Citizen: An American Lyric / Natives / Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race

by Claudia Rankine, Akala, Reni Eddo-Lodge

Please Note That The Following Individual Books As Per Original ISBN and Cover Image In this Listing shall be Dispatched Collectively:

Citizen An American Lyric, Natives, Why Im No Longer Talking To White People About Race 3 Books Collection Set:

Citizen An American Lyric:
In this moving, critical and fiercely intelligent collection of prose poems, Claudia Rankine examines the experience of race and racism in Western society through sharp vignettes of everyday discrimination and prejudice, and longer meditations on the violence - whether linguistic or physical - which has impacted the lives of Serena Williams, Zinedine Zidane, Mark Duggan and others.

Natives:
From the first time he was stopped and searched as a child, to the day he realised his mum was white, to his first encounters with racist teachers - race and class have shaped Akala's life and outlook. In this unique book he takes his own experiences and widens them out to look at the social, historical and political factors that have left us where we are today.

Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race:
The book that sparked a national conversation. Exploring everything from eradicated black history to the inextricable link between class and race, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to understand race relations in Britain today.

Genres: Nonfiction

Paperback

Published January 1, 2019

About the author

Claudia Rankine is an American poet and playwright born in 1963 and raised in Kingston, Jamaica and New York City.

Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including "Citizen: An American Lyric" and "Don’t Let Me Be Lonely"; two plays including "The White Card," which premiered in February 2018 (ArtsEmerson and American Repertory Theater) and will be published with Graywolf Press in 2019, and "Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue"; as well as numerous video collaborations. She is also the editor of several anthologies including "The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind." In 2016, she cofounded The Racial Imaginary Institute. Among her numerous awards and honors, Rankine is the recipient of the Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry and the Poets & Writers’ Jackson Poetry Prize as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, United States Artists and the National Endowment of the Arts. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and teaches at Yale University as the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
(source: Arizona State University)

Reviews

[Carlene Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not sure why good reads list this as a trilogy and not separate books. WIANLTTWPAR is one of those books which changes the way you think.

[KFK · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book. Open your eyes! Understand your privilege if you are not black. Don't try to defend yourself, explain yourself. That is NOT the point of this book. Is for you to listen and learn and understand that your reality, just for being white, is a lot easier than of any black person.

[Colin Ord · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book in principle is good but writes about the past too much. We know it was wrong but we have now made significant positive steps against racism. It was not for me, but others may enjoy.

[Its_me_its_P]

She wasn’t bad……but she was dry…….

[Pauline · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am going to declare my bias. I write about this book as a white person who has been involved in anti-racist campaigns (including anti-apartheid, rock against racism, the anti-nazi league, oppostion to the Vietnam war, the Iraq War, Defend the Asylum Seeker Campaigns). I disagree with the premise of this book for three reasons: firstly, she doesn't distinguish between BNPs racism (violent attacks) and those who oppose racism but may have unconcious biases (the angry black woman motif); secondly, she doesn't distinguish between individual prejudice and the power of the state to enact racist policies (immigration controls, repatriation, stop and search, etc), thirdly, it denies white people's humanity in caring about racism - white people do care, do cry, do get injured protesting against racism (Blair Peach was killed at an anti-racist demo). By denying white solidarity she denies the possibilites of change (and she admits this - racism she says will exist long after she is dead). In this country black and brown people do need white allies if change is going to come. She is also intellectually dishonest. She talks about categories of class and places herself in the working class. I may agree she is working class if we say she has nothing to sell but her labour (including intellectual labour). However, that is not her class categories - this is a black author who has a voice (on TV, radio, newspaper columns) unlike many of the white people she describes without a sense of their humanity. The book appears to have resonance for white people who are perhaps new to understanding racism and I hope that it is useful - and they can go on to progress their understanding. It also clearly has resonance for black people.