, particularly at the end, also reinforces a sense of anonymous solidarity among those who have experienced an identity of blackness in America. 

Serena Williams is an American tennis player considered to be one of the greatest athletes of all time. Born in Michigan and raised in Los Angeles, she began her professional career in the mid-1990s with her sister, Venus Williams (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Serena Williams.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 22 Sept. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Serena-Williams). 

The Jena Six refers to a group of black youth implicated in an event of racially charged violence. In 2006, a black student in Jena, Louisiana asked if he could sit under a tree or if it was reserved for white students. Three nooses hung from the tree the next day. A few months later, six black students attacked a white student; five were charged with attempted murder. The charges were later reduced after civil rights leaders protested them as excessive. The incident served to spark a conversation about racism in the criminal justice system (Staff, NPR. “Race, Violence ... Justice? Looking Back At Jena 6.” NPR, NPR, 30 Aug. 2011, https://www.npr.org/2011/08/30/140058680/race-violence-justice-looking-back-at-jena-6). 

In 2011, 29-year-old Mark Duggan was shot dead by police in Tottenham, London. Police believed Duggan was carrying a gun, but he was unarmed. His death sparked widespread civil unrest and rioting across England.