Just Us: An American Conversation

Rankine is at another dinner party. An older white man tells the other guests that his son, who is in the military, will be deploying again soon. Though he understands the importance of his son’s service, he still worries about him. A white woman, who works as a judge, sympathizes with him, saying that she worries about her son, who is moving to Brooklyn. She worries that her son could get killed there. This fear gives Rankine pause. Whom is the woman worried about? She wonders if the woman has been to Brooklyn and sees what it’s like these days.

Rankine struggles to stay silent. At the same time, she wants the judge to say what she means: robbed or murdered in Brooklyn. Rankine also wonders if the judge “fears her son will be killed by another gentrifying white male since most victims and suspects are neighbors” (216).

Rankine thinks about how, if the 2016 election results had been different, this judge could have held a position in government, and other progressives would have believed that this would have been a good thing. Similarly, Senator Bernie Sanders, whom many progressives wanted to become president, once claimed that “[t]here are a lot of white folks out there who are not necessarily racist who felt uncomfortable […] about whether or not they wanted to vote for an African-American” (216). Rankine balks at this not being racist. She wonders, too, how white Democrats and liberal Independents can be humane toward Black people when they were apologists for racist behavior among voters. She is also reminded of Joe Biden claiming in 2019 that his producing legislation with a pair of white segregationists was exemplary of his ability to “work across the aisle” (217).

Rankine also considers how, “in the race to whiteness certain Asian and Latinx and black people have been […] breathless to distance themselves from blackness” (217). Political scientist Claire Jean Kim argues that some people of color having to attain proximity to whiteness results from two factors: whites (the dominant group) valorizing a subordinate group relative to another subordinate group to dominate both; a form of civic ostracism in which one member of a subordinate group is regarded “as immutably foreign […] to ostracize them from the body politic and civic membership” (218).

The late Afro-Puerto Rican activist, Miriam Jiménez Román, argued that censuses manipulate the Latin population into racial categories due to the categories that already exist on census reports. She notes that 75.8 percent of Puerto Ricans who live in Puerto Rico identify as white, though many who self-identify in this way are not treated or regarded as white people. Additionally, those who identify as Afro-Latinx are often ignored by Black people and “erased by whites” (219). Finally, Latin people of Indigenous descent who are Mexican and Central American are barely accounted for at all.

An artist who attended the dinner party introduced Rankine to Román’s work. She and Rankine have a telephone conversation. On the phone, the artist talks about the pressure on Latinx people (Rankine prefers the term “Latinx”) to assimilate to whiteness. Much of the pressure comes from the census. Moreover, when popular culture talks about Black excellence, the contributions of Afro Latin people are seldom included. There is even little mention of the impact of Afro Cubans on the development of jazz. Still, only 18 percent of Afro Latin people identify as Black. Many Latin people also do not see themselves within constructions of American whiteness or Black American identity, as their histories and heroes are not generally part of the American narrative.

Rankine tells the artist about a conversation that she had with a Puerto Rican man. She told him that, as people of color, they needed to organize to defend DACA. He, to her bemusement, told her that as a “white man,” he felt helpless during the Trump administration. The artist posits that the man may have felt that “people of color” means “black.” Then again, remembering that over three-quarters of Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico regard themselves as white, Rankine understands the source of their disconnect.

Sometimes during her conversation with the artist, Rankine forgets to use the term “Latinx,” which has become part of modern American parlance, and says “Latino” or “Hispanic.” Rankine knows that Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio refer to themselves as Hispanics. This term, the artist tells her, is racist, for it “refers back to Spain, serving to insert a European hierarchical lineage” (222). Rankine then understands that “Latinx is an ethnic identity, not a racial one” (222).

Rankine feels contrite about her “monolithic focus on black-white relations in the United States,” though she insists that “antiblack racism is foundational” to the disconnect between her and the artist in this conversation (222). Rankine wonders if it’s really possible to form an alliance with the Latin population, which is multiracial and assimilates easily into whiteness through intermarriage.

Rankine has another friend, an Afro-Pessimist, who claims that Latinx and Asian people are “junior partners in a white nationalist administration” (225). Rankine tries to focus on ICE, threats to repeal DACA, Trump’s comments about “shithole countries,” and white supremacist mobs lynching Mexicans in California. She also thinks about Sammy Sosa applying bleaching cream to his skin. She cannot separate Sosa’s actions from society’s contempt for Black people.

As the phone call continues, Rankine can hear the artist becoming exasperated. She reminds Rankine that no one cared when Trump called Mexicans rapists. Rankine disagrees, thinking of conversations she’s had privately. However, she knew that there was no public acknowledgement from anti-racists.

Latin people were 18 percent of the U.S. population in 2016 and the second-largest ethnic group behind white people. They are also the “second-fastest-growing racial or ethnic group” behind Asians (226). Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign slogan, “Yes, We Can,” comes from the United Farm Workers of America’s motto.

Rankine sends this book chapter to another friend who is a Muslim of Mexican and Persian descent. She asks if Rankine has read Wendy Trevino’s book Brazilian Is Not a Race. This friend doesn’t identify with the artist’s statements. She talks about the Islamophobia she has experienced from both Black and white people. She thinks about how to talk about this without “playing oppression olympics” (229). She also knows that being American is what makes it easier to talk about all of this, and that American citizenship is a great privilege.

While thinking about these conversations, Rankine wonders if conversations are truly conduits to understanding. She then wonders if understanding really results in change. She’s unsure.

Rankine is standing in line, preparing to board another flight. A man looks around. A woman runs and gets in line behind the man, who has been watching her. He sharply asks her if she’s stupid. Everyone in line looks at the couple. They are white and dressed in the expensive, yuppie clothing that is typical of Ralph Lauren ads. The woman has dyed blonde hair and wears capris and Gucci loafers. The man is tall and wears khakis.

The woman never responds to the man’s question. Another white woman is standing behind the couple. She looks at the man in a way that catches his attention. He responds, but he says something inaudible. Whatever he mouths keeps this other white woman from responding as well.

Rankine is still thinking about these exchanges when she gets to her seat. The blonde woman in the capris walks by when Rankine asks her if her companion actually called her stupid. She confirms that he did before she walks on. At the same time that they are taking this flight, the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings are taking place.

Rankine is trying hard not to see this abusive white male passenger as a “stand in for white men” (241). She thinks that, were it not for Trump and future Supreme Court justice Kavanaugh, she might even be disinclined to associate his abusive language with patterns of behavior frequently displayed by those in power. She knows that everyone in that line, standing around that white male passenger, normalized his abusive language by remaining silent in response to it.

Suddenly, a flight attendant comes on the intercom and asks if there is a physician on the plane. Someone is ill in the back. When the plane lands in Phoenix, everyone is asked to remain seated while EMTs board. Rankine sees the white woman who looked at the white man in response to his abuse. Before she exits the plane, she says to Rankine that she’s embarrassed. Rankine encourages her to take care. She wonders if the man’s words have something to do with the woman’s condition.

As soon as Rankine disembarks, she calls a friend who is at the Capitol to support Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Rankine’s friend tells her about the women who are counterprotesting. They are wearing “Women for Kavanaugh” T-shirts. Some have signs that read “Due Process” and “Protect Our Sons.” She tells Rankine about interviews in which woman, some of whom are mothers, offer the refrain, “Boys will be boys” (245). Rankine wonders if these mothers also have daughters. She also thinks about “whose boys get to be boys” (245).