In Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ writes a powerful novel that details the struggles that black people face in America, especially in contrast to those faced by white Americans. One of the main messages (as well as the most powerful) that is detailed in the book is the idea of black bodies and how they are perceived and treated in America. This was not only just in the physical sense, but also how they are treated in everyone’s minds. He describes how throughout the creation of America, black bodies were used and abused to create agricultural and textile empires that enriched countless white settlers (and later, American citizens). They were not valued as humans, only seen as bodies that will produce a profit.
Aside from just
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With being white myself, I personally was never disposed to this type of mental or physical abuse, but I was able to see it occurring with my two adopted siblings. For example, when my brother was thirteen, he dressed up with his friends (who were mostly all white) to trick-or-treat, and when he returned, his costume caused my mother to become extremely upset with him. He wore all black and had a painted toy gun in his hand. Although he and his friends were wearing almost the same costumes, he and our mother was unfortunately forced to talk with him about how he needed to be more careful with what he does and wears, even if it’s just in innocent fun. Hearing this made me realize just how tragic it is that a child has to worry about his life because of what he is wearing or any toys that he might be carrying. This lead to my second takeaway from the book, when he talks about how everyone makes mistakes in life, but the cost is significantly higher for black people in America. It is statistically proven that for every person that is stopped for possession of marijuana, black people are given more sentences and are forced to face the “mandatory minimums.” Or, even just by my brother wearing what he did, it could have cost him his life. Lastly, what also carried a great impact was how Coates discussed the host referring to hope at the beginning of the book. As Americans, especially white Americans, we like to think that although the situation seems grim, it must be ok because they are becoming slightly better than they were before. Even though it is great that we have seen change, it hasn’t changed enough, and instead of having hope, we need to have the determination to change them drastically
Coates provides readers with a lesson in American history and explains to his son that race is not reality, but that “Americans believe in the reality of ‘race’ as a defined, indubitable feature of the natural world” (Coates 2015; 7) He brings the reader inside the America in which he lives. He argues that “America’s problem is not its betrayal of ‘government of the people,’ but the means by which ‘the people’ acquired their names,” meaning that America has only ever represented and supported white people, that America was founded on a system of racial bias (6). He draws attention to the struggles that peoples of color, especially black people, have faced. Those struggles generate fear, which is one of the main ideas in the
Ta-Nehisi Coates starts off this section of the book by explaining the history of blacks in America to his son during the Civil War era. He describes how essentially an entire war began over slavery. African American bodies were the richest resource in America at the time, even more than American industry, and thus, the valued resource was the main dispute and motive for the Civil War. Coates writes, “In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body- it is heritage” (103). The reason why blacks are terrified to live in their bodies today is primarily due to the treatment of black individuals in the past. American history is rooted in us all, and continues to influence society. Coates further describes how slavery was extremely bloody
Of course as an African American I am aware of the racism that still occurs, and the countless number of citizens from the black community that are murdered. Coates begins to investigate and understand the lives of innocent African Americans that were murdered. Eric Garner, an African American male was choked to death for selling cigarettes. He did not deserve to die, this was a ridiculous crime. Mike Brown, also an unarmed African American, was shot to death and his killer was left unpunished.
It's a lyrical book, and a rage-filled one, and its angry poetry makes it all the more compelling. Coates returns again and again to certain touchstones: his father, his time at Howard University (a largely black university in DC), his experiences with black people who had attained bourgeois respectability, the "dream" of white, middle-class America, and his all-consuming fear as a black man in America that the state, the police, could take his freedom or his life. This fear is at the center of the message he wants to convey to his son. He wants his son to understand it, to be cautioned by it, to refuse to let it tame him, but to never forget it and put himself in needless risk. It's an agonizing conundrum, and agonizingly told, and viscerally conveyed. Coates rips away the cliches of the discussion of race in America and goes for nuance and contradiction over easy answers. It's a revolutionary manifesto, a love note from a father to a son, and a long and glorious tale all in one. listened to Coates read the book in a DRM-free audiobook edition, and I thoroughly recommend it. Hearing a memoir read by its author, especially one with such a fine reading voice, is surely the best way to experience
In "Between the World and Me", author Ta- Nehisi Coates writes a beautiful 2nd person letter to his son, Samori. In what is essentially a mini- biography, Coates details his life, from growing up in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, to going to college at Howard University. Through beautiful and at times painful storytelling, Coates is able illustrate his life experiences to his son, describing how his life was growing up, and how his life lessons could be passed down to his son, even though they grew up in vastly different time periods. Many themes became present in Coates' novel/ letter, but one was especially powerful for me personally. By being able to educate himself, Coates in able to learn both academic and real world topics.
This theme helps illuminate how black people came to be treated in America both when slavery existed and beyond into today’s society. The theme that black people are disposable bodies within American society. Because of the tradition of treating black people as objects or whose value strictly came from their ability to make profit, the idea of what it means to be black in America is imbedded in the danger of losing one’s body. Although slavery has ended, the racism remains as a violence inflicted on black people’s bodies. Coates is more than happy to emphasize that racism is an instinctive practice.
Coates’ allegory of the “Dreamers” and their detrimental impact on the lives of African Americans in the US is highlighted with this declaration: “But do not pin your struggle on their conversion. The Dreamers will have to learn to struggle themselves, to understand that the field for their Dream, the stage where they have painted themselves white, is the deathbed of us all” (151). Coates is essentially claiming that the people who refuse to live in reality are subsequently robbing those who do because they instill a sense of false hope and unrealistic expectations that make every injury inflicted upon the African American community hurt even more. By extension, Coates is affirming that living in the moment rather than always thinking about the future and how to make things better is the most authentic route to happiness. Much of the misery in life derives from people in power abusing the privileges society has granted them, and the exploitation of black people in American society has solidified the idea that civilization breeds barbarism in Coates’ mind. This is further supported by Coates’ assertion that, “The enslaved were not bricks in your road, and their lives were not chapters in your redemptive history. They were people turned to fuel for the American machine” (70). This image of black lives being chewed up and spit out by industrial America is visceral and jarring in that it shows a complete failure on the civilization’s part to protect and raise its citizens to a more prominent status and improve their lives. To Coates, the ideas of patriotism and “the Dream,” or
“Black students were expelled at three times the rate of white students.” (Steven Hsieh, 2014) Until now, we are still finding unequal treatment from school in American Society from different aspects, such as school discipline, early learning, college readiness and teacher equity. However, education is more than learning from books. Education enables individuals potential to utilize human mind and open doors of opportunities to obtain knowledge. But the US educational system doesn’t serve the majority of children properly and gaps remain between white and black students. What’s more, nowadays, a lot of schools only treat education as a curriculum and test scores; ignoring the stimulus of curiosity. Therefore, “Between the World and Me” is a book written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, who weaves his own personal, historical, and intellectual development into his ruminations on how to live in a black body in America. In this book, Coates writes about education and pleasures of his own educational experience in Howard University. Although bad education hides the truth and restricts students’ ideas, education also contains pleasures, which broaden people’s mind, help people build their own thoughts, and prevent people from prison. As a result, there are more pleasures in American education that positively impact on black body than dangers.
One of the most powerful messages encountered in the book is the importance of valuing yourself as a black being in a predominantly white and racially divided society. Coates explains how despite the fact that this nation has been built on the bones and bloodshed of blacks, the black body has lost almost all
The book Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates exhibits an exceptional number of powerful themes and lessons in which that allow for the reader to connect to and reflect on throughout the text. One specific message that transpired while reading was the idea of struggle and the subject’s importance as it relates to positive progression in life. At one point in the book the author states ,“Mistakes were made. Bodies were broken. People were enslaved.
In the book, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, he focused on the fear young black boys have growing up in America today. Along with discussing how it makes him feel about the Society he lives in. He emphasized the effectiveness of police in America overall and uses reference to slavery. Which reminds me of Goffman premises of symbolic interactions. How individuals in society just adopt to their surroundings. Although just because a person adapts, their inner thoughts and feelings of growing up afraid or even being one to see torture or detainment for no reason but knowing you have no power to change what seems to be a cycle. Also Pierre Bourdieu concepts of, “ social space and Genesis of groups” relates to Coates focus because he argues that, “ individuals can be defined by their position in the space they are involved in”. For example, when Coates the mistreatment done on young black boys by police officers, whom are suppose to be their as a protector of the citizens but continues to misuse their intended purpose within the position.
Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book written as a letter to his son, Samori that entails Coates’ hardships of being African-American and the racial injustices he experienced in America. Although Coates explains his experience of racism as an African-American, he does not impose solutions or actions on the racial inequality he describes in the book, but instead asks questions and addresses his concerns. It is unknown why Coates, who is known to be a “solutionist” in his essays in The Atlantic, did not give any solutions in his most popular book to date. The book’s skepticism does not settle well with his audience, nor does its content resemble Coates’ previous articles or works. From these differences, how should we view Coates as an activist and an author? How do we reconcile these differences in his approaches to writing that amount to the differences in his
Rosa Parks once said, “Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully we shall overcome.” Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Coates writes a letter to his son explaining what his life was like growing up in America as an African American man, and he also tries to give his son some moral advice on how to take charge of living as a man in a black body. Spike Lee directs a film on Malcolm X, who was a black activist and a leader of the struggle for black freedom. Both the book and film discuss slavery, civil rights, and police brutality. Coates and Malcolm X advocate that the malicious history of slavery has contributed to the shaping of modern day racism in America.
“What I told you is what your grandparents tried to tell me: that this is your country, that this is your world, that this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.” (Coates). This powerful quote exemplifies the mistreatment of blacks in America as something that has been prevalent throughout our nation’s history and is still present in our contemporary world. Our national founding document promised that “All men are created equal”. As a nation we have never achieved the goal of equality largely because of the institution of slavery and its continuing repercussions on American society.
“Last Sunday the host of a popular news show asked me what it meant to lose my body”(Coates 5). The phrase “lose my body” is reiterated numerous times in Between The World And Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The topic/theme of this piece of literature may be discernable as innocence as Ta-Nehisi profusely speaks of how his upbringing changed and affected his perspective on life. Coates uses a multitude of examples to portray this from how he witnessed another boy almost being shot at a young age to him learning and understanding the laws and “culture of the streets”(Coates 24) as who and even more who not to mess with(Coates 23). Coates effectively uses these examples as perfect representations of living in an American ghetto as well as how since birth blacks do not “own” their body and are susceptible to lose it.