Racial Profiling And Discrimination By Claudia Rankine s...

Racial profiling and discrimination is an underlining theme in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric. The author uses everyday encounters to expose the harsh reality African American people live. Rankine’s perspective on racism is applicable to years dating from 1860 and to present day occurrences. Discrimination against African Americans is a continuing problem. Although slavery does not exist today, African Americans continually grieve the agony their ancestors faced throughout the Civil War up to World War II. African Americans overcame slavery and oppression, but are still harassed with racial profiling tactics. Claudia Rankine experiences the racism she writes about. If she did not experience the encounters first hand, she took the stories from friends who had experienced it. The narrators thought provoking arguments and encounters informs the reader about modern day biases and discrimination. â€Å"For many African Americas, simply having dark skin seems to be grounds for being pulled over on the highway and searched for suspicion. Ted Koppel and Michael McQueen on an ABC News Special investigate how police forces call it â€Å"profiling.† Profiling was built on years of successful drug interdiction through traffic stops and searches, however angry and humiliated victims call it â€Å"racial profiling† and want it to be stopped† (â€Å"Racial Profiling and Law Enforcement: America in Black and White†). Although Citizen: An American Lyric captures acts of racial profiling cases,