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Just Us
Just Us: An American Conversation | Claudia Rankine
Claudia Rankines Citizen changed the conversationJust Us urges all of us into it As everyday white supremacy becomes increasingly vocalized with no clear answers at hand, how best might we approach one another? Claudia Rankine, without telling us what to do, urges us to begin the discussions that might open pathways through this divisive and stuck moment in American history. Just Us is an invitation to discover what it takes to stay in the room together, even and especially in breaching the silence, guilt, and violence that follow direct addresses of whiteness. Rankines questions disrupt the false comfort of our cultures liminal and private spacesthe airport, the theater, the dinner party, the voting boothwhere neutrality and politeness live on the surface of differing commitments, beliefs, and prejudices as our public and private lives intersect. This brilliant arrangement of essays, poems, and images includes the voices and rebuttals of others: white men in first class responding to, and with, their white male privilege; a friends explanation of her infuriating behavior at a play; and women confronting the political currency of dying their hair blond, all running alongside fact-checked notes and commentary that complements Rankines own text, complicating notions of authority and who gets the last word. Sometimes wry, often vulnerable, and always prescient, Just Us is Rankines most intimate work, less interested in being right than in being true, being together.
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GatheringBooks
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#LuckyInLove Day 11: These titles sound like a #RomanticGetaway of sorts - but they are actually heavy going reflections and thoughtful essays on dismantling systemic racism and prejudice and conversations on social justice.

Eggs 🖤🩶❤️ 2mo
41 likes1 comment
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RaeLovesToRead
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Pickpick

I'm immensely glad I read this beautifully presented book of essays and poetry that examines white supremacy in America. Claudia Rankine leaves nothing unscrutinised.

Although sometimes I would question / further probe some of Rankine's conclusions, this is a tough and uncompromising critique of the status quo that has widened my understanding of racism.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 stars

TrishB I have this- another one I need to get to! 1y
59 likes1 comment
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AnneCecilie
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I see that several littens have already recommended Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson.

So I thought I should recommend this one instead.
I should probably take it as a sign to read more by her, this the the second Rankine that I read and the second one that I recommend during this #AlphabetGame #LetterJ

Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks Thank you for playing! 2y
50 likes1 comment
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jlhammar
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A powerful and thought-provoking mix of essays, images and poetry. Rankine‘s previous book, Citizen: An American Lyric, is also a must read.

#ToldInVerse #BookMoods
@Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

Eggs 🤎🤍💙 2y
43 likes1 comment
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Nebklvr
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Pickpick

Interesting format. Great info. Rankine‘s writing draws the reader in.

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Mitch
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mrsmarch
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Finished today.... What a book to be reading on a week like this after a year like we just had. The first 3 books of my year have been from voices of color, for which I have been grateful. I think I will carry this book‘s thoughts & queries forward for many years. #newyearwhodis Glad AnneCecilie recommended it.

The publisher‘s choice to print this on glossy acidfree photo paper was interesting. It adds to the book‘s physical & emotional weight.

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Kangaj1
Pickpick

I forgot to take a pic before I returned this to the library, but this was my #doublespin for #bookspinbingo, @TheAromaofBooks

I have now read three of her books and really liked this one and Citizen a lot. Would definitely encourage reading this one in print, as the format is creative.

TheAromaofBooks Woohoo!! 3y
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AnneCecilie
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Day 4 of #12Booksof2020

Rankine‘s take on white privilege. I particularly enjoyed her views on why women color their hair blond.

Andrew65 Sounds required reading. 3y
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bnp

Food for thought

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jackilynn
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My favorite part about this time of year....reading by the glow of Christmas lights.

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Tanisha_A
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Claudia Rankine on her ideal reading experience. I still haven't read the books she mentioned. 😶

Claudia Rankine Wishes More Writers Thought About Whiteness https://nyti.ms/39gJhUo

readordierachel Thanks for sharing this! 3y
charl08 Great quote 😍 3y
45 likes3 comments
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AnneCecilie
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Pickpick

This feels slightly more personal than “Citizen”. In here she uses experiences from her own life, a meeting with the teachers at her daughter‘s school, dinner parties and men queuing at airports while at the same time looking at white fragility and white supremacy.

As someone who color/ bleach their hair blond/ blonder, I found her chapter on why women color their hair blond interesting, and some of her conclusions a little disturbing.

AnneCecilie This is my #BookSpin for November @TheAromaofBooks 3y
TheAromaofBooks Woohoo!! 3y
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AnneCecilie
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AnneCecilie
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HOTPock3tt WOW!! Powerful TRUTH 3y
47 likes1 comment
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AnneCecilie
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I attempt to answer my silent questions by remembering my therapist once told me that some white patients who identify with trauma and victimization see themselves as black or Jewish in their dreams. Their understanding of what they have experienced, how they feel, becomes apprehensible only through the lens of antiblack racism or anti-Semitism. To fully embody their pain, their trauma, they need it to mirror historical, institutional structures

AnneCecilie that are defined by an incomprehensible event like slavery or the Holocaust. 3y
Chrissyreadit That makes so much sense. 3y
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AnneCecilie
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Centered in hurt and history, Beyoncé‘s Lemonade addresses infidelity, four hundred years of racism and its effects on devastated black families, none of which where wholly our issues but I still find it consoling. Perhaps it‘s because the “visual album” also addresses black love, or is it just love? Beyoncé zoomed us out in order to see how all of history was against the success of her marriage and she isn‘t wrong. (p. 79)

charl08 Looking forward to reading this one. I loved 3y
AnneCecilie @charl08 I loved Citizen too, and this one feels more personal than that. 3y
S3V3N I just downloaded Citizen. I‘m going to check this out too. 3y
AnneCecilie @BeaG I hope you love Citizen as much as I did. So far this is up there as well 3y
S3V3N I loved it! I listened to it all morning. Thanks! 3y
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AnneCecilie
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So these are my #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin for November. I‘m so excited. I‘ve been looking forward to these books ever since I found out they were being published this fall at the beginning of the year

TheAromaofBooks Yay!!! 3y
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Lindy
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Pickpick

Claudia Rankine is amazing, not only for her intellectual rigour in these essays about the racist structure of American society, but also for her open-minded engagement in conversation with white people—friends and strangers—on this topic. Her desire to understand racist viewpoints strikes me as a useful step in dismantling them, and creating a better future. #outstanding

TrishB Stacked 👍🏻 3y
Lindy @TrishB 😊 3y
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Lindy
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A friend insists that attaching blondness to whiteness and white supremacy is ridiculous. It just looks better on most women, she claims. I am not white, so I try to inhabit her form of certainty. My friend‘s unwillingness to interrogate why “better” and “blond” are married interests me.

Verity Oh how fascinating. I‘m always intrigued why so many women go blond - even when it doesn‘t suit them. Any blonde shade next to my face makes me look ill, but I‘ve seen people do it. There‘s clearly something bigger at play. (edited) 3y
ItsAnotherJen I look ill with dark hair. 🤷‍♀️ 3y
Lindy @Verity I really like the way Rankine fact checks herself and quotes sources for documented proof of what bigger factors are at play in examples like this one. 3y
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Lindy
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The idea that one can stand apart is a nice fantasy but we can‘t afford fantasies.

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Lindy
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My own interracial marriage exists inside a racist America whose ways make life more difficult. Many times driving in NYC and NJ, we were pulled over by police and asked how we knew each other; there are all the places my husband walks into while I‘m stopped at the door; and there are the white women who understand our relationship to be anything but a marriage as they step between us to flirt.

Butterfinger Power in those words. 3y
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Lindy
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As a blond I become myself, so many say. Funny. If you say I want to be myself and the culture says the self that matters is blond, then oh, well—too bad—so be it. Shit. After a while, everyone is in agreement about who looks human, youthful, beautiful, human, and—did I say human?

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Lindy
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...historians have discovered that after World War II in West Germany, sexy “Bild Lilli” dolls based on a popular cartoon character were sold in barbershops and bars. They are said to have inspired the original Barbie.

Ruthiella Looks like Barbie alright! 3y
Lindy @Ruthiella Yep! That blond ponytail, those extra-long legs and those feet permanently arched in high heeled position. 3y
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Lindy
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A white friend tells me she has to defend me all the time to her white friends who think I‘m a radical. Why? For calling white people white? For not wanting black people to be gunned down in our streets or black girls to be flung across classrooms & thrown to the ground by officers? What does that even mean? I ask her. Don‘t defend me. Not for being human. Not for wanting us to simply be able to live.

Leftcoastzen 👍👏✊ 3y
JamieArc Claudia Rankine is a lovely human being. I love seeing her stuff posted ❤️ 3y
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Lindy
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Claudia Rankine imagines herself walking up to random white men to ask how they understood their privilege. “Would they react as the police captain in Plainsfield, Indiana, did when his female colleague told him during a diversity training session that he benefited from ‘white male privilege‘? He became angry & accused her of using a racialized slur against him. (She was placed on paid administrative leave and a reprimand was placed in her file.)”

TrishB I do this on fb quite often, no one responds well!! 3y
Lindy @TrishB Blatant examples of white fragility. (Your example and Rankine‘s) 3y
TrishB Someone on a Liverpool Football Club post today (which was an anti racism post) said that racism against whites was rife and growing by the hour (I kid you not). The person was from Belfast and I asked for some examples of what racism they had been a victim of. They answered with the usual plethora of words used against ‘uppity‘ women. Still didn‘t have any examples though, also asked me what I was doing on a football thread 🤷‍♀️ 3y
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ReadingEnvy I admired her ability to have these conversations. 3y
Lindy @ReadingEnvy me too. And @TrishB , I admire you too. You are amazing. 🙌 (edited) 3y
ReadingEnvy @TrishB the author of white fragility has a good answer to that if you're ever seeking a quick answer. That people can have feelings about race but that people who are oppressed by a system cannot be racist in the same way because they don't have the power of the system behind them. I'm not saying it as eloquently. 3y
Lindy @ReadingEnvy Yes, I remember that from when I read White Fragility. Thanks for the reminder. 😘 3y
TrishB @ReadingEnvy @Lindy some days I feel I can take them all on, other days I know I‘m too fragile for the back comments. I don‘t know how women in the public eye cope with it everyday. 3y
Lindy @TrishB 🤗🤗🤗 3y
ReadingEnvy @TrishB I don't either. I've had small tastes of it from time to time and it is overwhelming. 3y
TrishB @ReadingEnvy female politicians are stars to me for putting up with it. 3y
Lindy @TrishB Agreed. 3y
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Lindy
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Let us not forget that Africa has been the source of all kinds of diasporas—not only the forced diaspora imposed by the West through the slave trade, but also of millions of all types of diasporas before—that have populated the world.
-Édouard Glissant

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ReadingEnvy

"Among white people, black people are allowed to talk about their precarious lives, but they are not allowed to implicate the present company...to create discomfort by pointing out the facts is seen as socially unacceptable. Let's get over ourselves, it's structural not personal...."

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ReadingEnvy
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Pickpick

Just Us pokes into areas of discomfort surrounding issues of race. Rankine calls up white friends/colleagues to try to understand how they are seeing or experiencing differently. She doesn't play nice during a faculty dinner. She documents the places where she fact checks her own statements. She does not provide easy answers, she is instead modeling the kinds of conversations we need to be able to have with one another if we are to move forward.

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UnabridgedPod
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Pickpick

Thanks to #partner @NetGalley for the digital ARC of Claudia Rankine‘s Just Us: An American Conversation in exchange for an honest review. The book will be published on Tuesday, September 8, 2020.⠀

I will need to read Claudia Rankine‘s Just Us again. I think it is brilliant and important and thoughtful, but I know that there‘s more to absorb, more to contemplate. ⬇️

UnabridgedPod I read it too quickly this time, wrestled with the format of the e-book (I‘m definitely going to buy it in print), and so I know that I missed details, connections, and nuance that would have enriched my reading experience even more.⠀

Still, even on a first read, I loved it.

Check out my review at jenlovesbooks.com!
4y
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JamieArc
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Made my purchases from bookshop.org on Independent Bookstore Day. Really looking forward to both of these! I got to hear Yusef Salaam speak a few years ago and it was powerful and engaging.

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Well-ReadNeck
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Pickpick

Rankine‘s poetry collection, Citizen is on every Black Lives Matter reading list out there. This collection of essays (with a few poems), scheduled to be published on September 8 is sure to be added to the lists. Her writing is stunning and her ability to capture stories that illustrate so many of the topics being discussed right now is impeccable. Highly recommended. #BLM #ARC #Edelweiss

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