Microaggression: “a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group (such as a racial minority)” (Merriam- Webster) Microaggression have become in recent years part of the conversation on race in America. Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric sheds light on microaggression towards people of color in American society. She uses poetry and pictures to weave a story about race in America today. Yet race problems are not something new in human history, in Shakespeare’s Othello named after the main character who is a black man, in an all white society. Othello married Desdemona, a white venetian women and around them the plot circles. Microaggression have been part of our society for awhile. These two text show race is two different societies and time periods. Yet the similarities between race relation in each text, begs the question how far we really come in race relations. Citizen and Othello shed light on …show more content…
These microaggression show how race was viewed in the past. Othello is centered around race, so it was meant to be comment on views of race at that time period. Through the play Othello is referred to by names that have to do with the color of his skin, like Moor. Even if they say Othello, they still use Moor with it (2.1.30-35). The viewer cannot forget that Othello is a black man. These tiny aggression that come throughout the play remind that Othello is not part of Venetian society. Brantano, Desdemona father, assumes that he got Desdemona to marry with witchcraft (1.3.70-74). Brantano can not understand that his daughter could be in love with a black man, that she would have to be under a spell to marry Othello. These Microaggression build up over the play and they help to created a wall between Othello and Venetian society. This helps Iago later in the play, to help Othello lose trust in