Abstract
Poet and 2016 MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” recipient, Claudia Rankine, recently spoke at my home university about the ubiquity of racism and racialized aggression in the United States, which is the focus of her book, Citizen: An American Lyric (2014). During her talk, Rankine remarked that one of her greatest surprises researching #BlackLivesMatter came when reading the transcripts of interviews with officers who had fatally shot unarmed African American citizens. Rankine asked audience members how they supposed those officers responded to the question “Why did you shoot?” When a number of audience members shouted out, “I was afraid,” Rankine nodded