'A Thematic Analysis Of Between The World And Me'

Racism is coming back slowly as the years pass us. The only thing that we can do is to keep our bodies safe from all the danger that might happen. Coates feel like the racism is never going to be gone in the world. Coates really wants his son to realize that he won’t always be there to protect his son. There will be who will want to put him down and make him feel less than other people. Coates states, “You would be a man one day, and I could not save you from the unbridgeable distance between you and your future peer and colleagues, who might try to convince you that everything I know, all the things I’m sharing with you here, are an illusion, or a fact a distant past that need not be discussed” (Coates, 90). Coates feel like there will be a bride that will keep him and son from each other one day. That the son will need to know that he won’t be there in person but there as a spirit to help him. The son will need to be able to notice when he might be in danger, and it's all on him on how he reacts from it. Coates talks about how he heard little kids were told by their parents to act extra good around people. The text states, “All my life I’d heard people tell their black boys and black girls to ‘be twice as good,’ which say ‘accept half as much.’ These words would be spoken with a veneer of religious nobility, as though they evidenced some unspoken quality, some undetected courage, when in fact, all they courage, when in fact, all they evidenced was gun to our head and the hand in our pocket” (Coates,91). Coates is trying to say is that there are people that believe in racism and ain't scared to show it at times. People are knowing seeing more racism now these days, since there is a new president for America, and he doesn’t see all people equal. With the actions/ words that Donald Trump are saying towards people, makes other believe that they can also use that type of language and get away with it. We

“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.

The diction of the book is colloquial, which gives the text a tone that suggests the seriousness of Coates’s message as well at the importance of it being received by the audience. His conveyance of the dire situation African Americans face isn’t veiled in scholarly language. It’s clear and concise and as such the text doesn’t feel journalistic or a mere retelling of facts and figures. The narrative is empirical, relating authority from a place of authenticity, as Coates is African American, did grow up on the impoverished streets of Baltimore, and had experienced violence both first and second hand, whether it was

Coates is essentially telling his son that because of his position as an African American, his life will undoubtedly be one entire uphill battle. Coates message of despair and hopelessness echoes throughout the entire book. A few examples of his pessimism is his despair from the interview in the beginning of the book, his experiences growing up on the streets, his opinions on the education system, and his reaction to when Prince Jones is killed. It is especially visible when he is addressing his son as he is in this quote. He has a pessimistic outlook on life and believes that it is America’s nature to plunder those who are black. The passage reflects his outlook on his life as an African American. The paragraph that prefaces the quote explains that “It is truly horrible to understand yourself as the essential below of your country” (106) which shows that he himself truly believes that African Americans are treated as if they are below those who are

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.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s persona in Between the World and Me is a Social Justice warrior regarded through the eyes of a concerned parent. To address the issues he has experienced to other ethnicities and his son. Throughout the essay, Coates slowly shifts his views on the world due to new events and achieved realization through college and the birth of his son. Events he experienced in the diversity of his campus and real world situations raising a child. After meeting new girls and people on the campus at Howard University, he comes to the realization of the differences in humans.

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

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes the book Between the World and Me , originally a letter to his son about struggles and reality of being a black boy in America. Though Coates wrote this letter to his son, us too like him needed to grasp the depth and cost of losing our black body in country that was built to destroy it. Coates writes, “ Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body--it is heritage.” The most powerful message encountered in the Coates work Between the World and Me is the concept he narrows in on, which is losing our black body to the systems in which America created to destroy our bodies. Coates writes, “And you know, if you did not before, that the police departments of your country have been endowed with authority to destroy your body.” He describes it as if even in our innocence and humanity, we can still lose our body due to overreactions, misunderstandings, and immature policy of the country we live in. Coates questions himself with the pursuit of how to live in his black body knowing it could be destroyed at any moment. As he narrows in on this question, he realizes that it is unanswerable, but also rewards him with constant interrogation and girded him against the fear of living without his body. He says, “How do I live free in this black body? [...] The question is unanswerable, which is not to say futile.

In Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates discusses the brutal racism and prejudice that he has experienced, in the form of the letter. This format permits him to provide the audience with personal anecdotes in which he was the victim, as well as stories of friends and colleagues being victimized. Each example provides insight into the question of whether or not one can be free as an African American. More importantly, he outlines what it means to be free in America. Coates provides a pessimistic outlook on this question in the form of a letter addressed to his son, Samori. This allows the audience to feel sympathy towards Samori as well as others trapped in the same skin. This was a new experience for me, being that I am neither male

One being the black body and living with it in America. Being black in America is hard and white people want to take control over our bodies. This causes black people to try to protect their bodies at all costs but this is hard. We go to extraordinary measures so we don’t lose control over our bodies. Another being the concept of the American dream and the dreamer. When people think of the American dream they think of success but most don’t realize that this dream is bound to violence and persecution of African Americans. This puts the black body at stake and Coates wants dreamers to realize the injustices in the world. The American dream is brought to fruition on the backs of African American people. The last, as I mentioned before, being the view of slavery. His view is way different from how most people see slavery, they don’t think of the slaves as people. When you began to think of slaves as people it makes the realization of slavery much worse. With his new insight I’ll never look at slavery the same way, I think more about the actual

Between the World and Me examines the history and present circumstances of racial inequality and segregation in America. Coates directs the book to Samori to give his audience personal insight into the various stages of a black man’s life. From his childhood, to his college experience, to his complicated role as a father, Coates gradually unfolds a critical account of the relationship between black and white communities. He calls those who “believe themselves to be white” the “Dreamers” and criticizes them for the indifference toward black people 's experiences. He wants the audience to reflect upon themselves and realize that they are part of the problem.

In Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates composes a letter for his adolescent son Samori, in which he addresses the plights faced by black people in contemporary American society. He does so by encapsulating America’s history of racism and violence, as well as recounting his own personal experiences. Throughout his message of guidance to his son, Coates speaks at length about the historical and modern-day maltreatment of the black body, which he asserts is the driving force of racism. He avers that the perennial cycle of racism is perpetuated by society’s inclination to exploit, manipulate, and control the black body. The level of abuse and control that black bodies are subjected to by this racist society begs the question of how a person is to live freely within one.

Throughout the novel, Coates weaves together multiple narratives through many different time periods in his life, as he goes about rationalizing and explaining his perspective on what it means to be black in America. In this letter to his son, he addresses

Personally and Politically Connected In today’s world, the American dream has faded into racism making it false but attractive. The fear of one’s own body searching for a purpose in the United States without experiencing discrimination is a hard task. Coates’s writes a letter to his son, Sonori, telling him about his past experiences living in North America. The book, Between the World and Me, is for me personally and for our country politically important because Coates’s tries to educate his son of living as a colored man in the United States.

For my social norm, I chose to read aloud on the subway. In addition, I read from Ta-Nahisi Coates’ between the world and me. To summarize, this novel is about Coates writing a letter to his child regarding the hardships and realities of being black in the United States. Considering the fact that we as a society are uncomfortable with discussing race, I found it helpful to kill two birds with one stone.