r e a d e r
10,000 sq.ft.
of fabric
Fabric SolutionS
We Only Look Expensive . . . 7021 Market Street | 910.686.6886 | 799fabrics.com Mon - Fri: 10am - 6pm | Sat: 10am - 5pm
Follow us on facebook & pinterest for inspiration
22
Salt • July 2015
Fabric Solutions
799fabrics
public acknowledgement. In a section of the book on the police killing of 29-year-old black Englishman Mark Duggan and the subsequent riots in 2011, Rankine quotes James Baldwin: “The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions hidden by the answers.” As a reader of Citizen, you need to be comfortable with an absence of answers. Rankine tries to expose the internalized question that a lifetime lived with racism, however subtle, forces upon black Americans, “What is wrong with me?” The subsequent rage that comes with the realization that what’s wrong has little to do with “me” and a lot to do with the culture that fuels uprisings both personal and on the streets. Sometimes, rarely, literature and art can effectively comment on the immediate now with prescience and even usefulness. The television series The Wire certainly laid bare the realities of life in Baltimore that made the response to the death of Freddie Gray unsurprising. Similarly, Citizen (released a year before Gray’s death), gives insight into why America — and not just black America — has responded so vehemently to the deaths of unarmed black men. When Rankine writes, “Because white men can’t / police their imaginations / black men are dying” she addresses the other side of paranoia and fear that allows for externalized violence and not paralyzing internalized doubt. One response to this long narrative of racial dis-ease is to say things are so much better now than they were in 1860 Charleston or 1967 Detroit or 1991 Los Angeles. It’s undoubtedly true. Thankfully true. Rankine is aware of this, but has no patience for those who insist that the best way for her to be a citizen in 2015 America is to “Come on. Let it go. Move on.” Letting go of history is the exact wrong approach for Rankine. A visual poem that begins with a list of young black men shot to death (“In Memory of Jordan Russell Davis / In Memory of Eric Garner…”) ends with “In Memory” slowly fading away into emptiness. This is not the answer. We can all be citizens of the same country only if we can agree on the same facts of history. Otherwise we’re effectively citizens of different countries. Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric is an attempt to get us all on the same page of history. If there is a “One Nation, One Book” program out there somewhere, then for this Independence Day I recommend that we all read Rankine’s book. It’ll make for a great conversation and in great conversation begins good citizenship. The books ends with a detail of a Turner painting that’s not to be missed! b Brian Lampkin is an owner of Greensboro’s Scuppernong Books.
The Art & Soul of Wilmington