The Red Scare Of The Cold War Essay

“And one morning while in the woods I stumbled suddenly/ Stumbled upon it in a grassy clearing guarded by scaly oaks / and elms / And the sooty details of the scene rose, thrusting themselves / between the world and me…” This is the epigraph to Coates’s work. He explains he wants to find out what actually exists between the world and himself. He begins by asserting that America has always had a problem with race, but not quite in the way people assume. He says racism created race, not the other way around. American history is general with examples of people who were once not considered white – the Irish, the Jews, the Russians, Catholics – but now are. Race is not a positive reality of America; it has been constructed, altered, and reinforced. Whiteness is not just skin color or hair color; it is fashioned out of “the pillaging of life, liberty, labor, and land; through the flaying of backs, the chaining of limbs; the strangling of dissidents; the destruction of families; the rape of mothers; the sale of children; and various other acts meant, first and foremost, to deny you and me the right to secure and govern our own bodies” (8). America is not the only country to do this, of course, but what is so problematic is its hypocrisy; it claims to be a champion of

In Ta-Nehisi Coates’ essay, “Letter to My Son,” published by The Atlantic, he argues that in America it is customary to be oblivious to the suffering of black people due to people that believe they are white wanting a white America. He supports this claim by first describing how throughout history, people believing in white privilege regard themselves superior than those of color. An example that Coates used to show his son would be when a white woman pushed him and Coates recalled that, “There was the reaction of any parent when a stranger puts a hand on the body of their child. And there was my own insecurity in my ability to protect your black body. And more: There was my sense that this woman was pulling rank.” Another point Coates makes

The recently awarded 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction author, Ta-Nehisi Coates, has stirred quite some debate over the author himself and the issue on race in America. He is harsh and direct when it comes to commenting on the political policies in America or even the president. Much of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s works are affected by his life living in America as a black person. The violent and “fearsome” life he has lived became the only form of life he is acquainted to. As a result, he strongly believes that white supremacy dominates, a condition which will never cease to be. Hope – being a central element to the black moment – is absent in his projections; this hopelessness in Coates’s works is a center of discussion to the critics. There exist strong supporters of Coates who applauds him for his truthfulness and there are some who view him as a pessimist and a cynic. All the while, Coates defends himself by saying that he is simply a realist who refuses to hide behind the blind naivete like the rest.

“To yell ‘black-on-black crime’ is to shoot a man and then shame him for bleeding” (Coates 111). I was not surprised when I read this quote because it is exactly something I would expect Coates to say. Throughout Between the World and Me Coates offers powerful lines that make the audience feel as strongly as he did, such as this. This quote also did not surprise me because of its truth, to pin black people against each other and then shame them for it is

Coates ultimately poses the demand for reparations as a means for blacks to finally have justice served against the crooked system that existed in America. In his argument, he tries to justify reparations by giving a detailed progressive timeline of the continuous discrimination of African Americans after slavery was abolished. There are several ways that Coates executes his argument on the racial discrimination towards African Americans to make them inferior to white supremacists. He does this by using text from famous literature to pursue an ancient justification of reparations. Another way he does this is by using the life of Clyde Ross to illustrate racial discrimination on a personal level. The final way is by describing the idea of institutional slavery against blacks and the many ways white supremacists, or those in high powered positions would take advantage of blacks.

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 describes his early forms of education in grades k-12 and the ways in which it shaped his views of the black body. This period of education was a time in which Coates viewed the black body as powerless based on the difficult situation he was living. This early educational experience in Coats’s life was extremely conflicting due to the fact that the

It is not us who painted ourselves Black; although we now wear it with pride in a very “Dreamer”-esque way as Coates may view it, but rather White people who painted themselves as well as us so. Before there was White and Black, there was Welsh, or Catholic, or Yoruba, or Vodun. White and Black arose from the destruction wrought on African, Caribbean, and South American populations. Coates reflects that America suffers a misunderstanding with this ideal, believing Race to be an inherent and naturally pre-existing occurrence, however, this was merely a man made social construct, created as a tool to ensure the existence and profit of Racism would last, as it

The Red Scare was a significant event in The Cold War. It was the fear of the spread of communism and America didn’t want that to happen so they issued organizations and laws to try and prevent the spread of communism (Containment Policy).

As Coates extends and builds up the different variables and attributes, he presents new components. These conducted of analysis and additional memory of his very own history and memories growing up as a black man. He also refers to America history of slavery. In which he tends to feel is made up of socio-social, financial, and political establishment of the treatment of black individuals in America. He compares between

The McCarthy era, which generally spanned from 1947 to 1957, brought to the forefront of American politics the question of civil rights. At issue were controversies about both First Amendment rights to assembly and free speech and Fifth Amendment rights to due process and freedom from self-incrimination. Anti-Communist actions often involved restrictions on these rights, and heading the anti-Communist movement was the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). This committee, which consisted of government officials from Congress, was formed to investigate the threat of Communism in America. In doing so, the committee brought in witnesses, usually individuals thought to have, or to have had, Communist

Coates spent his childhood years in a poor Baltimore public school, a system that “mostly meant always packing an extra number 2 pencil and working quietly” (Coates 25). He grew up believing that “The world had no time for the childhoods of black boys and girls” (Coates 25). School was not to him a place of education but rather an institution whose purpose was to train the students to obey and conform. “Algebra, Biology, and english were not subjects so much as opportunities to better discipline the body” (Coates 25).

As the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States grew in the late 1940s and early 1950s, over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S. became known as the Red Scare. The Red Scare led to a range of actions that had a profound and enduring effect on U.S. government and society. The climate of fear and repression linked to the Red Scare finally began to ease by the late 1950s.

America is supposed to be the land of opportunities. A place where you are free to do anything and become whoever you want to be but this does not apply to everyone. One of the reasons for Coates disagreement is the permanent racial injustice in America. People might think that the war between black and white people is over but this is not true. Daily, we can see many cases about racial injustice like when a white man with power treats other black workers as if they were inferior to him. Not only white people treat black people this way but there are many other cases in which you can see black folks discriminate white folks and this can also be seen through public media. Coates thinks that the war between black people and white people will be a permanent one, and because of this, he is also afraid that his son needs to be more prepared for the

“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.