Claudia Rankine’s Citizen is a book of prose poetry in which many read as narrative essays and poetic memoirs. Rankine has a powerful style in which she conveys a heavy message about racism with a quick punch of one to two lines. The images interspersed throughout the book serve to add to Rankine’s content instead of distract.

Simply looking at the front cover image, a black hood, brings forth multiple messages about race and personhood. First, Zora Neale Hurston said, “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background,” and there is word art of this quote in the book. The black hood stands out against a white background symbolizing how a black person feels most black when put against a crowd of white people. The black hood is singular, conveying the isolation felt by people subjected to racism. The black hood is empty showing how a black person is invisible. It is a hood that has the negative connotation of an uneducated, dangerous gangster. All of these topics are encapsulated by the image of the black hood and Rankine explores them in Citizen.

Rankine’s situation videos are among her most breathtaking work because of the layering of images, colors, sound effects, her voice, and her words. In Rankine’s situation video “Stop-and-Frisk,” a couple of young black boys are trying on hoodies in a clothing store. Police sirens pulse in the background, creating a sense of emergency, but the scene playing out is mundane, teenagers shopping for clothes. The police car lights flare and block out the boys’ faces representing how black people are not seen as people. Throughout Rankine repeats the line “And you are not the guy, but still you fit the description. Because there is only one guy who is always the guy fitting the description.” There is the tension of the questions will these boys shoplift? And implicit in that question is race with the prejudice that some people “look” more likely to steal. The scene ends with the boys paying for their items and walking out of the store and into the possibility of fitting the description.

In White Noise by Don DeLillo, a toxic cloud of an insecticide byproduct called Nyodene D. is created when a train transporting the chemical is derailed. Jack Gladney and his family evacuate to Iron City and are inside a building when:

At noon a rumor swept the city. Technicians were being lowered in slings from army helicopters in order to plant microorganisms in the core of the toxic cloud. These organisms were genetic recombinations that had a built-in appetite for the particular toxic agents in Nyodene D. They would literally consume the billowing cloud, eat it up, break it down, decompose it (DeLillo 160).

White Noise warns against the use of technology to create chemicals and microorganisms because it disrupts the natural order and has unknown consequences.

Nyodene D. is a “toxic cloud” and a “billowing cloud,” which makes it seem like a force of nature. Nyodene D. is called a cloud, not only to describe what it looks like, but to disassociate it from being human-made. Nyodene D.’s portrayal as a force of nature provides the scientists with a reason why they cannot contain or neutralize it. This portrayal undercuts the assumption that what is human-made can be controlled by humans. Further, Jack does not know what makes up the toxic cloud as he refers to its components as “the particular toxic agents.” The microorganisms are also described vaguely as “genetic recombinations.” Although Nyodene D. and the microorganisms are human-made, Jack struggles to understand what they are. The passage does not mention who created the microorganisms, and so it seems like they are solely a product of gene technology. Technology takes on a quality of a living being through producing the microorganisms. Nyodene D. is a physical threat to Jack, and others, as well as a psychological threat by being unknowable. The natural order is distorted by humans not being able to control what they make and technology becoming a creator.

The only people mentioned are the technicians, but this word distances them from human flesh and blood into technology. The label “technician” contains “tech” from “technology.” By being called technicians, the people appear to be an extension of technology instead of human. The technicians will “plant microorganisms,” which seems like a natural activity. People plant seeds in order to grow crops to eat. Nyodene D. is a byproduct of insecticide that is produced to protect crops from insects. Instead of humans eating what is planted, the microorganisms planted are eating the Nyodene D. In order to fix this human-made problem, the technicians distort the natural order. Jack is terrified that humankind through new technology is able to make microorganisms to eat Nyodene D. because these organisms are eating death. From the creation of insecticide to the unwanted chemical Nyodene D., these microorganisms that eat the chemical must also have a side effect, but it is unknown.

Nyodene D., the microorganisms, and the technicians demonstrate how technology warps the natural division between the living and nonliving. Nyodene D. and the microorganisms are a threat to human life because they are a disruption of the natural order and were each created in response to the human-made. White Noise is a warning of how the creation of new chemicals and organisms make the nonliving seem alive and puts the living into technological terms to its detriment.