In ‘Citizen,’ Poet Strips Bare The Realities Of Everyday Racism

African-American poet Claudia Rankine’s latest collection, Citizen: An American Lyric is a personal meditation on race in America with a cover that recalls Trayvon Martin — a black hoodie against a white background.

Citizen was a finalist for the 2014 National Book Award. The book reads like a series of diary entries about encounters with racism. Here’s one of the book’s anecdotes:

You and your partner go to see the film The House We Live In. You ask a friend to pick up your child from school. On your way home your phone rings. Your neighbor tells you he is standing at his window watching a menacing black guy casing both your homes. The guy is walking back and forth talking to himself and seems disturbed.

You tell your neighbor that your friend, whom he has met, is babysitting. He says, no, it’s not him. He’s met your friend and this isn’t that nice young man. Anyway, he wants you to know, he’s called the police.

Your partner calls your friend and asks him if there’s a guy walking back and forth in front of your home. Your friend says that if anyone were outside he would see him because he is standing outside. You hear the sirens through the speakerphone.

Click here.

 

The Social Construction of Race

“Unemployment, imprisonment, and other life events can change what race those around you perceive you to be.”

“Stanford sociologist Aliya Saperstein discusses her research showing that the perception of other peoples’ race is shaped by what we know about them…Race is a social construction, not just in the sense that we made it up, but in that it’s flexible and dependent on status as well as phenotype.”

 

Click here.

Why police so often see unarmed black men as threats

Click here to read about how subconscious bias helps contribute to the many racial disparities in law enforcement, and how better police training can help overcome this implicit bias.

Police arrest a protester in Ferguson, Missouri.

Black Friday brawl videos are how rich people shame the poor

You’ll notice producers from a variety of television programs — “Good Morning America,” Fox News, CNN — all asking for permission to use the video on their broadcasts, because they know this type of shopper-on-shopper violence is a huge draw. Mixed in with those, perhaps unsurprisingly, are a bevy of comments comparing the shoppers to animals, or savages, or making horrifically offensive racist comments.

…this kind of gawking shows how our lurid interest in these stories is connected to issues of class and race in America.

Click here.

Hey Donald Trump: Japanese internment was paranoid and racist

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he’s not sure if he would’ve supported or opposed Japanese internment during World War II.

He told Time Magazine that he “hates the concept of it,” but added: “War is tough. And winning is tough. We don’t win anymore. We don’t win wars anymore.”

To be clear, Japanese American internment is almost universally considered one of the most egregious things the United States has done to an entire ethnic group…

Click Here to read on.