Just Us: An American Conversation

(Paperback)

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Now in paperback, Claudia Rankine's 'skyscraper in the literature on racism' (Christian Science Monitor) At the theatre, around the dinner table, in the airport and in the voting booth, what fractures lie beneath the veneer of contemporary civility and rhetorical claims to unity What happens if we actually acknowledge them And when we do, how can we strive to stay in the room with one other In a series of real-life conversations with both friends and strangers, Claudia Rankine set out to explore these questions, taking the study of whiteness and white supremacy - and a willingness to be surprised - as her guiding light. Just Us is the record of those encounters. Brilliantly arranging essays, images and poems along with the voices and rebuttals of others, it counterpoints Rankine's own text with facing-page notes and commentary, and along the way considers a typically enlightening and unexpected range of issues, from priority boarding queues to the political and cultural implications of women dyeing their hair blonde. Wry, vulnerable and prescient, this is Rankine's most intimate work, less interested in being right - and in always feeling comfortable - than in being true and being together.

Reviews

Claudia Rankine marshalls the full range of her substantial talents - from poetry to essay - to explore how racism is lived, privilege is expressed and engagement might be possible. Personal, political, interrogative and, most all, impressive -- Gary Younge
This brilliant and multi-layered work is a call, a bid, an insistent, rightly impatient demand for a public conversation on whiteness . . . bold and vital -- Judith Butler
In my work, well-meaning white people consistently ask me how to recognize racism. Yet we might ask, "How have we managed not to know" The information is everywhere, if we care to listen . . . With clarity and grace, Claudia Rankine delivers a gut punch to white denial. Just Us is stunning work - audacious, revelatory, devastating -- Robin DiAngelo
In Just Us, Claudia Rankine continues her remarkable and brilliant interrogation of the language, culture, and history that have shaped America, forging through poems, essays, and documents a literary archive that is utterly original and desperately needed -- Dinaw Mengestu
Fiercely intimate, rigorous . . . [Just Us] lets all of us in on the conversations - with others and the self - that are necessary for survival -- Nuar Alsadir

Author Bio

Claudia Rankine is the author of five books, including Don't Let Me Be Lonely- An American Lyric and the bestselling Citizen- An American Lyric. A chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, she is the winner of many prizes including the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and a 2016 MacArthur Fellowship. She is an adjunct professor of English and African-American Studies at Yale University, and has previously taught at Pomona College and the University of Southern California.