Rankine describes an incident in which a white friend refers to the subject by the wrong name: “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” (7). The subject takes an inventory of their physical sensations after experiencing a racist encounter.
Moving away from the memory of the two girls, Rankine describes a more embodied feeling: “Certain moments send adrenaline to the heart, dry out the tongue, and clog the lungs” (7). The subject recalls these two little girls, thinking with muted sadness about how the little white girl cheated without punishment. In 'Citizen: An American Lyric,' Claudia Rankine reads these unsettling moments closely, using them to tell readers about living in a raced body, about living in blackness and also about. Claudia Rankine is a poet, essayist and playwright her numerous works include the ground-breaking American Lyric trilogy, Don't Let Me Be Lonely (2004), Citizen (2014) and Just Us (2020). The white girl cheats from the black girl’s schoolwork. Citizen: An American Lyric Chapter 1 Summary Share Summary Using the second person, the speaker sets up a scene where she feels too tired to sleep and begins wandering back through memories. The subject is then a young black girl at Catholic school who has an encounter with a white girl. Citizen: An American Lyric Study Guide Claudia Rankine Study Guide Documents Q&As Discussions Download a PDF to print or study offline. Philip and James School on White Plains Road and the girl sitting in the seat behind you asks you to lean to the right during exams so she can copy what you have written” (5). Rankine describes the subject’s experience in Catholic school when they were twelve years old: “You are twelve attending Sts.
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