Citizen: An American Lyric

by

Claudia Rankine

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Citizen: An American Lyric makes teaching easy.

Anger and Emotional Processing Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Bigotry, Implicit Bias, and Legitimacy Theme Icon
Identity and Sense of Self Theme Icon
Anger and Emotional Processing Theme Icon
History and Erasure Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Citizen: An American Lyric, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Anger and Emotional Processing Theme Icon

In Citizen, Claudia Rankine enumerates the emotional difficulties of processing racism. In particular, she considers the effect anger has on an individual, illustrating the frustrating conundrum many people of color experience when they encounter small instances of bigotry (often called microaggressions) and are expected to simply let these things go. The general expectation, Rankine upholds, is that people of color must simply “move on” from their anger, letting racist remarks slide in the name of getting along with the rest of society. Because of this, she implies, many black people have found ways of processing their anger on their own, not letting themselves show their fury in public. However, Rankine identifies a problem with this coping mechanism, pointing out that even if a person is capable of processing racism, there’s no avoiding the fact that each moment must be experienced before it can be processed. This means that even if people of color find effective ways of dealing with racism, they’re still forced to endure the pain of the initial moment when somebody says or does something offensive. Bearing this in mind, the protagonist wonders what it would be like to embrace anger instead of keeping it at bay, wanting to know what the “outburst” would be like. However, she unfortunately knows all too well that, in the end, the “outburst” only invites more racism, prejudice, and criticism. Therefore, this examination of coping with racism demonstrates just how unfair it is that people of color are treated so poorly but not given license to express their anger without putting themselves in danger of receiving even more mistreatment.

Rankine begins by illuminating just how emotionally fatiguing it is to face constant racism and prejudice. In the protagonist’s daily life, she encounters microaggression after microaggression, and though she is familiar with what it feels like for somebody to say something unkind or discriminatory, it doesn’t necessarily become easier for her to process such exchanges. This is because before each instance of racism can be “categorized as similar to another thing and dismissed, it has to be experienced” first. Time and again, the protagonist finds herself having to consider some new offense, asking, “What did he just say?” or “Did I hear what I think I heard?” This, in turn, illustrates why it’s so difficult to cope with bigotry, which never ceases to hurt because any defense mechanism to protect a person from offense can only kick in after the initial transgression has already taken place. In this sense, then, it’s all but impossible to fully insulate oneself from the pain of racism, even if a person develops otherwise effective ways of dealing with the emotional fallout of such instances.

Because there is seemingly no avoiding the pain that accompanies racist remarks or actions, Rankine turns her attention to the anger that inevitably arises in response to this kind of mistreatment. “Occasionally it is interesting to think about the outburst if you would just cry out—” she writes, cutting herself off. That she doesn’t let herself finish this line suggests that allowing oneself to actually enact this sort of anger is more difficult than it might seem. And yet, many people of color have demonstrated what it would look like to show anger in the face of racist mistreatment. For instance, when a line judge made a blatantly unfair call against Serena Williams (a black woman who’s one of the world’s best tennis players) in the 2009 U.S. Open, Williams yelled at the judge, cursing her out. Rankine acknowledges that this “outburst” was offensive, but she can’t help but respect Williams for “reacting immediately” to injustice, for “existing in the moment, [and] for fighting crazily against” such blatant mistreatment at the hands of the professional tennis community and its obvious bias against her as a black woman in a predominantly-white sport. This, it seems, is what it might be like to finally let anger show. What’s important to understand, though, is that Rankine doesn’t think Serena Williams’s anger is uncommon. Rather, it is the fact that Williams acts on this anger that is so remarkable, since Rankine knows that so many people of color keep themselves from showing such emotion.

However, Rankine maintains that enraged “outburst[s]” often backfire. This is because racists—and society at large—tend to weaponize these instances of genuine anger, using them against black people instead of taking pause to reflect upon what originally caused such an outpouring of raw emotion. For instance, after Serena Williams yelled at the line judge at the 2009 U.S. Open, she was fined $82,500. Rankine considers the implications of this punishment, suggesting that this is a perfect encapsulation of how racism functions: “randomly the rules everyone else gets to play by no longer apply to you, and to call this out by calling out ‘I swear to God!’ is to be called insane, crass, crazy,” she writes. Spotlighting this dynamic, she cues readers into the aggravating fact that the most reasonable response to racism—namely, anger—is frequently deemed unreasonable, thereby exacerbating the situation and making it even harder to cope with bigotry. Accordingly, readers see how few options are available to people of color when it comes to effectively processing the difficult emotions that arise in the face of racism—an unfortunate reality that makes it even harder to bear the already deeply troubling bigotry, mistreatment, and injustice they face.

Related Themes from Other Texts
Compare and contrast themes from other texts to this theme…

Anger and Emotional Processing ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Anger and Emotional Processing appears in each chapter of Citizen: An American Lyric. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
How often theme appears:
chapter length:
Get the entire Citizen: An American Lyric LitChart as a printable PDF.
Citizen: An American Lyric PDF

Anger and Emotional Processing Quotes in Citizen: An American Lyric

Below you will find the important quotes in Citizen: An American Lyric related to the theme of Anger and Emotional Processing.
Chapter 1 Quotes

After it happened I was at a loss for words. Haven't you said this yourself? Haven't you said this to a close friend who early in your friendship, when distracted, would call you by the name of her black housekeeper? You assumed you two were the only black people in her life. Eventually she stopped doing this, though she never acknowledged her slippage. And you never called her on it (why not?) and yet, you don't forget.

Related Characters: The Protagonist (“You”)
Page Number: 7
Explanation and Analysis:

Each moment is like this—before it can be known, categorized as similar to another thing and dismissed, it has to be experienced, it has to be seen. What did he just say? Did she really just say that? Did I hear what I think I heard? Did that just come out of my mouth, his mouth, your mouth? The moment stinks.

Related Characters: The Protagonist (“You”)
Page Number: 9
Explanation and Analysis:

Feeling somewhat responsible for the actions of your neighbor, you clumsily tell your friend that the next time he wants to talk on the phone he should just go in the backyard. He looks at you a long minute before saying he can speak on the phone wherever he wants. Yes, of course, you say. Yes, of course.

Related Characters: The Protagonist (“You”)
Page Number: 15
Explanation and Analysis:

When the stranger asks, Why do you care? you just stand there staring at him. He has just referred to the boisterous teenagers in Starbucks as niggers. Hey, I am standing right here, you responded, not necessarily expecting him to turn to you.

He is holding the lidded paper cup in one hand and a small paper bag in the other. They are just being kids. Come on, no need to get all KKK on them, you say.

Now there you go, he responds.

Related Characters: The Protagonist (“You”)
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:

Yes, and you want it to stop, you want the child pushed to the ground to be seen, to be helped to his feet, to be brushed off by the person that did not see him, has never seen him, has perhaps never seen anyone who is not a reflection of himself.

The beautiful thing is that a group of men began to stand behind me like a fleet of bodyguards, she says, like newly found uncles and brothers.

Related Characters: The Protagonist (“You”)
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

Youngman's suggestions are meant to expose expectations for blackness as well as to underscore the difficulty inherent in any attempt by black artists to metabolize real rage. The commodified anger his video advocates rests lightly on the surface for spectacle's sake. It can be engaged or played like the race card and is tied solely to the performance of blackness and not to the emotional state of particular individuals in particular situations.

On the bridge between this sellable anger and "the artist" resides, at times, an actual anger. Youngman in his video doesn't address this type of anger: the anger built up through experience and the quotidian struggles against dehumanization every brown or black person lives simply because of skin color. This other kind of anger in time can prevent, rather than sponsor, the production of anything except loneliness.

Related Characters: The Protagonist (“You”), The Speaker, Hennessy Youngman (Jayson Musson)
Page Number: 23
Explanation and Analysis:

What does a victorious or defeated black woman's body in a historically white space look like? Serena and her big sister Venus Williams brought to mind Zora Neale Hurston's "I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background."

Related Characters: The Protagonist (“You”), Serena Williams, Zora Neale Hurston, Venus Williams
Page Number: 25
Explanation and Analysis:

And though you felt outrage for Serena after that 2004 US Open, as the years go by, she seems to put Alves, and a lengthening list of other curious calls and oversights, against both her and her sister, behind her as they happen.

Yes, and the body has memory. The physical carriage hauls more than its weight. The body is the threshold across which each objectionable call passes into consciousness—all the unintimidated, unblinking, and unflappable resilience does not erase the moments lived through, even as we are eternally stupid or everlastingly optimistic, so ready to be inside, among, a part of the games.

Related Characters: The Protagonist (“You”), Serena Williams, Mariana Alves, Venus Williams
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

And as Serena turns to the lineswoman and says, “I swear to God I’m fucking going to take this fucking ball and shove it down your fucking throat, you hear that? I swear to God!” As offensive as her outburst is, it is difficult not to applaud her for reacting immediately to being thrown against a sharp white background. It is difficult not to applaud her for existing in the moment, for fighting crazily against the so-called wrongness of her body’s positioning at the service line.

Related Characters: The Protagonist (“You”), Serena Williams
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:

Perhaps this is how racism feels no matter the context—randomly the rules everyone else gets to play by no longer apply to you, and to call this out by calling out “I swear to God!” is to be called insane, crass, crazy. Bad sportsmanship.

Related Characters: The Protagonist (“You”), Serena Williams
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:

For Serena, the daily diminishment is a low flame, a constant drip. Every look, every comment, every bad call blossoms out of history, through her, onto you. To understand is to see Serena as hemmed in as any other black body thrown against our American background.

Related Characters: The Protagonist (“You”), Serena Williams
Page Number: 32
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

Feel good. Feel better. Move forward. Let it go. Come on. Come on. Come on. In due time the ball is going back and forth over the net. Now the sound can be turned back down. Your fingers cover your eyes, press them deep into their sockets—too much commotion, too much for a head remembering to ache. Move on. Let it go. Come on.

Related Characters: The Protagonist (“You”)
Related Symbols: Headaches
Page Number: 66
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Occasionally it is interesting to think about the outburst if you would just cry out—

To know what you'll sound like is worth noting—

Related Characters: The Protagonist (“You”), Serena Williams
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:

The past is a life sentence, a blunt instrument aimed at tomorrow.

Drag that first person out of the social death of history, then we're kin.

Related Characters: The Protagonist (“You”), The Speaker
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

Those years of and before me and my brothers, the years of passage, plantation, migration, of Jim Crow segregation, of poverty, inner cities, profiling, of one in three, two jobs, boy, hey boy, each a felony, accumulate into the hours inside our lives where we are all caught hanging, the rope inside us, the tree inside us, its roots our limbs, a throat sliced through and when we open our mouth to speak, blossoms, o blossoms, no place coming out, brother, dear brother, that kind of blue.

Related Characters: Trayvon Martin
Page Number: 89
Explanation and Analysis:

From across the aisle tracks room harbor world a woman asks a man in the rows ahead if he would mind switching seats She wishes to sit with her daughter or son. You hear but you don't hear. You can't see.

It's then the man next to you turns to you. And as if from inside your own head you agree that if anyone asks you to move, you'll tell them we are traveling as a family.

Related Characters: The Protagonist (“You”)
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

Yesterday, I begin, I was waiting in the car for time to pass. A woman pulled in and started to park her car facing mine. Our eyes met and what passed passed as quickly as the look away. She backed up and parked on the other side of the lot. I could have followed her to worry my question but I had to go, I was expected on court, I grabbed my racket.

[…]

Did you win? he asks.

It wasn't a match, I say. It was a lesson.

Related Characters: The Protagonist (“You”), The Speaker, The Protagonist’s Partner
Page Number: 159
Explanation and Analysis: