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Between The World And Me

Decent Essays

Independent Reading Project Quarter Two: Between the World and Me
Summary
Inspired by James Baldwin’s 1963 classic The Fire Next Time, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me powerfully educates readers on what it means to be African American in the United States today. It is formatted as a letter to his son, Samori, at the age of fifteen. It’s intention being to help him through navigate the world as a young African American male. He does this through sharing personal experiences and analyzing current events, with regards to historical context. By communicating his ideas in this format, he is uniquely able to more broadly depict the concept of racism in America. Where both memoirs and textbooks fall short, Between the World and Me does not.

Object 1- Dollar Bill (significant concept) The first object I chose is a one dollar bill. Currency blatantly represents wealth, that which Coates describes as coming from the oppression of another. It is also used as a form of payment, showing the price paid by 250 years of people born into slavery. Lastly, with George Washington inscribed on the front and “In God …show more content…

One statement in particular that stood out to me was: “To yell “black-on-black crime” is to shoot a man and then shame him for bleeding” (111). Statements like these tell you more than simply what happened, but why it happened and how it will impact or result in other events; they give valuable first hand perspective on the oppression of African Americans throughout our history, and the effects it has on their communities. The term “black-on-black crime” is used sporadically in media, depending on the source. I already knew it was not a fair statement to use, and involved problematic wording, but the metaphor used to describe it gave me insight on it’s implications that I could not have discovered on my

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