Jenée tells a coming of age story about what it is like to grow up in a white privileged community, and how she learned more about her blackness through Tupac’s music. Her and Thea, her best friend who is also bi-racial, come together when they learn of Tupac’s death. They mourn in obvious ways: listening to his songs and sobbing all night. The two value his music. Tupac’s influential raps change Jenée’s perspective, and she learns more about who she really is. Introducing important topics like white privilege and racial matters, this story is not just limited to the rapper, Tupac. The author portrays a message much bigger than expected. I personally relate to many aspects of the story. Growing up with my white mother, white stepdad, and white
Tupac made albums/singles talking about real life problems such as teen pregnancy, police brutality, and drug abuse (Marcovitz 26). Tupac was born in 1971 (Marcovitz 4). Tupac was a very talented artist that many people looked up to because he wrote lyrics about hard lifestyle and many people could relate to what he sing about.
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
I feel like kids who live in lower class environment can relate to it the most seeing that most black man in lower environment are targeted more seeing from the places there from. They hold more of a stereotype within society because of the statistics that is a black people fall under we get look at as “dIfferent”’ . Reflecting on what Coates face through his teen and young adulthood years , I feel as if young black mens in this generation can also relate. Like the case of his friend Prince Jones who was shot and killed by a policemen. In the book You can see him comparing that story to other event that happen in present time. Like in the book he reference Tamir Rice and a view others that these were black man that either got killed by the law or just got killed for being black. This why in the book he stated to his son “Always remember that Trayvon Martin was a boy, that Tamir Rice was a particular boy, that Jordan Davis was a boy, like you.” Pretty much Coates is stating to his son that all these black young men that were being killed were at a young age. AS his song progress growing up he wants him to remember that he should always carry himself with respect and pride and also he reminds him to know that he should be more acknowledge with the fear of being
The reason I chose this book was because the title jumped up at me and my curiosity was aroused. I wanted to find out more about it. I was also drawn to the fact that the book was based on a true story. True stories interest me a lot and I instantly knew that I wanted to read this book. I also noticed that the book was a best seller and sold thousands of copies. As I read this book I’m glad that I choose it because it broadened my perspective on racism and the lengths that an individual is willing to go to in order to personally experience or understand a situation. This book has clearly
Reading the content in this book made me get a picture of what it was like to be a colored person in this time. My eyes were opened to the meaning of the word “nigga”. Nigga is such a derogatory term, yet now-a-days it is used by people so much. Kids in this generation use it as a term of endearment when they see their friends, or they say it when they are shocked by something. Frankly, I don’t believe they know how serious it really is. The fact that white people could look at a person and see less than a human being when they did nothing wrong distresses me. They (white people) treated them as if they were property and below them. Even though we don’t have racism to this extent
The poet was born June 16, 2pac passed away September 13 he grew up in New York. It was published October 28, 1999. Tupac wanted to name his first child star He uses phrases like “bloodclot crying.” This poem don’t any stanza he also Tupac was born as Lesane Parish Crooks.
This book is written in form of a letter from the Author to his son. In the letter he talks about the cruel and brutal things that go on in this world from the black man’s perspective. This book received criticism but mostly praise especially from those in the black community. Ta-nehesi Coates has recently embarked on a book tour in which he will go all across the country answering reader’s biggest question.
The book I chose to read is Tupac Shakur:The Life & Times of an American Icon. This book hasn’t been out for very long. It’s publication date was January 26, 2010 so it is a somewhat newer book. Fred and Tayannah examined very closely and did a great deal of research to write this book. They had to examine all the theories and myths about Tupac Shakur. So i’m guessing you can imagine how hard they worked to write & publish this biography.
This powerful memoir is a testament to the potential love and determination that can be exhibited despite being on the cusp of a nation's racial conflicts and confusions, one that lifts a young person above
Millions of people in the world listen to music for all different reasons. Most people all over the world listen to different genres of music in order to relax, but not too many people pay attention to the actual lyrics of a song. If you listen to the lyrics of a song you will realize that many songs have important messages or themes to them. An example of this is the lyrics of the song “Changes” by Tupac Shakur. If you listen to this song, you will realize that Tupac raps about not only the problems that African Americans face from society, but also the struggles that poor people in society have to endure and overcome. Many
This book tackled many situations that people of color face on an everyday basis. For example, in one situation Coates and his son were faced with mistreatment. A white lady pushed Coates son, rushing him to hurry up, in an act of showing who was boss, the author tells how he became upset with the situation. What ended up happening was that because of the way Coates defended his child people began to scream at him and threaten to call the police for his behaviors. He states that he faced a state of shock, he was unaware, how cruel people could be and how much power white people attained. (94) This example shows how people misjudge a person of color it doesn’t matter if they did something right, they are being called out just by the pigment of their skin. It goes to show that the statement Coates said was true “not being violent enough could me my body. Being too violent could cost me my body.” (28) Either way one may look at a situation, for a person of color, it can go bad and seeing through the eyes of this author we become aware that social racism still exists in today’s
Barack Obama said, “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” “Change” by Tupac Shakur talks about change is hard because people stereotype. Although, change is a difficult thing to do, one can change lifestyle if they wanted it to.
The story, for the most part, centers upon an African-American family, their dreams for the future and an insurance check coming in for death of the eldest man. Stirring into the mix later is the hugely oppressive,
The film 8 Mile, directed by Curtis Hanson, is the typical American story of struggle and the eventual overcoming of obstacles and evil. Upon closer look, the film is arguably a socioeconomic and racial discourse. It focuses on the ascension of Marshall Mathers into the rap industry, previously dominated by African-American males. Rabbit’s race, gender, and class, all contribute to his identity and the meaning of the film, as well as contributing to Eminem’s image. Several themes are defined through the movie’s underlying discourse of race and class: the commodification of black culture, racial opposition, “passing”, cross-cultural bonding, white heroism and white masculinity, the reversal of white privilege into a disadvantage, and
I like to read stories that are realistic so the one connection that I make between this work and others that I have read in the past is that it doesn’t cover up the fact that black people have had to make due with the hand they were dealt. There is no happy ending but the