The book, 'Citizen,' begins with daily encounters, little moments, places where language reveals how racism determines how we interact. Claudia Rankine beginbookcitizen Change image and share on social
I don't write every day. I write when I want to write. Claudia Rankine daywrite Change image and share on social
Unlike earlier black-power movements that tried to fight or segregate for self-preservation, Black Lives Matter aligns with the dead, continues the mourning, and refuses the forgetting in front of all of us. Claudia Rankine alignblackcontinue share on social
How do you keep the black female body present, and how do you own value for something that society won't give value to? It's a question I try to answer through my own life. Claudia Rankine answerblackbody Change image and share on social
I love language because when it succeeds, for me, it doesn't just tell me something. It enacts something. It creates something. And it goes both ways. Sometimes it's violent. Sometimes it hurts you. And sometimes it saves you. Claudia Rankine createenacthurt share on social
As African-Americans, that's what's being played fast and loose with, our citizenship. When you have the Trayvon Martins and the Michael Browns being shot and killed, it's because, on a certain level, there is a kind of mutability in the understanding of citizenship around the black body. Claudia Rankine africanamericanblack share on social
When you're writing, you think: How does intimacy happen in the work? You don't know who your reader is, woman, man, child, black person, Asian, who knows? Claudia Rankine asianblackchild Change image and share on social
If the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s civil rights movement made demands that altered the course of American lives and backed up those demands with the willingness to give up your life in service of your civil rights, with Black Lives Matter, a more internalized change is being asked for: recognition. Claudia Rankine alteramericanask share on social
I think sports is one of the places where race plays itself out publicly. Although we pretend it doesn't. Claudia Rankine placeplaypretend Change image and share on social
There are two worlds out there - two Americas out there. If you're a white person, there's one way of being a citizen in our country, and if you're a brown or a black body, there's another way of being a citizen, and that way is very close to death. It's very close to the loss of your life. Claudia Rankine americablackbody share on social