Chamblee54

This is a repost from 2018. … This is the part two in the chamblee54 look at Citizen: An American Lyric. There was little reaction to part one. With racial matters, that is often the best outcome.
I question the wisdom of tackling this project. We are talking about this author: Claudia Rankine: why I’m spending $625,000 to study whiteness. In a BBC radio show Dr. Rankine asks people if they think about whiteness when they become a blonde. This is not a blonde joke.
Whiteness is a mysterious concept to me. The subject seems to keep coming up. In 2018, I questioned the validity of a screenshot used to trash a bar owner. The result was Examine Your Whiteness EYW Part Two EYW Part Three In the last part of the EYW trilogy, I googled the phrase *examine your whiteness.* It seems to come down to hair. You have the horror movie frizz of Rachel Dolezal, or the soup bowl cut of Dylann Roof. … the two names that came up in a 2018  search for whiteness.
Citizen: An American Lyric is supposed to be the focus of this piece. Today we will focus on chapters IV and V. In IV, Dr. Rankine seems to be having a headache. She pulls the blinds down, and tries to escape from the world. A tennis match is on TV, with the sound cut off. For me, that would be a football game. There is a mirror behind the computer monitor, which points to a TV on the other side of the room. The black lady is watching tennis, while the white man watches football. People just enjoy what they enjoy.
Part V continues down the same path as IV. “You hold everything black. You give yourself back until nothing’s left but the dissolving blues of metaphor.” I notice metaphor more and more. Am I missing something? Metaphor is a literary gimmick for making comparisons. Except for definition 3 at The urban dictionary: “Metaphor – The word that Christians use to describe contradictions and mistakes in the bible.” Chad went out with a girl named simile. He doesn’t know what he metaphor.
After a few pages, V recalls an episode of recreational microaggression. A man cuts in front of someone in a line. A man shows someone a picture of his wife. “She is, he says, beautiful and black, like you.” Soon, the voice is at home. “You lean against the sink, a glass of red wine in your hand and then another, thinking in the morning you will go to the gym…”
I drank my last beer December 31, 1988. There is privilege in being able to make that move, and to stick with it. Some people want you to die, so they can laugh at your dead face. When you are in a fight, being fair is a luxury you cannot afford.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Marion Post Wolcott, photographer “Watching a game at Fourth of July celebration, St. Helena Island, South Carolina” July 1939. Part one and part three of this series are now available for your viewing pleasure.