WHAT ARE CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS?
Human and civil rights are standards that reflect a society’s sense of social equity through recognition of various humane shortcomings, and although both movements are often used interchangeably and are
“both anchored by notions of human dignity, social justice, soul courage, and social action,”
they are very distinct concepts. Human rights are fundamental rights provided by the state one resides in, equivalent to a citizenship status—privileges that are granted through immigration, marriage, or birthright; whereas civil rights are manifested from a society’s treatment of each member of its community based on stigmas from one’s race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or other creed. Civil rights define the liberties a “citizen” bears, considering animosity and bigotry between citizens of the same nation still exist, leading to some members of the community’s rise to a higher social status than others.
Malcolm X explains the difference between the two movements and their effect on the American civil rights movement.
Raúl Zurita’s Song for His Disappeared Love and Claudia Rankine’s lyrical narrative Citizen explore humanity’s demeanor in separate settings of two cultural negations of callous histories, both illustrating how societal erasures provokes the need for human and civil rights universally. Continue scrolling to further explore the works and how each has effectively integrated both civil and human rights to successfully convey their stories.
THE WORKS
Citizen
by Claudia Rankine
Zurita’s Song for His Disappeared Love commemorates the Chilean victims of General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorial overthrow who have simply “disappeared” and whose bodies are scattered throughout the country. Zurita’s unsettling poem captures man’s misery during such a tyrannical overthrow through the poet’s personification of the Americas to reflect the severe violation of human rights experienced.
Meanwhile, Rankine’s work illuminates the feeling of invisibility faced by African Americans within the United States endured from accidental, subconscious remarks that stem from an American history of segregation and oppression. Her personal accounts and inability to proclaim her injustices for fear of further exhibiting the African
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American stereotypes that constrained her originally leave Rankine in a suppressed state and social dilemma. Rankine effectively conveys how the same injustices are exemplified throughout the black community, as decorated athletes like Serena Williams and incidents of police brutality spread across the country all share a collective sense of adversity. Both works are effective in not providing a societal scapegoat for these events, but instead, they create a sense of community and collective responsibility, despite Zurita’s work focusing more on human rights and Rankine’s analyzing modern civil rights.
For more supplementary research to further enhance your experience.
Song for His Disappeared Love by Raúl Zurita
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