'Perhaps this is how racism feels no matter the context - randomly the rules everyone else gets to play by no longer apply to you, and to call this out [...] is to be called crazy, insane.'

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I read Citizen: An American Lyric on Saturday just gone and it had me absolutely rooted to my chair until I'd read all 160 searing pages of it. I've not read any Claudia Rankine before and she blew me away with her short prose poem vignettes blended with powerful artwork and photographs. She lays out episodes of racism, everyday experiences of living in a Black body in the US. A neighbour calls the police on a friend babysitting her children. 'Slip of the tongues' show up prejudices at work and in healthcare environments. An encounter at a bar quickly turns sour.

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When I read Ibram X Kendi's thoughts on the term 'microaggressions', I already agreed with them but these episodes just hammered it home. There's nothing 'micro' about them, they are aggressions full stop. Straight-forward attacks on Black folk for the colour of their skin. The longer piece about Serena Williams and the constant stream of racist bullshit she's had to endure throughout her career in a very white field was particularly striking. That's where the quote from above comes from. Serena is praised when she chooses not to retaliate to the discrimination she faces, as if not 'causing a scene' is preferable to calling out the racism she encounters. This book shows how the white society discriminates against Black folk, but then proceed to gaslight them when they call that discrimination out.