Between the World and Me

I don't know what I can say about this book that has not already been said by many others. This is an epistolary memoir in which Coates tries to explain the realities of race, history, and society in the U.S. to his fifteen-year-old son. Those who "believe themselves to be white", Coates says, inhabit a very different world to that of black people, whose lives and whose bodies have been repeatedly and consistently abused and commodified. Coates is not a thinker who seeks refuge in sentimentality or generalisations; he doesn't see uplift in past trauma. Between the World and Me offers little hope and few answers—but it does posit some uncomfortable, necessary, urgent questions.

This book, written as a love letter to his son Samori Coates, is profoundly stunning, especially where the author defines "The Dream" as everything that Americans strive for and only the very few ever live in, and also stating magnificently the lifelong impact of fear of a broken body in all black communities. Coates also uses so effectively a phrase from James Baldwin: "The people who need to be white".

Most powerfully told are Coates's thrilling immersion time at Howard University ("The Mecca"), and the meaningless death of a fellow student of great promise, Prince Jones, whose mother's great striving and their successful efforts to achieve "The Dream" are smashed and murdered by a Prince George county policeman.

Quotes:

""Racism is show more rendered as the innocent daughter of Mother Nature, and one is left to deplore the Middle passage or the Trail of Tears the way one deplores an earthquake, a tornado, or any other natural phenomenon that can be cast as beyond the handiwork of men. "

"When I was your age the only people I knew were black, and all of them were powerfully, adamantly, dangerously afraid."

"That is the best of what the old heads meant when they spoke of being "politically conscious" - as much a series of actions as a state of being, a constant questioning, questioning as ritual, questioning as exploration rather than the search for certainty."

"The truth is that I owe you everything I have. Before you, I had my questions but nothing beyond my own skin in the game."

(all caps, mine) "ALL MY LIFE I'D HEARD PEOPLE TELL THEIR BLACK BOYS AND BLACK GIRLS TO BE "TWICE AS GOOD" WHICH IS TO SAY "ACCEPT HALF AS MUCH".

"The story of a black body's destruction must always start with his or her error, real or imagined - with Eric Garner's anger, with Trevyon Martin's mythical words ("You are gonna die tonight"), with Sean Bell's mistake of running with the wrong crowd."

"There are no racists in America, or at least none that the people who need to be white know personally."

"In America, the injury is not in being born with darker skin, with fuller lips, with a broader nose, but with everything that happens after."

This book is so essential for everyone to read that when you are done, you'll see the time before you read it as "before" and then you will hopefully live your life and act in the gained wisdom and insight of the "after". It is a master work. show less

In the form of a letter to his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates tells of his own experiences as a black man dealing with institutionalized racism in the United States and "those who call themselves white."

Coates, a journalist who writes for the Atlantic is in-your-face and unapologetic in describing his experiences growing up in Baltimore, going to Howard College, and ultimately having a family. His experiences are so very different from my own growing up as a white middle-class woman in the suburbs of New England. I struggled with the book: struggled to find something to relate to, and struggled with how I felt Coates himself would see me. Perhaps my frustration was that, in some fundamental way, he was not writing to me. My experience is so far show more from his that I grasped at what I could relate to - his love of reading, and how he relates to the world through reading, writing, and asking questions, for example - and had to accept what I didn't get. One thing I finally did relate to was his feeling that his body was under assault and he needed to protect it. I don't have the same feeling of betrayal towards those in power such as policeman and juries. But I have experienced walking down the street and having guys whistle, and fairly recently learned not to make eye contact with people walking down the street in a city if I didn't want to be hit on, asked my name, asked where I was going.

I felt my toes stepped on many times, and had to remind myself that his purpose, I think, was neither to offend me or not offend me, just to tell his story to a generation of black people growing up in a world different and the same from his own. I am not his audience. But I do think that reading about it and thinking about it is important. Though a short book, it's a challenging read and one that I'm glad I read. show less

Difficult, disturbing, full of hard truths about living in a black body in the U.S. I don't feel at all qualified to comment on Coates's perceptions as a black man who grew up in Baltimore's inner city in the '70's. Although ostensibly written as a "letter" to his adolescent son, I think it's important reading for every American, probably most especially for those who, as he says repeatedly (quoting James Baldwin) "think they are white". A worthy non-fiction companion to Homegoing, to the writings of Baldwin and other potent black voices.
Review written July 2016

I have listened to this book, recited by the author's own voice, and am still thinking about it.

To truly respect an author, I think, is to hear their words and respond to them, perhaps even be changed by them. No work stands without context, and to ignore that context and respond to the work alone would be naive, but I think that responding to the context and ignoring the work itself goes beyond naivete into the realm of insult.

Coates brings up an anecdote involving a reporter, early on, in which something of a similar nature happens. I am certain that this has happened many times, and will keep happening...

I have read some Baldwin, that oft-made contextual comparison that is meant to delineate and classify Coates' work, and I think show more those who make the comparison are missing the point. The essay responds to that comparison well enough- to paraphrase, Coates is not the Baldwin of our generation, Baldwin is the Baldwin of our generation. Duh.

Even still, this felt more personal than Baldwin, perhaps because Coates writes of now, or perhaps for some other reason.

I don't know. There is a lot about the world I don't know, and will never know, and this is why I read.

I know I need to sit and think, and keep thinking, and try to do the work required to become human, the work that does not end and has no finish.

I know I'll be thinking about this essay for a long time to come. show less

Beautiful and biting insights written as a letter to the author's son, Coates writes with lyricism and authority on his experiences and his education on the matters of life and race and literature and love. Leaves one with plenty of food for thought, and one I'll be thinking of for a long time.