After reading Claudia Rankine’s Citizen I feel like my eyes have been opened to the subconscious motives and acts of discrimination. My ideas about the book are not completely clear because some of the messages blended with abstract ideas that I couldn’t quite understand. However, the poetry had a huge impact on my view of the world and I feel the need to spread those ideas to my fellow citizens. Responding to this book will help me to understand concepts of the poetry in my own way in order to feel the full impact of the words, and to help me incorporate the ideas into my daily life. Explained below is the product I will create as my response to Citizen.
Medium: I will simulate text messages between the black citizen and their subconscious, a black citizen and the subconscious of a white person, and a black citizen and god/history. In addition to this I will write an artist’s statement to explain to my audience the purpose of my piece.
Topic: The topic I am addressing in my response is the way we communicate superiority and racism through subtle and subconscious actions.
Message: The message to my audience is to be aware of your actions and their impacts, and do not let society brainwash your subconscious into enforcing discrimination.
Audience: I want all unknowingly privileged and discriminating citizens to read my piece. However, a more reasonable audience is the privileged students at my school, because they are more likely to actually look at my product and be affected by it.