Answering two contemporary questions: What the hell can something as out dated as poetry do for us in the information age? What does it feel like, what does it mean… to have skin of different color? npr.org/2015/01/03/374574142/in-citizen-poet-strips-bare-the-realities-of-everyday-racism Excerpts- The first time around, you’re busy dealing with the girl in Catholic school with “waist-length brown hair” who asks to cheat off your exams, and the clueless nun who never notices. In retrospect, the whole exchange is racial, laying down the tracks for later degradations: [You never really speak except for the time she makes her request and later when she tells you you smell good and have features more like a white person. You assume she thinks she is thanking you for letting her cheat and feels better cheating from an almost white person.] _______________ If you can’t pass from one activity to the next without having your existence undermined, something is rotten in these white institutions, which regularly remind you that your very presence within them is a sign of their enlightenment: You are in the dark, in the car, watching the black-tarred street being swallowed by speed; he tells you his dean is making him hire a person of color when there are so many great writers out there . . . . [As usual you drive straight through the moment with the expected backing off of what was previously said. It is not only that confrontation is headache-producing; it is also that you have a destination that doesn’t include acting like this moment isn’t inhabitable, hasn’t happened before, and before isn’t part of the now as the night darkens and the time shortens between where we are and where we are going. Rankine’s use of multiple negatives works here, as often in this book, to re-create the bizarro crisis of figuring out how to parse a moment that should never have occurred, a response that “doesn’t include acting like this moment isn’t inhabitable.”] ___________ We understand the stakes when, in prose subdued to let the facts speak for themselves, Rankine reminds us how, for decades, the Williams sisters’ athletic dominance has been construed as trauma. In 2004, “the distinguished tennis chair umpire” Mariana Alves gave the U.S. Open semifinal away to Jennifer Capriati, making five outrageous calls in a row. Capriati and Alves looked as though they were in cahoots: [The serves and returns Alves called out were landing, stunningly unreturned by Capriati, inside the lines, no discerning eyesight needed. Commentators, spectators, television viewers, line judges, everyone could see the balls were good, everyone, apparently, except Alves. No one could understand what was happening. Serena, in her denim skirt, black sneaker boots, and dark mascara, began wagging her finger and saying, “no, no, no,” as if by negating the moment she could propel us back into a legible world.] ___ “moving on” is not synonymous with “leaving behind.” newyorker/magazine/2014/10/27/color-codes
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 10:54:28 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015