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Citizen: An American Lyric
Claudia Rankine
Top 10 Best Quotes
“because white men can't police their imagination black men are dying”
“The past is a life sentence, a blunt instrument aimed at tomorrow.”
“Then the voice in your head silently tells you to take your foot off your throat because just getting along shouldn’t be an ambition.”
“Memory is a tough place. You were there.”
“Nobody notices, only you've known, you're not sick, not crazy, not angry, not sad-- It's just this, you're injured.”
“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.”
“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.”
“When you arrive in your driveway and turn off the car, you remain behind the wheel another ten minutes. You fear the night is being locked in and coded on a cellular level and want time to function as a power wash. Sitting there staring at the closed garage door you are reminded that a friend once told you there exists the medical term—John Henryism—for people exposed to stresses stemming from racism. They achieve themselves to death trying to dodge the buildup of erasure. Sherman James, the researcher who came up with the term, claimed the physiological costs were high. You hope by sitting in silence you are bucking the trend.”
“Another friend tells you you have to learn not to absorb the world. She says sometimes she can hear her own voice saying silently to whomever—you are saying this thing and I am not going to accept it. Your friend refuses to carry what doesn’t belong to her.”
“Did you win? he asks. It wasn't a match, I say. It was a lesson.”
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Book Keywords:
blacks, racism, past, anger, systemic-racism, sadness, history, african-americans, injury, prejudice, hate, memory, future, remembering