Fear: Growing Up In Baltimore

Between the World and Me, written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, is written as a letter to his son about realities associated with being black in the United States of America. His tone is somewhat poetic and quite bleak, based on his personal experiences. The book is intense, it is an address to a nation that ignores its own blatant history of racism, a nation that does not prosecute police officers who kill innocent black citizens, a nation that supports a policy of mass incarceration. He writes about growing up in Baltimore, Maryland and details the ways in which institutions (school, police, and the streets) discipline, endanger, and threaten to harm black men and women. Between the World and Me is an intimate confession of the fears of a black American father.

As I read Between the World and Me, my perspective took many sharp turns after reading countless quotations from Coates. Ta-Nehisi Coates argued “Race is the child of racism, not the father”. Coates explains how that there would not be walls between races but everyone the same. He claims that the start of racism, slavery, and oppression formed the idea of race. The idea that everyone is categorized by the color of their skin is contemporary and hasn’t been around since mind kind was formed. I agree with Coates but also disagree. If racism never developed I believe that there wouldn’t be much talk about race. I see less police

1) Why do you think Coates wrote this book in the form of a letter to his son (Samori) specifically? How does the format affect your relationship to the text? Do you think this format might make some readers uncomfortable? I believe that Coates wrote this book in the form of a letter to his son in order to give more emotional weight to his message. By writing to his son, and including his name in this excerpt multiple times, Coates reminds the reader that racism deeply affects individual people.

Rogers’ critique of Coates’ lack of hope is apparent when Rogers mentions James Baldwin the man in which Coates modeled his book after. “For all his channeling of James Baldwin, Coates seems to have forgotten that black folks ‘can’t afford despair.’ As Baldwin went on to say: ‘I can’t tell my nephew, my niece; you can’t tell the children there is no hope.’ The reason why you can’t say this is not because you are living in a dream or selling a fantasy, but because there can be no certain knowledge of the future. ”(Rogers)

One of the most prominent components of the text is that the black body is constantly under threat. Coats argues that “the question of how one should live within a black body… is the question of life.” He shows how racism works through the control and exploitation of black bodies and the delicateness of black bodies that results within a racist society. Coats writes that racism is a natural experience. Throughout American history, black men and women were chained, beaten, labored, and killed. Now, they experience police brutality and nonsensical shootings. Arrested for trying to get into their own homes and shot because they look suspicious or their hood is up. Shot because they inhabit a black body. It is the subtle ways in which a black body must conduct itself in public. Violence is consistent in an America that is still divided by race.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates is a book that demands attention in today 's society where racism and hostility towards the black community are still very common. The book is written in the form of a letter to Coates’s son where he examines the black body and how it is viewed in the world by white americans. Coates gives insight into relevant social justice issues such as Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Trayvon Martin and provides an intense reality depicting the life of those in the black community. Coates describes his life growing up and explains the ever changing realizations he comes to regarding the black body as he grows and develops. He takes the readers on a journey through his experiences and education, allowing us to directly see his opinions regarding the black body develop and reshape over time. Coates focuses in on his different forms of education and how they influenced his opinions on power and freedom of the black body. Ultimately through his life experiences and education Coates realizes that the black body can be viewed as simultaneously powerful and powerless within society.

The novel starts with Coates addressing his son, Samori.He begins recounting a time when he was invited on a talk show and the host asked him what it meant to lose his body, looking for an explanation as to why Coates “felt that white America’s progress, or rather the progress of those Americans who believe that they are white, was built on looting and violence.” This turned out to be a very heavy, intense, and loaded question. Coates went on to explain to his son that America was built on the oppression, abuse, and exploitation of black people, of their bodies, which only intensifies the hypocrisy of the democratic foundation that America prides itself on. The recent murders of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Renisha McBride, and other black people and “the destroyers who were rarely held accountable” prove that the disregard and mutilation of black bodies is embedded in America’s DNA, and no one gives it a second thought. The American “dream” that is built on the purity and innocence of wanting happiness was only ever made plausible by the oppression of black people, who still struggle to achieve that dream because they were abused into a life of silence and fear. “The Dream rests on their backs, the bedding made from their bodies.” Coates went on to explain how this history of exploitation and the fear that’s been rooted into the lives of black people in America followed him throughout his schooling and on the streets of his neighborhood. The schools that he was sent to discouraged black children, rather than encouraging growth and facilitating a healthy learning environment. The streets were carefully orchestrated for self defense. You had to protect yourself, because you knew the law wouldn’t. At Howard University, “the Mecca”, the excitement of witnessing the diversity that flooded the

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

In Between the World and Me , Coates immediately builds a relationship with the readers through Ethos. Through Coates novel he's seen first hand how us as a black community can care about materialistic things rather than what's really important. This is a text to world connection because in today's society, people especially the younger generation are the ones who are worried about the newest sneakers that are coming out or about the next party that's coming up rather than what's actually going on in society regarding their race or where they come from whether it affects them or not. This is a big issue because there are allot of things happening but people aren't aware of things that are happening in their own neighborhood unless it happens to someone close to them or possibly themselves. In the novel, Coates argues that “ black people” care about having the typical “American Dream” rather than fighting to be equal with the “White

Even if it is hard to accept and understand; for many readers, it is a striking self narrative about Coates’ experience of growing up at a disadvantage and a fight to make it to this idea of an American dream. However, Coates’ view on this dream, becomes more pessimistic as he becomes older. At first he believes the dream is achievable, but after the wrongful murder of Prince Jones and the other injustices such as Trayvon Martin and Freddie Gray, the dream become tarnished. The killing of Jones proved to be a turning point, because it showed that no matter how well off, and how successful you want to be, the single act of an unjust racially driven killing, is all it took to end Prince Jones’ dream. Coates states, “The Dream seemed to be the pinnacle, then ---- to grow rich and live in one of those disconnected houses… The Dream seemed to be the end of the world for me, the height of the American ambition.” This quote opens the reader to the life of young black men in today's times struggle to not only succeed but survive. It shows the predisposition that blacks face when they are born in America. This book connects with people of all races, because it opens the doors to the real world, that so many people were trapped

“Between the World and Me”, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, is a letter written to his son about what it means to be black and how tough it is to be a part of this race in the United States of America. In this book, Coates talks about his life in the black community, starting from childhood memories all the way to present day. Coates also tries sends a message, which is that his son should not lower his guard and be completely confident about who he is, instead he should be afraid about what the world is capable of doing to a black man. In this work, Coates disagrees on what it means to be black or white in America.

“And though I could never, myself, be a native of any of these worlds, I knew that nothing so essentialist as race stood between us. I had read too much by then. And my eyes—my beautiful, precious eyes—were growing stronger each day. And I saw that what divided me from the world was not anything intrinsic to us... ” (Coates 154) Coates understands that seeing the world from different perspectives humbles the mind. He no longer had to live with the stigma of being a black man in America.

Later along in the story, we can even see the full extent of the effects from these experiences as it had stuck with him for a majority of his life. This fear of the white community had also given him a sense of respect towards them, but still did not fully learn the “proper way to act”. An example is shown in one job that he had, when he asked his employers if he could “learn something” about the job he was in due to how “The boss instructed these two to help me (the narrator), teach me, give me jobs to do, and let me learn what I could in my spare time”. Once he tries and reminds them about teaching him, this is seen as an attempt to “exceed his boundaries” and eventually has to leave this job. Like the last event, he explains the situation to his family and they also think the same thing as they had called him a “fool”, and

Racism is an issue that blacks face, and have faced throughout history directly and indirectly. Ralph Ellison has done a great job in demonstrating the effects of racism on individual identity through a black narrator. Throughout the story, Ellison provides several examples of what the narrator faced in trying to make his-self visible and acceptable in the white culture. Ellison engages the reader so deeply in the occurrences through the narrator’s agony, confusion, and ambiguity. In order to understand the narrators plight, and to see things through his eyes, it is important to understand that main characters of the story which contributes to his plight as well as the era in which the story takes place.

In “Letter to My Son,” Ta- Nehisi Coates portrays it is easy to destroy the black body through abuse and violence of one’s community to outline and create a feeling that America’s racist society created a government that oppresses and murders the black community. As an attempt to support his claim, Coates states,“—it is not so easy to get a human being to commit their body against its own elemental interest.” By explaining the difficulty someone would have to control another person, Coates is trying to