Citizen

From the Mother Tongue Liberation & Defiance collection. 

Claudia Rankine's bold book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time.

The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named "post-race" society.

Borrow, share, exchange as you wish, and return by the end of the season on February 6th. Pick up at the gallery anytime, and return and swap for a new book of your choosing. To our global friends - online borrowing is possible, just pay for the shipping there and back. 

The Mother Tongue Library is a love letter to the thinkers, writers, and artists who’ve given us the language of courage when we needed it most.