#americanstudies — Public Fediverse posts

I’m still thinking about this ending a couple hours after reading it

"CHARLES: You're right to keep me a part of it. My white-ness. It needs to be faced.
CHARLOTTE:(she faces Charles) At its deepest level, yes.
CHARLES: It's just skin and yet I know it's power too.
CHARLOTTE: Dehumanizing power.
CHARLES: What is skin? I've heard dust is mostly skin (touching the table)-is this my skin? Yours?
CHARLOTTE: Charles-
CHARLES: We're shedding skin all the time—thousands of cells a minute. But it renews itself. I've never actually looked at my skin.

How many cells is it? How porous is it? How many layers are there? Where is it darkest? Where lightest? (He begins to unbutton his shirt.) All my skin is holding me together. Good lord, all this skin shields me. It protects me from . .. from
being you.

Its like the badge of the police. (He removes his shirt and turns his back to her.) I'm ready. (Beat.)

Charlotte, you can shoot me now. (He stands there with his back to her and arms at his side.
Silence.)

[Leonard Cohen's "Different Sides" begins to play.
Charlotte ties her smock around her waist and, taking off her shoes, steps onto a crate, binding her hands with his scarf. She stares at Charles's back.
Charles turns around. His horror and confusion are apparent. There is the click and flash of a camera.]

THE END"

- “The White Card" A Play by Claudia Rankine, author of "Citizen: An American Lyric"

I was assigned "Citizen" while I was completing my masters in #AmericanStudies I think the same year this came out. Short but powerful. #reading #play #theatre #academia #books #art #ArtCritic First staged in #Boston