1.A moment in Rankine’s excerpt that moved me was learning about Serena Williams’ outburst at the 2009 Women’s US Open semifinal. The text states, “Serena’s behavior, on this particular Sunday afternoon, suggests that all the injustice she has played through all years of her illustrious career flashes before her and she decided to finally respond to all of it with a string of invectives.”(page 121) Her outburst was not just from anger in the moment, it was built up from years of injustice. To think of someone as professional as Williams to have an outburst like that, truly shows how upset she has been and that there is more to it than just this one incident. It shocked me that she was fined almost $82,000 for this and given two years of probation. I can see how officials are trying to set an example, but the fine was ridiculous and uncalled for. Although she was unprofessional, you have to look at the bigger picture and injustice experienced.
2.One moment in Rankine’s excerpt where she applies the lens of “audience” to her work when she says “In one of his many videos, he addresses how to become a successful black artist, wryly suggesting black people’s anger is marketable”. This shows that Jayson Musson believes you can target a specific audience of black people by using the tool of “anger”. He thinks that the anger many black people feel is marketable.
Another moment in Rankine’s excerpt where the lens of “genre” is applied is racism shown. According to the excerpt, “Perhaps this is how racism feels no matter the context- randomly rules everyone else gets to play by no longer applying to you…” (page 123). This shows the genre of racism. The writer is targeting a specific genre that will attract a certain group of people- people who feel oppressed.
3.It is around 6 am on a Saturday morning- the one day I get to sleep in. My little sister came barging in my room, jumping on top of me because she needs a ride to soccer practice for 7 am, and my father had an emergency and couldn’t take her. Without using any words, I just looked at her and she knew how mad I was. This is the one day I get to sleep in and I have to work the night shift at my job later that night. I point up the stairs, indicating my brother’s room. Why couldn’t she ask him? He had off from school yesterday and spent all day in bed. My sister then ran out of my room and repeated this same scene of jumping on the bed with my brother. This is an example of how I expressed my feelings and thoughts effectively without speaking. From the angered look on my face and the notion to go upstairs, she understood to ask another sibling.
Very strong moment of silent communication, Ellie! For the second point in your reflection on Rankine, genre would be identifying the category to which Rankine’s writing belongs to (lyric essay would be my best guess); by discussing racism as a theme, you could argue that Rankine is applying the lens of critical race theory in her work.