We are invested in being together. In having friends. In joining our lives. And yet these are the people who also fail… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share Image
In the future, we've forgotten it. It's disappointing to find out that the past is the present is the future. Nobody wants… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share Image
Each of these failures for me is a failure of communication, via a mode of communication that can be violent or meant… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share Image
My tendency is to want to say to the person, "Do you understand why I feel this way?" I usually do say… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share Image
I think words are the thing that either triumphs for you, in your desire to communicate something, or fails. I love language… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share Image
When you achieve it fully, you create something that's transparent - that people can move into and through their own experiences. As… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share Image
I wanted a feeling of accumulation. I really wanted the moments to add up because they do add up. I wanted to… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share Image
I love revising things, because you see how you can get the language to get closer to intention. You know there are… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share Image
Intimacy is important in my work because I don't understand existence without intimacy. All of us are dependent on other people -… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share Image
I was at Yale and I said to the poet Elizabeth Alexander, "I'm interested in the ways in which black health seems… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share Image
I think of the described dynamics as a fluid negotiation. I don't think these specific interactions can happen to the black or… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share Image
I don't know about forgiving, but it's an "I'm still here." And it's not just because I have nowhere else to go.… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share Image
I don't know about forgiving, but it's an "I'm still here." And it's not just because I have nowhere else to go. It's because… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share
So you're just moving along and suddenly you get this moment that breaks your ability to continue, and yet you continue. I wanted those… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share
“because white men can't police their imagination black people are dying” — Claudia Rankine Copy Share
Whereas if you were writing an op-ed piece or an essay, somebody would be asking, "What's your point?" With poetry you can stay in… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share
I asked a lot of friends and people I'd meet, "Can you tell me a story of a micro-aggression that happened to you in… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share
The subject who speaks is situated in relation to the other. This privilege of the other ceases to be incomprehensible once we admit that… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share
Where is the safest place when that place / must be someplace other than in the body? — Claudia Rankine Copy Share
If you admit to being racist, it says you acknowledge that you are being driven by projections and stereotypes that were formed in the… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share
“I asked another friend what it's like being the mother of a black son. "The condition of black life is one of mourning," she… — Claudia Rankine Copy Share
