Claudia Rankine

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Claudia Rankine is the author of three collections of poetry: Nothing in Nature Is Private, The End of the Alphabet, and Plot. She has been awarded fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lannan Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Challenging everyday white supremacy presents its own challenges. In Just Us (Graywolf Press) Claudia Rankine looks at what it takes to stay in the room together, breaching the silence, guilt, and violence that follow direct addresses of whiteness. Her questions disrupt the false comfort of our culture’s liminal and private spaces. Her arrangement of essays, poems, and images includes the voices and rebuttals of others, all running alongside fact-checked notes and commentary that complements Rankine’s own text. In a starred review, the Library Journal noted that  “Rankine seeks to find a space beyond white defensiveness and guilt where meaningful discussions can take place. . . . A must-read to add to the conversation on racism, antiracism, and white fragility.”