When Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric arrived in the fall of 2014, shortly before a St. Louis County grand jury decided not to charge Darren Wilson for Michael Brown’s murder, critics hailed it as a work very much of its moment. The book-length poem— the only such work to be a best seller on the New York Times nonfiction list—was in tune with the Black Lives Matter movement, which was then gathering momentum. How, Rankine asked, can Black citizens claim the expressive “I” of lyric poetry when a systemically racist state looks upon a Black person and sees, at best, a walking symbol of its greatest fears and, at worst, nothing at all? The book’s cover, a picture of David Hammons’s 1993 sculpture In the Hood, depicted a hood shorn from its sweatshirt—an image that evoked the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin. Rankine’s catalog of quotidian insults, snubs, and misperceptions dovetailed with the emergence of microaggression as a term for the everyday psychic stress inflicted on marginalized people.
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Denne historien er fra October 2020-utgaven av The Atlantic.
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'Lord, Help Us Make America Great Again' - A close reading of Trump-rally prayers
A week before Christmas, an evangelical minister named Paul Terry stood before thousands of Christians, their heads bowed, in Durham, New Hampshire, and pleaded with God for deliverance. Th e nation was in crisis, he told the Lord— racked with death and addiction, led by wicked men who “rule with imperial disdain.”
Seventy Miles in the Darién Gap - The Impossible Pad to America - I went to the Darién Gap in December with the photographer Lynsey Addario because I wanted to see for myself what people were willing to risk to get to the United States.
I went to the Darién Gap in December with the photographer Lynsey Addario because I wanted to see for myself what people were willing to risk to get to the United States. Before making the journey, I spoke with a handful of journalists who had done so before. They had dealt with typhoid, rashes, emergency evacuations, and mysterious illnesses that lingered for months. One was tied up in the forest and robbed at gunpoint. They said that we could take measures to make the journey safer but that ultimately, survival required luck.
An Intoxicating 500-Yearold Mystery - The Voynich Manuscript has long baffled scholars-and attracted cranks and conspiracy theorists.
The Voynich Manuscript has long baffled scholars-and attracted cranks and conspiracy theorists. Now a prominent medievalist is taking a new approach to unlocking its secrets.
Pity the Bad Man
A bold new novel invites the reader to consider the plight of the bullies and the boors.
The Wild Adventures of Fanny Stevenson
Her surprising marriage to Robert Louis Stevenson changed literary history.
Does the World Need a Great American Biracial Novel?
The hero of Danzy Senna’ new satire is trying, and failing, to write one.
How Greed Got Good Again
In HBO's Industry, Gen Z reveals itself to be just as moneyobsessed as the corporate raiders of Wall Street.
My Mother the Revolutionary
She cared about saving the world more than she cared about me.
HOW M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD
The filmmaker weathered some of the wildest hype and harshest backlash that Hollywood has to offer. Then he found a different path.
AMERICAN FURY
For years, experts have warned of a wave of political violence. We should prepare for things to get worse before they get better.