19 thoughts on “Prompts for Claudia Rankine’s “The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning””

1. In the article “The condition of Black Life is One of the Mourning,” the author Claudia Rankine spoke of innumerable killings of black lives. She begins her article with, “A friend recently told me that when she gave birth to her son, before naming him, before even nursing him, her first thought was, I have to get him out of this country.” Already from this excerpt, we can feel a sense of insecurity coming from this mother of a black child. She is afraid that her son might one day get killed on the street by white supremacists simply because of his black identity. Rankine uses these personal experiences to connect to the global issues of anti black racism and police brutality. Although people may not realize it, racism actually exists in every level of the society and is eventually leading to police brutality. Rankine mentioned the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man who was shot six times then left in the streets, by Ferguson police officers Darren Wilson and the killing of Tamir Rice also by a police officer. Our political system seems to be so corrupted that it is impossible to provide justices for the dead.
   Rankine also argues the importance of visible body politically through her story of Mamie Till Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till. Mamie Till Mobley decided to have an open coffin for photographs to be taken of her dead son. By doing so, she wanted everyone in United States to take a look at what black people are going through. Mobley does not want to mark an end to her son’s death with just a funeral and private grievances. She wants to disseminate her son’s death and make Emmett Till’s body an “evidence” to the criminal justice system. Michael Brown’s dead body was also displayed as “evidence.” Lesley McSpadden, mother of Michael Brown, was denied the rights to see her son for two weeks and had to hear about her son through other people’s mouths.
   Our political structure dictates what is visible and what is not. The theme of visibility seems to play a significant role in the civil rights movement. If Mamie Till Mobley decided to simply held a funeral for her son, everyone will eventually forget the death of her son. Individual approaches challenges political authority and eventually make little steps towards a world in which Fred Moten wants to live in, “a world where black living matters.”

2. In “The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning” we see the author, Claudia Rankine, explore the firmly entrenched racism that is present in American society through both personal experience and the discussion of current events. One of Rankine’s friends gave birth to a son, and her first thought, before happiness, thankfulness, or anything else was “I have to get him out of the country”. Another one of Rankine’s friends responded to the question of “What’s it like to be the mother of a black son?” with “The condition of black life is one of mourning.” From these two quotes alone, it is easy to see that something is deeply wrong in America. Rankine connects these two personal experiences to those of other black parents who have lost their sons and daughters, either to murder by another person or by a police officer. Throughout the text, we are able to view the deaths of Michael Brown, Emmett Till, Tamir Rice and others through the eyes of their parents. They all react differently; Brown’s mother wants him removed from the public eye so she can grieve privately, Till’s mother demanded an open casket at his funeral to “let the people see what she saw” and the death of twelve year old Tamir Rice had such an impact on his mother that she moved to a homeless shelter to be away from the scene of the crime. The common thread throughout is unjustified, racist violence which takes a huge impact on the families of the victims. Rankine’s friends live in fear, and justifiably so. They do not want their son to be murdered like Michael Brown, Emmett Till or Tamir Rice.

   A recurring theme in the text is the idea of visibility and invisibility. This is explored in a number of ways. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the parents of the victims have wanted them to be relatively invisible (Michael Brown) or wanted them to be as visible as possible in an effort to shed light on the heinous crime that was committed (Emmett Till). Rankin argues that the only way forward is consistent public outcry, and mourning the deaths of these people until change occurs. Rankine feels that the Black population are second rate citizens. Small things, like the judge in Dylan Roof’s hearing asking for “support for Roof’s family” and the President of Smith College “seeking to alter the language of Black Lives Matter to All Lives Matter”. Although these are both seemingly innocent gestures, calling for “total equality”, it is not necessary to argue that All Lives Matter because White lives already matter and the Black Lives Matter movement exists to shed light on the difference between White and Black, and the disadvantages faced by Black Americans. The Black Lives Matter movement aims to make Black people visible, instead of invisible and draw attention to the fear that Black parents face everyday when their son or daughter walks out the front door.

3. Claudia Rankine, the author of ” The condition of black life is one of mourning” observes how anti-black racism still exists in our society and government. She gives the reader a very shocking opening paragraph, in which she mentions her friend worried about raising her son in a nation that consists of racism on many levels. Rankine states how her friends son is in the danger of getting shot just because of his color, and not his actions. Days after Claudia was born four black girls were killed in a bombing at a church, now fifty-two years later six black women and three black men have been killed by a white supremacist at a church. Using her own personal experience Rankine shows how over time things haven’t changed at all. Over the course of her life racism against blacks has existed and matured in the criminal justice system, media, and society. She relates these events to the bigger picture of police brutality against blacks. The author also emphasizes how dead blacks have become apart of normal life. From the slave trade to modern day. Rankine mentions how visible dead bodies have become evidence rather than bodies that have to be put to rest by the victims families. In the case of Michael Brown the family had to wait two weeks to see the body and bury it. Politically the justice system uses corpses to make a warning to the black community. The police often leave the corpse at the sight for hours to make a “statement” to others. This has created a war that lies within our government of blacks vs. police. After Mobley’s son’s body was recovered from the river, Mobley demanded for him to transported to his home in Chicago. Mobley also allowed the public to take photographs and publish them this opposed the police’s view of the body. Visibly seeing a dead body is different then imagining it. A visible corpse can make a colossal difference in people’s mind. It was very surprising and sad to read this article. Racism and police brutality is the ugly truth in American society. I hope to see a day in America where people aren’t killed just for being black and having their hands in their pocket. A day where we are all truly equal and only judged upon the content of our character, not the color of our skin.

4. In the article, “The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning,” Claudia Rankine eloquently depicts what the life of an African American is like, specifically focusing on the perspective from African American mothers. From the beginning of the text, the context of Rankine’s story already presents how it will highlight an aspect of black America that the media typically does not cover: a personal side. When we flip through the channels on any given day, we may stumble upon headlines such as, “Unarmed Black Man Shot,” or “Police Officer Shoots Black Teen;” all of which seem to cover the death of a human being every time in an increasingly impersonal fashion. Why is it that every time we see one of these generic headlines, we grow just a little more numb to the tragedy? This question is the pivotal reason why I feel it is refreshing to view these tragedies from a deeper, more personal perspective.

   We are shown in the opening paragraph the true diffidence of black life in America when Rankine mentions her friend, an African American mother, who recognizes the deep trouble that blacks have to face in this country. Realizing this lack of equity firsthand, they joke around together about leaving the country to give her son a better life. However, their laughter is not one of joy, but of “vulnerability, fear, recognition and an absurd stuckness.” According to Rankine, these feelings stem from the forceful acceptance that her friend’s son will inevitably be a victim to the very institutional racism that every black mother fears of. The same institutional racism that can get a black individual killed solely for his or her pigmentation of skin. The constant fear is best described by the quote, “The condition of black life is one of mourning.” The feeling felt by this mother is portrayed as a mourning that takes place all day inside of her and her son, because at anytime, “she might lose her reason for living.” To prove this, Rankine approaches displaying the tragic history of black America by going back over 50 years to describe a bombing of a church building that killed 4 black girls, even to just recently when 9 black people were massacred in a church. If that was not enough, only hours after President Obama’s election, a historically black church was then burnt down out of racism. Rankine then begins to conceptualize this culture as normalcy. From dead blacks crossing the Atlantic ocean as slaves, to this day and age when blacks get gunned down by law enforcement, it is unfortunately a despicable, normalized part of America.

   Obviously, as mothers, it is calamitous to deal with realities as inevitable as this. Across the span of history, mothers have coped with the deaths of their children in various ways; some opting to make a statement out of their family’s tragedy and some wishing for it to be a private matter. In 1955, Emmett Till was brutally murdered, and his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, viewed it as an opportunity to request an open coffin ceremony to “let the people see what I see.” Just recently, Michael Brown, was shot six times, twice of those striking his head. Oppositely to that of Ms. Till Mobley, Michael Brown’s mother Lesley McSpadden did not want media presence involved in the grieving of her son. After being killed, he was left out in the open without being moved for 4 hours, within this time, bystanders watched on and took videos and pictures. After this, she felt that her son was not some “orphan body” for everyone to look upon. She specifically wanted him covered and removed from the public’s eye so she could be his for the ephemeral days left until burial. Although every mother may wish to deal with their tragedies differently, all these mothers will never live the same lives again, as they collectively long for an end to their mourn.

5. The central focus of the article, “The Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning,” written by Claudia Rankine, deals with the newly arisen “Black Lives Matter” movement. This movement not only pertains to the article, but also to events that occur in our time period. In the very first paragraph, Rankine introduces her intended topic by mentioning a personal and recent encounter she had with a friend. Her friend had lightheartedly stated that before her son was even born, her first thought was to get him out of the country. As a black mother to a black son, she knew that she had to be careful, given the existing state of racism that still lingered in the country. When Rankine approached another friend, who also happened to be the black mother of a black son, she responded in a similar manner by making the statement of, “The condition of black life is one of mourning.” In a country where blacks were often killed for harmless reasons, that statement represented the state of fear in which all American blacks were subjected to live in. Another personal reference that Rankine makes is the eleventh day following her birth – where four black girls were killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Fifty-two years later, six black women and three black men were shot during a Bible study meeting. These personal references Rankine mentions in her article make the point that blacks were being killed in situations where they were completely innocent and harmless. These killings occurred simply because of the color of their skin. Rankine uses her personal references to strengthen her thesis on the “Black Lives Matter” movement.

   Along with the mention of the “Black Lives Matter” movement, Rankine makes note of the specific examples where blacks died of injustice. One example is Emmett Till, an unsuspecting young black teenager who was lynched to death in 1955. His mother requested that the coffin of her son be displayed for the entire world to see – a way to showcase to the world of what an innocent death looked like and to allow other blacks to be aware of the unjust criminal system that did not favor their community. This was her choosing visibility to make a point to the world. This type of visibility influenced the civil rights movement and thus, was used to impact the world. In her text, Rankine argues that visibility of the “unarmed, slain black bodies in public spaces” was often a reminder that the world was not normal. It was a reminder that blacks couldn’t live normal lives without the fear that they might be killed by white supremacists.

   The “Black Lives Matter” movement encourages recognition in their cause, so that the rest of the world can acknowledge the unreasonable fear that blacks live with on a daily basis.

6. In the article “The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning”, the author Rankine talks about how growing up young black women and men were killed by white supremacists and then were labeled as “disturbed.” When the suspects’ families were then told about what has happened, it was” too difficult” for them. Rankine connects this with her larger ideas by saying how African Americans were used to this kind of behavior and how it shouldn’t be this way. African Americans can get killed for no reason except for being black. This causes families to live in fear because they never know when they could loose their loved ones just for being black. For these families, national mourning can help show the world how life is actually affected by these actions and help gain recognition for these devastating stories.
   Rankine argues that it is one thing to imagine a dead body , but to actually see it is visual evidence to the violence that is happening. Seeing a dead body gives the people the chance to actually see the brutality of what is happening instead of hearing about it. The visibility has operated politically by allowing the world to see a new kind of logic in which the people actually mourn and acknowledge those who have been killed. This new thinking fueled the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s.

7. In Claudia Rankine’s “The Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning”, Rankine addresses the issue of “Anti-black racism” from it’s routes; specifically mentioning how the racism has made the African American society gradually more invisible. Rankine’s words gives the reader a sense of sympathy as the gradual deaths of the black community increase, it is in actuality becoming the norm of what we see in society today. This gets noted when Rankine states specifically in the text, “ The unarmed, slain black bodies in public spaces turn grief into our everyday feeling that something is wrong everywhere and all the time, even locally things appear normal… All of this good life is surrounded by the ambient feeling that at any given moment, a black person is being killed in the street or in his home by the armed hatred of a fellow American.” To add oil to the current flame Rankine also mentions that this sort of hatred can be traced many years back; specifically making an allusion to the three-fifth’s compromise. Since these blacks are being mass murdered everyday to which it has become the norm, it is clearly evident that this community is invisible to the point where other in a society or community would not be too surprised to see an individual of African American race get killed. This invisible group has been able to operate politically through the Black Lives Matter movement; which also re-enforces the fact that the black community is invisible in the first place. To prove that point Rankine states, “…a more internalized change is being asked for: recognition”; thus meaning that if this group is asking for recognition, it must mean that they are invisible to the point where the community does not recognize them to even be there. However, one by one the Black Live Matters community was able to build up and put recognition to their cause by doing small things that had stimulated the media to take note of them (such as video taping the killing of members in the black community). Overall, the message that the Black Lives Matter movement and Rankine want to convey is the fact that a life is a life; regardless of one’s ethnicity to the color of their skin. Rankine is able to convey such thoughts of equality through the first couple of lines in this short passage mentioning the mourning of a mother over her black son killed to even going back to the days that she was born, saying that from even back then those of the black community were being killed; whether from a bombing or even from a “ disturbed young man”. In the end, equality and an end to all violence from racial dispute is what is really desired as the best outcome to such matters.

8. In the article “The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning”, the author Rankine starts off sharing an experience in her life between her and a friend. Her friend tells her that as she was giving birth to her son that her first thought was “I have to get my son out of this country.”. She also explains another conversation between herself and a friend. Claudia ask’s her friend what is it like being the mother of a black son? Her friend responds “The condition of black life is one of mourning.” Both of these mothers whom Rankine talks to, are afraid for their children because they know to well how society views and treats blacks. She then uses these encounters to connect to the modern day movement called “Black Lives Matter”. Rankine relates to the harmless killings of blacks in this day and age because in her time growing up the same was occurring. Seamlessly Rankine connects experiences from her life, like the four innocent black girls who were killed in a bombing in the 60’s, to the killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. People then and now still kill blacks for the color of their skin nothing has really changed. All of these killings are unjustifiable because in no way is the color of a persons skin an excuse to murder them. The Black Lives Matter movement is campaigning against brutality against blacks. Through all of this Rankine uses her personal experiences from many years ago to connect us to modern day issues.

9. Claudia Rankine’s article “The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning” speaks of her experiences with the death of black people due to hate crime and also similar hate crimes today. She also talks about the “Black Lives Matter” movement, how the corpses of black people are seen in the media and the difference between hearing about the deaths of black people and actually seeing it. In the beginning of the article Rankine says “as a black person you can be killed for simply being black.” In the United States for as long as we have been a nation being black has always been viewed as negative by white supremacists and black people have lived with the fact that they simple do not have the same rights as whites. As Rankine talks about her own experiences weeks after she was born, on September 15 1963 when four black girls were killed in the bombing of a church in Alabama her quote starts to show validity. Four black girls who were simply attending church were murdered for being black by a racist. Rankine continues to show similar instances in today’s news by talking about the church shooting in South Carolina and the death of Michael Brown. In both cases and many more not listed in the article black were killed simply for being black like Rankine said. Rankine also argues that the effect of the visible body has changed over the years. She uses the example of Emmett Till’s body and how when his mother asked for an open casket funeral so that people could mourn with Emmett Till’s mother. The mourning of her son was used as a type of acknowledgement that would otherwise never have occurred. In the present however we have become numb to the deaths of black people in our society. As a result when we see a dead black corpse we don’t mourn in acknowledgement but we just see it another statistic.

10. In the short story “The condition of Black Life is One of the Mourning,” the author Claudia Rankine goes over an intensely dissatisfying reality. She discusses how the United States has this looming mentality that has existed since it’s birth. The mentality that colored lives are for some reason not as valuable as white lives. A personal experience that Rankine uses to show this clear looming mentality was the birth of her friends child. While they sat and made jokes about this child saying things such as ‘I have to get him out of this country’ which they knew wasn’t what the true desire but pointed out the inevitable reality that due to their skin color, this woman would have to be even more worried about her child’s safety and well being, than any white mother. This is said to be due by this looming mentality, this looming mentality is none other than institutional racism that exists in the United States of America.
    This larger issue has existed in America since its birth, with the slaves that existed in America to help fuel this colonization of untamed land, making it some of the most profitable land in the world to these english settlers. Having slaves as you know might feel immoral to a regular person, mainly because it is. However that is where this racism comes from, it was a coping mechanism for white people to be okay with what was going on all around them. If these slaves were considered less than human than they could be treated as such and disposed of as such. Unfortunately for the United States getting rid of a mentality that has been instilled in so many people is nowhere near as easy as one might think. So even as slavery ended and people of color earned their deserved natural rights of a human being. This mentality still existed, leading to today.
    In todays news you might pick something up and see a headline that was disturbing but is now becoming a part of everyday life “Black man shot, White cop claims justified” or an even more disturbing “Black CHILD shot, White cop claims justified”. Ferguson and the riots that followed there are another example, as well as Michael Brown, and countless others. Rankine believes that maybe this is the best way to fight this war. Not by rioting so that the polices can militarize as they did in ferguson, but to make these things public. Imagine for a second that you want to become a doctor. You’re all ready to become a doctor you love helping people, then you take a class or have to undergo your first surgery. Now what you once thought was helping someone you now realize was cutting them open and digging around inside of them trying to fix a problem. This is much easier said than done, which is what Rankine believes might be the best course of action. She claims that not just hearing about it but seeing these men shot in the head for no reason. Or even these CHILDREN gunned down in the street for no reason, would help to resonate with peoples morality and possibly do something about it. This idea according to the article was introduced by Emmet Till’s decision to have an open casket for her lynched son in 1955. This was so the world could see what racism had done to her baby. In Rankines and many other’s eyes such as the black lives matter movement, the best course of action is to make these awful realities public. By not allowing people to turn a blind eye to the environment around them, people are forced to choose a side. Many of us are starting to choose the side of the reasonable end racism, and the people that don’t are why we need to band together and make it a reality.

11. In “The Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning”, the author Claudia Rankine uses her own personal experience to connect to the larger issues about anti-black racism in our society that continue to go on today. Rankine describes how after eleven days after she was born, four black girls were killed in the bombing of the 16th street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Then she compares how fifty-two years later, six black women and three black men were shot to death while at a Bible study meeting in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in South Carolina. In this Rankine is portraying that society, as a whole have not moved on, and racial discrimination on black people in today society still exist. As well, Rankine uses one of her friend’s experience on raising a black son and how she must take her son out of the country because of the society in which they are living in. Rankine’s friend does not want to rasie a son in a society in which she has to fear for her son’s life. A society in which black people are killed for their color of their skin.A quote from the article “The condition of black life is one of mourning”. In this Rankine is portraying that a life of a black person regardless of gender or age will always be persecuted by others in our society because of the view people have on them as individuals. Today in society, anti-black racism are in our laws, in our advertisement, on social media, in our communities, and in our criminal justice system. Rankine relates this to the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson , he was unarmed and was shot by the police. The police refused to move Michael Brown’s body because it was part of “evidence”. In this the police viewed Michael Brown not as an individual but as an item for “evidence”. Rankine also goes on to discuss on the police refusal to cover up Michael Brown’s body after it was on display for four hours and not allowing for the mother to see her son for almost two weeks. In this ultimately Rankine is trying to portray that just because of the color of African American people they are persecuted and that in today society it shouldn’t be that way.
    Rankine argues about the visible body in which she tells the story of how in 1955 Emmett Till’s mutilated and bloated body was recovered from the Tallahatchie River. In this his mother Mamie till Mobley wanted an open coffin and allowed photographs to be taken and published of her dead son’s body so that everyone in the country could see how a body that meant nothing to the criminal-justice system was only evidence of her son lynching. Mamie till Mobley wanted the nation to view how society was treating black people all over the nation. It was her way of showing acknowledgement and not just a body that showed up dead on a daily basis. Mamie till Mobley act help initialized the civil rights movement. The parents of Michael Brown wanted his body to be invisible to society ,the parents of Brown wanted their son’s body removed by the views of the public they didn’t want people to see the horrible act done on their son. This led to Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi to create the movement of Black Lives Matter in which their goal was that society view black people with the same equality of a white person in today’s society and that acts that occur to Michael Brown don’t go unanswered. When the president of Smith College sought to alter “Black Lives Matter” it was not an act of being against “Black Lives Matter” but trying to say that everyone is equal. In this, the statement is seen with controversy because it is taking away the reason of the movement of “Black Lives Matter” in which black lives are fighting for equality in our society but already white people in our society are seen to be equal. Throughout history black lives were seen to not be equal to someone who was white, from when they were slaves to when they were free. Even when they were no longer slaves they were still seen to be invisible in society.

12. Before even getting onto the second page, the fact that she said “the condition of black life is one of mourning” is the summation of our society today. Knowing that tomorrow isn’t promised for herself or her son. That the reason she works hard everyday, continue living in a life like this she may lose any second. Then she goes into detail about activities that blacks could do that would be a “reason” for a getting killed. Its like she was there for the shooting of Trayvon Martin, he was a black kid, hood on, hands in pockets, walking in the night time. It may seem a little unprofessional to say this but she is giving me life (meaning she is speaking facts to me). “Dead blacks are a part of normal life here” meaning blacks get killed so often that it no longer seizes to amaze people anymore. They will constantly go through the same fight just a different day. Wow! She states that you can imagine 9 bodies bleeding out on the floor but to see it is a whole new ball game, basically explaining the reasons for Mamie’s reason for having a open casket. Although she wanted the U.S. to mourn with her, which was an unrealistic goal especially during this time; it only made sense for her to show his body not just to hear it on the news then imagine it but you get the change to see it for what it truly is. We get that All Lives Matter but the point is that not all lives are being attacked only blacks really. Trying to shy away from the task at hand; focusing on the Black Lives that are at risk all the time.

13. In Claudia Rankine’s “The Condition of Black Life is One of the Mourning,” Rankine uses a personal experience that she had with a friend in order to connect to the larger issue that she talks about in the article. She talks about a time when her friend gave birth to a baby boy and how the two of them joked about her having to leave the country. They joked about this because of what the skin color of the baby meant. Rankine describes it as, “Added to the natural fears of every parent facing the randomness of life is this other knowledge of the ways in which institutional racism works in our country.” In other words, parents of African American children live in constant fear for their kids because on top of having to worry about what all other parents worry about, they must also worry about their child having to face some sort of racism. In the article, Claudia Rankine also talked about speaking to another friend of hers that described what being a mother of a black child is like. Rankine used the description given from her friend as the title of the article, “The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning.” This leads her to the main points of her article. She begins to go through some of the most famous murders involving African Americans to show how despite all the time that has gone by and all the changes that we as a society believe has happened, nothing has really changed.
    Rankine starts off with the bombing of a Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama where four young girls were killed and then mentions how fifty-two years later a white-supremacist named, Dylann Storm Roof enter a church in Charleston during bible study and opened fire. Nine people were killed and out of the three survivors, two were reported to have survived by pretending to be dead.
    Claudia Rankine goes on to talk about Emmett Till’s mother and how she began to show the world what was really going on. After Emmett Till’s body was transported to Chicago, his mother decided to have an open casket and to allow the public to take photos to show people her son’s mutilated body. Rankine spoke about how this decision “…allowed a body that meant nothing to the criminal-justice system to stand as evidence.” Rankine argued that by being able to see the body, the concept of mourning was changed to a way of really acknowledging what happened, which later became the fuel for the civil rights movement.
    She then mentions Ferguson and states that the “refusal to move Michael Brown’s body…continued where Till’s mother left off.” In other words, by the police refusing to move the body, the public was able to see what happened for themselves and now whenever someone mentions the name Ferguson, an image of Brown’s body with six bullet wounds pops into their minds. Rankine argues that we, as a society, need to see these bodies in order for it “to interrupt the course of normal life.” Society has become accustomed to shootings so it no longer stops us in our tracks. We merely feel sad by the shooting for a little while but then go back to our daily lives. If the public were to see the body, this would cause us to stop and really absorb what happened to this person. Rankine discusses how the police hide the bodies not only from the public but also from the victims families in order to use it as evidence. The invisibility of the victim’s bodies prevents society from seeing the truth, which Claudia argues needs to be seen in order for any real change to happen.

14. In her article, “The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning,” Claudia Rankine draws from her personal experience as a Black women witnessing the deaths of Black folk around her in order to shine light upon the bigger issue of the importance, or even insignificance in others’ eyes of Black lives in America and how white supremacy plays into it. She presents conversations she’s had with her friends, who are afraid for the lives of their sons because a black person can be killed for doing the simplest of things in modern day America. Back in 1963, eleven days after Rankine was born, four black girls were killed in a church bombing, and 52 years after that tragedy, another one struck: six black women and three black men were shot to death in church. Rankine drives home the horror of how black lives are still being taken in disturbingly similar ways half a century after the fact. She sheds light upon the integration of racism and white supremacy into our everyday lives and how it belittles the deaths of black folk around the country, who seem to be dying for no other reason besides the fact that they are black. A case of white supremacy can be seen when “Black Lives Matter” was altered to “All Lives Matter.” This small change in words shows the deeper issue of focus being taken away from a mourning black body and being placed onto the white population that cannot understand the despair of black folk. This shifts into the visible body Rankine argues about in her article. The visible body is the dead bodies of murdered black people, that became invisible as they were devalued by citizens and the justice system itself. Rankine argues that anti-black racism is all around us and causes grief from a slain black person to turn into an “everyday feeling that something is wrong everywhere all the time.” Normal life is clothed in the invisible feeling that a black person can be killed anywhere at any given moment. This invisible feeling has manifested itself in the Black Lives Matter movement , which calls for the mourning of black lives because they are vulnerable. According to Rankine, Black Lives Matter is asking for a more internalized, “invisible” change: recognition because the deaths of black lives existed within a system of racism that manifested itself in the writing of the Constitution with the Three-fifths compromise, which didn’t recognize black people fully as people, and has continued on today when black people dying has become a frequent occurrence.

15. Claudia Rankine’s “ The Condition of black life is One of Mourning” allows us to gain personal insight on her experiences dealing with police brutality and racial profiling in the American justice system. She first introduces us to her point of view by showing us a conversation between her and her friend who is now a mother of her own black child. This little encounter speaks mountains when they jokingly talk about the harsh life her black son may have to endure growing up. Her friend jokingly mentions how she has to get her son out of the country, all the while knowing escape is not a fathomable option. “Here we work, hold citizenship,pensions, health insurance, family, friends, and on and on,” this quote shows how hard it would be to escape the reality of abandoning your lively hood to find a place where you can feel safe “living while black.” Rankine uses her information on the experience of mothers of black children who’ve been victim of the extremest cases of racism and police brutality to allow us to truly mourn what they have lost instead of treating them like normal day to day cases of life and death. Furthermore, Claudia Rankine’s also informs us about the different perspectives of the mothers and how some of them such as Emmett Till’s mother strategically changed the way racial crimes were viewed in america. Allowing her son to be seen was a monumental change in the way Americans viewed hate crimes. Seeing Emmett Till’s lynched body turned Racism in America from an invisible problem only black people had to deal with, to a national problem recognized by everyone. From then on cases like that have been broadcasted through the media for everyone to acknowledge that there is a problem. This however may have backfired slightly seeing as how african Americans getting killed is now seen as an unchangeable everyday thing as Rankine covered on page 150 when she stated “The American Tendency to normalize situations by centralizing whiteness was consciously or unconsciously demonstrated again..” We need to figure out a way to make the deaths of black people not visible in blind eyes but visible in the wide spectrum of American society.

16. Rankine ties her personal experiences as a black woman with the Black Lives Matter movement. She explains that just like every other person from her ethnic group, she has to live in fear everyday. The writer also makes sure she points out that if black lives really did matter, then her people would not have their lives compromised at the expense of any white supremacists. She would not have to be in a constant state of wariness.

    As the number of black corpses increase, Rankine talks about what is done with the bodies. Lesley McSpadden, for example, could not see her own son’s body. Although it was justified with the fact that the police had to use it for evidence, it was very much like when slave mothers had no legal rights over their offspring. This demonstrates invisibility-how the bodies are kept hidden in order to hide the brutal truth about what happened to McSpadden’s son. Visibility of the corpse, on the other hand, has been used as a political tool to fuel the Black Lives Matter movement. Mobley had an open casket funeral for her son in order to expose the violence brought upon him to the media and all of America. The blatant and forced sight of the body was a powerful tool to bring empathy to black communities and overall help gain support for BLM.

    This very personal piece of work serves to condemn how our country handles the topic of police brutality. It offers a unique perspective on the ongoing debate about how cops today should be handling civilians of color if they are a suspect, and when it is appropriate to be more aggressive.

17. Rankine uses her personal experiences as a black woman, and the emotions that accompany that, to discuss the social situation Black Americans live on a day to day basis. She discusses how she fears that any time, she can be killed simply because of her skin color. As her friend said, ” The condition of black life is one of mourning”. This shows that these fears aren’t just her own personal fears, but a collective body of fears shared by Black Americans. Rankine talks about the police shootings of Michael Brown,Tamir Rice, and the Charleston shooting to prove the argument that black people can simply die just for being black, and to show how these emotions of fear and mourning are reinforced.

    With these personal experiences, she, like many other Black Americans, connects with the Black Lives Matter movement. This movement demonstrates this constant state of fear and mourning by remembering those who were killed for being black and constantly reminding the public about these incidents. Rankine mentions that America, for all its history, has been racially prejudiced against Black Americans, whether it’s slavery, the 3/5th compromise, lynchings, or institutional racism. Because of this pretext, racism is heavily present in the White American community, whether implicit or explicit.

    Due to this widespread White American apathy for the racial injustices towards Black Americans, a movement like Black Lives Matters is necessary. Rankine mentions that the movement is making these racial injustices very visible to the public. Americans will see the actual photos of the dead corpses of Black American, making an abstract concept into something very real. The movement will keep these injustices visible, because while invisible, racism will still live on.

18. There clearly is an [almost] inherent fear, anxiety, nervousness, and perturbation within Claudia Rankine’s mind. An anxiety which is originated from sub-structures of slavery-oriented facts, which unfortunately, (as clearly expressed by Rankine), are to this day, still taking place.
    Eleven days after Rankine was born, four black girls were killed in a bombing.
    Fifty-two years later, things stayed quite the same; six black women and three black men were shot to death while at a bible-study meeting, in South Carolina. Rankine has seen, absorbed, encultured events to say disturbing to her own life experience, as well as to those black people who feel pressured by a still-existing [based on Rankine’s opinion] white supremacy. Rankine, even asked her friend what it was like to be the mother of a black son. ‘Problems’ which may been seen as non-existent from a different angle, or person, are for many black people [as stated by Rankine], tough to overcome. Rankine mentioned that everyday routines, such as having coffee, walking the dog, reading the paper, taking the elevator to the office; are all moments surrounded by the ambient feeling that at any given moment, a black person is being killed in the street or in his home by the armed hatred of a fellow American. There clearly is fear in her words. We can sense Rankine’s peace of mind is heavily disturbed, and somewhat obstructed by layers of horrific events she has experienced in her own life.
    Rankine argues a point concerning the image of the visible body, as well as its ‘invisibility’. Rankine argues the fact that keeping the dead at the forefront of our consciousness is crucial for our body politic. Police, and/or national forces, have the ‘right’ to ‘keep a corpse on the ground, untouched, for four hours [like it happened to Michael Brown]’, so that they can ‘use’ it as evidence for the case. Rankine concludes that it is immoral; it is immoral to keep the families of the dead from getting close to their deceased one, one last time before the burial. Families are just allowed to mourn in silence, while the police investigates the dead corpse lying lifeless on the [cold] ground of street. It almost appears as if corpses are documents to study.
    Rankin’s hopes are all on the hands of those people who [firmly] hold on good morality of life, where race is just a four-letter word, a bridge to unite people; not a horrific line of separation.

19. In the chapter ‘ The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning’, the author Rankine opened the chapter with two strong personal experience, the first one is when Rankine was talking to her friend that just gave birth to a child, and she joked about the first thing she have to do is to get her child out of the United States, Rankine and her friend both laughed about the joke, but as written in the first paragraph, “Ours was the laughter of vulnerability, fear, recognition, and an absurd stuckness.”, this is a joke that they both understood the deeper meaning of it, the recent events and historical stories that circulates around African Americans, if you stood on Rankine and her friend’s perspective, you would realize how much information this one single joke contains. Another personal experience Rankine provided was she asked her friend what is it like be a mother of a black son, and she simply replied, “ The condition of black life is one of mourning.”, this one simple answer also represent a lot of ideas and opinions . These two personal experiences that Rankine provided put a foundation to the theme that she wanted to talk about, it raised awareness of how African Americans feel toward this topic.
    Rankine’s argument about the visible body is that people do not realize how serious a problem is until they witnessed the consequence, people can imagine what is it like to lose a family member, or simply imagining what is it to see a dead body, but until they actually see the process and the actual picture of a person being shot, then that is when people realized, there is a problem in our society and we need to fix it. And in Rankine’s account, she provided an example of visibility operated politically which is when Mamie Till Mobley, the mother of the victim Emmett Till, decided to exposed her son’s corpus to the public to let the world see what kind of brutality that her son had to go through, to let the world understand the situations that African Americans are facing, and everyone should really be paying attention to this serious issue. And the invisibility that Rankine used is the historical stories, she talked about how African American’s history background has shaped the society today. Even though African American have earned all their rights in modern society, but there is still this mental segregation in people’s head, people still have negative opinions about African Americans, because of these historical influences on people’s ideas, and also because of African American cultures, these are all the invisible. And the way I look at it, people have some sort of negative opinions no matter what, but to African Americans specifically, situations just could become worse, because they are colored, and the negative impressions are just so stuck into people’s mind that they don’t even realize it, and these impressions could lead to false judgements in society today, including political decisions. The chapter ‘ The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning’, it contains a lot of powerful messages, and a lot of the extreme data to support this topic, people should really start having an awareness about this topic and making more progression toward the goal, “Black Lives Matter”.