Diagnosis Race: Troubling Etiologies in Claudia Rankine's American Lyrics.

Abstract

"Diagnosis Race" provides an analysis of poet Claudia Rankine's representations of "John Henryism" and "weathering," public health terms for persistent disparities in health outcomes for African Americans, regardless of socio-economic status and education level. I argue that Rankine's experimental multi-media collections Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric (2004) and Citizen: An American Lyric (2014) create a necessary new genre for our times: a "public lyric" that works to place the individual or "private" injured Black body in the public square, expose the deleterious effects of racial bias on the mental and physical health of many Black Americans, and uncover harmful bias behind even the most well-meaning diagnostic language.