Claudia Rankine

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

So you're just moving along and suddenly you get this moment that breaks your ability to continue, and yet you continue. I…

— Claudia Rankine

“because white men can't police their imagination black people are dying”

— Claudia Rankine

Whereas if you were writing an op-ed piece or an essay, somebody would be asking, "What's your point?" With poetry you can…

— Claudia Rankine

Because white men can’t police their imaginations, black men are dying.

— Claudia Rankine

Define loneliness? Yes. It's what we can't do for each other.

— Claudia Rankine

I asked a lot of friends and people I'd meet, "Can you tell me a story of a micro-aggression that happened to…

— Claudia Rankine

“The past is a life sentence, a blunt instrument aimed at tomorrow.”

— Claudia Rankine

The subject who speaks is situated in relation to the other. This privilege of the other ceases to be incomprehensible once we…

— Claudia Rankine

Where is the safest place when that place / must be someplace other than in the body?

— Claudia Rankine

The worst injury is feeling you don't belong so much / to you.

— Claudia Rankine

I’m not investigating race as much as I’m investigating intimacy.

— Claudia Rankine

I am invested in keeping present the forgotten bodies.

— Claudia Rankine

If you admit to being racist, it says you acknowledge that you are being driven by projections and stereotypes that were formed…

— Claudia Rankine

“I asked another friend what it's like being the mother of a black son. "The condition of black life is one of…

— Claudia Rankine

The truce is that. You forgive all of these moments because you're constantly waiting for the moment when you will be seen.…

— Claudia Rankine

The patience is in the living. Time opens out to you.

— Claudia Rankine

The friends I have, and the people whom I admire, are people who have an understanding of the conditions under which we…

— Claudia Rankine

“You could build a world out of need or you could hold everything black and see. You give back the lack. You…

— Claudia Rankine

For instance, if you're a black guy and you got pulled over, and you didn't know that any other black men were…

— Claudia Rankine

My tendency is to want to say to the person, "Do you understand why I feel this way?" I usually do say…

— Claudia Rankine

Each of these failures for me is a failure of communication, via a mode of communication that can be violent or meant…

— Claudia Rankine

We are invested in being together. In having friends. In joining our lives. And yet these are the people who also fail…

— Claudia Rankine

Intimacy is important in my work because I don't understand existence without intimacy. All of us are dependent on other people -…

— Claudia Rankine

The world is wrong. You can't put the past behind you. It's buried in you; it's turned your flesh into its own…

— Claudia Rankine